Presenting Non-Invasive and Fully Acceptable Exploration Technologies - The INFACT Project

Despite its rich history of mining and residual mineral wealth, current conditions within the EU present a number of social, political, legislative, cost, technical and physical obstacles to raw material exploration: obstacles to be overcome by innovation, dialogue and reform. The Innovative, Non-invasive and Fully Acceptable Exploration Technologies (INFACT) project, within the Horizon 2020 program, will work to mitigate each and every one of these obstacles.

Specific to exploration geophysics, the project will facilitate development of innovative airborne geophysical and remote sensing technologies (less-invasive than classical exploration methods) that promise to penetrate to new depths, reach new sensitivities and resolve new parameters. The project will also set the EU as a leader on the world stage by establishing permanent infrastructure (reference sites) to drive innovation in the next generation of exploration tools: tools that are cost-effective, designed for EU conditions and its raw materials strategy, and high-performing in terms of minimum environmental impact, social acceptability, and technical performance. These reference sites will provide long-term targets over which successive new technologies can be tested against previous ones