Academia vs. Industry

By

Dr. Antonio Nieto

Penn State

Key aspects• How to coordinate Industry and academia, define common objectives…that is the

main challenge• Mining academic programs in the past have been created in close armory with the

mining industry• We (mining) do much better than other disciplines when coordinating with

industry, but still much more can be done.• The loop: Mining industry needs excellent and well prepared students, academia

on the other hand struggles on recruiting students into mining programs, This issue will be even more dramatic during the next 10 years:

• Tens of billions of dollars will be invested in mining projects in the next few years around the world , mainly in developing countries, and we need to be prepared to manage the positive and negative impact that these resources will create in countries and communities: develop prepared human resources capable of handling a very complex mining projects dealing with social and environmental issues

• We need to develop new academic strategies to prepare students as "super mine-managers", to manage: operations, safety, health, environment, social, water and waste.

• With a global Geo-economics perspective• Industry and academia collaborative involvement and commitment is needed at

every level to be ready for the future (next 20 years)• Academia also must understand the importance of student mentorship and

support, balancing: teaching vs. research ($)