Our research pillars

At Monash University we are strengthening Australia’s critical minerals capability and accelerating responsible critical minerals development and sovereign control, through cross-faculty research expertise.

  • New Mineral Resources

    We are accelerating discovery of the next generation of resources by pioneering geoscience to identify and understand critical‑mineral deposits. Australia in particular is a key producer of lithium, rare earths, cobalt, manganese ore, tantalum, zirconium, rutile and vanadium.

  • Future Processing Technologies

    We are innovating extraction and separation technologies across engineering, chemistry and geoscience, including membrane engineering, advanced chemical separations, in‑situ processing and bio‑inspired materials, to selectively recover challenging metals such as rare earth elements and vanadium.

  • Mine Rehabilitation

    We have cross‑disciplinary expertise in geotechnical engineering, hydrology, artificial soils and ecological restoration, underpinning science‑based rehabilitation solutions that transform post‑mining landscapes into safe, stable and economically valuable assets, supporting environmental renewal and sustainable regional development.

  • Environmental and Social Impact Systems

    We are developing evidence‑based insights into community responses to environmental and social change support industry and government, and designing trusted solutions, with strengths in communication, social acceptance and behavioural research guiding responsible decision‑making.

  • Policy and Economics of Critical Minerals Transitions

    Our research is advancing policy frameworks that improve investment certainty and reduce supply‑chain vulnerability, using innovations in tax design, risk modelling and AI‑enhanced forecasting to help anticipate geopolitical and market shocks and support efficient, net zero‑aligned transitions.

  • National Security

    Our integrated geoscience knowledge, subsurface characterisation and advanced processing capabilities are strengthening Australia’s sovereign geosecurity by enabling secure, resilient and domestically anchored critical‑mineral supply chains.

Explore our research

Manifesting all of our research pillars, our exciting and cutting-edge research projects are building end-to-end responsible critical minerals capability and development across Australia and the Indo-Pacific region.

Learn about our people and partners

Meet the lead researchers behind each of our research pillars, and the partners we are collaborating with to make a real-world impact in critical minerals capability and development.