Policy Lab Pillars
Mining and industrialisation How mineral booms can drive genuine structural transformation and avoid the resource curse.
This pillar explores how mining can support industrialisation and structural transformation in mineral-producing countries. We examine:
• How to build linkages between mining and broader productive sectors such as manufacturing, services and green industries.
• Ways to acquire technological know-how, strengthen domestic capabilities and move up the value chain.
• Industrial policy tools suited to today’s critical minerals boom, including local-content measures, midstream processing incentives and innovation policies.
• Strategies to mitigate inequality and distribute the gains from mineral wealth more fairly across regions and social groups. Through collaborative work with governments, development finance institutions, firms and communities, the Lab co-designs, tests and refines practical policy instruments that can turn mineral wealth into durable productive capacities.
Featured Publications
Business of the State: Why State Ownership Matters for Resource Governance
Jewellord T. Nem Singh · Oxford University Press, 2024
As decarbonisation accelerates, mineral-rich states in the Global South are called on to supply the critical minerals…
Mining, geopolitics and international cooperation Navigating supply chain rivalries, China's role and new cooperation frameworks.
Within this landscape, “Global China” has become a central force in critical minerals and manufacturing supply chains. China and the developing world hold significant reserves, while Chinese firms lead in refining, separation and processing. This pillar focuses on the geopolitics and political economy of international cooperation in the CRM sector. We analyse:
• The proliferation of standards-setting efforts, minerals partnerships and bilateral agreements • How Global China is reshaping supply chains and re-writing trade, finance and investment relations with the Global South
• How producer countries use cartels, export measures and price coordination to strengthen their bargaining power
• The potential for new cooperation frameworks including BRICS and other developing-country initiatives
Featured Publications
Civic power in mining conflicts: Barrier or catalyst for a just energy transition?
Anabel Marin and Gabriel Palazzo · Environmental Research Letters, 20(5), 2025
Are communities that resist mining an obstacle to the energy transition? Using an original dataset built from…
Mining and territorial legitimacy Rebuilding trust and ensuring local communities benefit from the energy transition.
Conflicts around mining are becoming more frequent, organised and politically salient. Existing governance frameworks often fail to protect people and nature, generate broad-based value or include affected communities in decision-making. This pillar is about rebuilding territorial legitimacy around mining. We work to:
• Understand why conflicts arise and how they relate to inequality, exclusion and environmental harm • Identify institutional gaps and failures that allow unsustainable practices
• Co-design participatory practices and institutional innovations including FPIC processes, benefit-sharing mechanisms
• Test regulatory tools that link access to finance to social and environmental performance
Featured Publications
Handbook of Resource Nationalism
Edited by Jesse Salah Ovadia, Richard G. Saunders and Jewellord T. Nem Singh · Edward Elgar, 2026
As states race to secure the minerals of the energy transition, resource nationalism has returned to the centre of global…