— Exploration, mining, and beneficiation of natural and secondary resources; reduction and processing of tailings and slags

— Underground and heap leaching, agitation and bioleaching of rare metals; integrated water-balance management

— Hydrometallurgy (ion exchange, membrane processes, solvent extraction) and pyrometallurgy for ores and residues

— Footprint reduction and decarbonization; life-cycle assessment (LCA) of processing routes

— E-waste and renewables-sector waste valorization; circular-economy supply chains and reverse logistics for critical materials

— "Urban mining": efficient and environmentally friendly recovery of critical metals from end-of-life magnets, batteries, and electronics

— Digital mineralogy, process modeling and optimization, deposit/flowsheet digital twins, and digital material passports

— Rare metal chemistry at lab-to-pilot scale: precursors, salts/coordination and organometallic compounds for functional materials and catalysis

— High-purity production, refining, stability assessment, and certification

— Analytical chemistry of rare metal based materials: multielement, isotopic, and trace analytics; reference materials and standardization frameworks

— ALD, CVD and other precursors: design, volatility, thermal stability, and clean decomposition

— Ionic liquids and deep eutectic solvents as selective "green" media for extraction and purification

— Autonomous laboratories and AI-guided synthesis: robotic screening and active-learning workflows

— Electrolytic and metallothermic production; deep refining of rare metals

— Alloy and master-alloy design: intermetallic, high-entropy, shape-memory and other systems

— Permanent magnets: Nd-Fe-B and Sm-Co; HRE-lean/free solutions; advanced magnet fabrication routes

— Refractory-metal powders and dispersoids; rare metal-based composites and nanostructured materials

— Additive manufacturing (L-PBF, DED) of rare earth and refractory metal alloys with in-situ microstructure/texture control

— Production and purification of light rare metals (Li, Be, Rb, Cs)

— Dispersed/scattered metals (In, Ga, Sb, Ge, Re): from raw materials to ultra-high-purity metallic forms

— Elemental semiconductors (Si, Ge)

— Compound semiconductor families III–V, II–VI, IV–IV, IV–VI, (II,III)–VII

— Wide-bandgap semiconductors for power electronics and UV photonics

— Luminescent and optical materials across the UV–visible–IR spectrum

— Semiconductor and scintillation materials for ionizing-radiation detection in nuclear energy, security, and medical imaging

— Spintronics materials: dilute ferromagnetic semiconductors, half-metallic oxides, and Heusler alloys

— Metal-ion (Li-, Na-, Al-, Zn-, Mg-ion systems) batteries, related materials and architectures

— Thermoelectric materials (TMs) and processing. TM devices and applications

— Hydrogen-energy technologies: fuel cells, electrolyzers, membrane reactors, H2 storage

— Quantum cutting and up-conversion materials based on rare earth ions

— Rare earth and transition metal based magneto-optical materials