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Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Statement of Task." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2024. Building Capacity for the U.S. Mineral Resources Workforce: Proceedings of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/27733.
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Appendix B
Statement of Task

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will convene a workshop to consider how the United States can build the capacity of federal and state agencies, academia, and the private sector to meet U.S. minerals workforce needs. Recognizing that expertise in mineral resources and their extraction (e.g., identification, delineation, land use evaluation, environmental evaluation, mining/extraction/mineral processing, reclamation) will be needed, the workshop will explore questions such as:

  • What skills are anticipated to be needed for a future workforce in mineral resources (e.g., critical mineral exploration, development, assessment, production, manufacturing, recycling, analysis, forecasting)?
  • How can higher education programs best prepare their students for careers that support mineral resource development and related fields (e.g., through the development of curricula, internships, training programs, professional exposure, research opportunities)?
  • What graduate-level mining, mining engineering, mineral resources, or related programs (whether in the United States or abroad) might serve as a model for strengthening U.S. higher education programs?
  • What types of support (e.g., industry-agency-academic partnerships, federal grant programs to support faculty, research, equipment, internship/mentorship opportunities) will higher education programs need to meet U.S. minerals workforce demands and increase the supply of trained workers in the critical minerals industry?
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Statement of Task." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2024. Building Capacity for the U.S. Mineral Resources Workforce: Proceedings of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/27733.
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 Building Capacity for the U.S. Mineral Resources Workforce: Proceedings of a Workshop
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The extraction of mineral resources provides the raw materials necessary to produce the products and technologies on which the global economy depends, including green technologies essential for decarbonization. Mineral extraction requires expertise in a range of areas - including mineral resources identification, environmental evaluation, processing, and reclamation - but many of the U.S. academic programs that have historically educated the U.S. minerals workforce face significant challenges attracting students and maintaining financial viability. For some programs, enrollment dropped 60 percent from 2015 to 2023, despite a growing demand for a minerals workforce.

The National Academies convened a workshop on January 23-24, 2024 to consider how the United States can build the capacity of federal and state agencies, academia, and the private sector to meet U.S. mineral workforce needs. Participants addressed the urgent need to attract more students, discussed a need to integrate new disciplines into curricula as the industry evolves, and identified multipronged approaches to help enhance overall retention and recruitment. This proceedings synthesizes the key suggestions presented by participants that universities, companies, and government agencies could take to enhance the recruitment, training, and retention of workers in the mineral resources industry.

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