PRESS RELEASE: MultiMiner Concludes – Three Years of Earth Observation Innovation Deliver New Tools for Safer, Smarter Mineral Exploration Across Europe
STRASBOURG, 30th JUNE 2026
After 42 months of research, the Horizon Europe-funded MultiMiner project has officially come to a close on 30 June 2026, delivering a validated suite of Earth observation and machine learning methods for mineral exploration and mine site monitoring that are now ready for further development and uptake by the European mining sector. MultiMiner’s results represent a significant step forward in the application of satellite and drone-based technologies to critical raw material exploration and mine site management, and lay the scientific and technical groundwork for the next stage of commercialisation and operational deployment. Launched in January 2023 with EUR 4.4 million in EU funding, MultiMiner set out to address one of Europe’s most pressing economic vulnerabilities: its dependency on imported critical raw materials (CRMs), and the risks that dependency carries in a world shaped by war, sanctions, and shifting trade restrictions. Over the course of the project, a pan-European consortium of geologists, remote sensing specialists, and machine learning researchers worked to show that satellite, aircraft and drone-based data can make domestic mineral exploration more effective paving the way for new CRM discoveries in the future.
From Concept to Operational Tools
The project’s results, validated across four test sites in Finland, Austria, and Greece, demonstrate that remote sensing and machine learning do not replace fieldwork, but can make it more efficient. By helping geologists and mine operators identify exactly where on-the-ground investigation is needed, MultiMiner’s methods extend the reach of traditional monitoring in both space and time.
Key outputs include a dedicated spectral library and mapping toolset for surface minerals and CRM vectors, including magnesite, antimony, platinum-group metals, gallium, and bismuth, validated at sites in Austria and Greece; user-friendly software with guided workflows, designed for use by industry professionals without specialist remote sensing expertise; ground moisture and tailings dam monitoring methods, demonstrated at the Lappeenranta mine in Finland, supporting early detection of risks like dam seepage and slope instability; advances in interferometric radar (InSAR) interpretation under snow and cold-climate conditions, a longstanding technical barrier for winter monitoring in northern Europe; combined dust, vegetation, and water quality monitoring methods, demonstrated at sites in Finland and Greece, including acid mine drainage detection at the abandoned Kirki mine site; and a harmonised field and laboratory database, supporting consistent data use across all project partners and test sites.
Maarit Middleton, Scientific Coordinator of MultiMiner at the Geological Survey of Finland, states:
“The results of MultiMiner demonstrate that Earth observation and machine learning can serve the mining industry to a far greater extent than anticipated at the outset of the project. Their potential applications are diverse, offering significant improvements in the quality and efficiency of environmental monitoring, safety, and exploration.However, industry needs and expectations are often highly specific, and substantial work remains to make MultiMiner solutions fully operational for stakeholders within professional digital mining platforms, as well as to effectively promote them to end users. While MultiMiner has generated considerable expertise, this work will continue to evolve across multiple avenues.”
A Legacy Beyond the Project
Beyond its technical results, MultiMiner leaves a lasting mark on how Europe’s critical raw materials research community works together. The project founded ESMIN, the European Sustainable Mining & Innovation Network, which began as an informal effort to coordinate with five EU funded raw materials related projects and has since grown to sixteen members.
MultiMiner marked its conclusion with two recent events: a session at Raw Materials Week in Brussels in November 2025, featuring a showcase of project results and a lightning-round of presentations from eight ESMIN sister projects, and the MultiMiner Results and Impact Summit, a two-day hybrid conference held on 21-22 April 2026 in Rovaniemi, Finland, bringing together researchers, geoscientists, policymakers, and industry experts to discuss the future of data-driven mineral resource management in Europe.
With the project’s open access publications and training materials continuing to be released in the months following its formal close, MultiMiner’s results, datasets, and tools will remain available to support Europe’s mining industry, researchers, and policymakers long after the project itself has ended.
ENDS
MultiMiner was funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 101091374. The MultiMiner consortium comprised twelve partners and one associated partner: Geological Survey of Finland (GTK), Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT), Nordkalk, Hellenic Survey of Geology and Mineral Exploration (HSGME), European Science Foundation (ESF), Czech Geological Survey (CGS), University of Leoben (MUL), Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR), GeoSphere Austria, Hellas Gold S.A. (HG), EFTAS Remote Sensing Technology Transfer GmbH (EFTAS), RHI Magnesita, and Technical University of Munich (TUM).
For more information, visit www.multiminer.eu.