Workshop
Remaking the Global Political Economy through Industrial Policy in Critical Raw Materials — A Global South Perspective
25–26 June 2026 · University of Sussex, UK
Book Launch
Handbook of Resource Nationalism (UK Launch)
Public Roundtable
Critical Mineral Governance
25 June 2026 · University of Sussex, UK
Inaugural Forum
Critical Minerals Policy Lab
x BRICS Policy Center
3-4 November 2026 Rio de Janeiro
about us
The Critical Minerals Policy Lab
Critical minerals and Critical Raw Materials are central to economic development, national security, and strategic competition. Securing supply chain resilience has become a top policy priority worldwide. For the United States, CRMs are vital in maintaining its military and defenceedge as well as advanced manufacturing industries.
For the UK and the European Union, where domestic mining is limited, stable access to CRMs from third countries will determine their future role in global climate, industrial, and technological leadership. Their transition to digital economies, for instance, depends on reliable access to minerals and the ability to participate in emerging manufacturing supply chains. For China, they serve as indispensable inputs for downstream industries and have been integral to its industrial transformation. For many developing economies holding key reserves, CRMs are crucial both as export commodities and as entry points into global value chains.
The rising mineral demand has been framed as a renewed opportunity for industrialisation and development. CRMs are thus now a cornerstone of economic security and strategic power for both producers and consumers. Yet their expansion is generating two major sources of tension—between countries and within countries.
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…
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…
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…
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…
Research Highlights
Research Highlights
15 Aug
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What will the Critical Minerals Boom Do to Latin America?
The green transition has an uneven geography, and their profound consequences are being experienced outside the policy corridors of Brussels and Washington. The water quality erosion or road blockades can be observed in the distant salt flats of the Atacama, Cajamarca in the Andes, and the lithium brines across Chile, Argentina and Bolivia. The raw materials we need to build battery and EV cars alongside the graphene and rare earths to be extracted for wind turbines are not taken from the mines in the global North.
15 Aug
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Thinking about State Capacity and Industrial Policy: South Africa in Comparative Contexts
South Africa is the largest recipient of Chinese investment in Africa, with a total stock of Chinese FDI reaching US$5.84 billion in 2023. Compared to other African countries, this investment is more diversified across sectors—particularly mining, auto, and petroleum/energy—due to South Africa’s more developed economic structure. In mining specifically, Chinese entities invested US$3.85 billion between 2005 and 2020, representing 25% of China’s total FDI in South Africa and making it the second-largest recipient sector after financial services.
15 Aug
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Learning from the East Asian Developmental State: Industrial Policy for the Critical Minerals Boom
The East Asian developmental state—exemplified by Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan in the post-war period—offers instructive lessons for mineral-producing countries navigating the critical minerals boom. At its core, the developmental state is defined by a state that demonstrates a clear commitment to a national development agenda, with the capacity and scope to actively foster economic transformation rather than merely facilitate market outcomes. For mineral-rich economies in the Global South, this historical precedent is directly relevant to the contemporary “mining question.”
Activities
Public Roundtable: Critical Mineral Governance
25 June 2026 · University of Sussex, UK Closing the two days, a public roundtable turned to the governance of critical minerals: who sets the rules, who benefits, and how producing countries and communities can shape a fairer energy transition. Co-hosted with the Stimson Center, the session brought together Erika Weinthal, Lauren Risi and Jesse Ovadia, moderated by Jewellord Nem Singh.
Book Launch: Handbook of Resource Nationalism (UK Launch)
25 June 2026 · University of Sussex, UK The workshop hosted the UK launch of the Handbook of Resource Nationalism (Edward Elgar, 2026), edited by Jesse Ovadia, Richard Saunders and the Lab’s Jewellord Nem Singh. Spanning 33 chapters by leading scholars, the volume maps how mineral-producing societies assert control over their resources — across oil and gas, platinum-group metals, tin and nickel — and what this means for development, sovereignty and the politics of the energy transition. The editors introduced the book, followed by a discussion led by Lauren Risi. The Handbook is available from Edward Elgar with a 40% pre-order discount (code
Inaugural Forum with BRICS Policy Center
GRIP-ARM (Green Industrial Policy in the Age of Rare Metals) examined how resource-rich states design industrial policy for the critical minerals that underpin the energy transition. Over five years the project built eight country case studies and a network of more than 300 policymakers and industry experts, and it closed on 30 September 2026. Its central finding is that producer countries do not succeed or fail at upgrading in the same way. What matters is how technological capabilities, domestic coalitions and geopolitics interact in each country, and whether a coalition exists that can carry an upgrading strategy through time. The Critical
Workshop at University of Chile
Dr. Jewellord Nem Singh, led a workshop at University of Chile, attended by the rector of the university and the President of the National Copper Corporation of Chile
Team
Dr Jewellord (Jojo) Nem Singh
Dr Jewellord T. Nem Singh (Jojo) is the Founder and Director of the Critical Minerals Policy Lab, a comparative policy platform supporting Global South agency in the governance of
strategic minerals. The Lab is funded by the Open Society Foundations from 2027. It is anchored in three Global South institutions. The BRICS Policy Center at PUC-Rio leads for
Latin America. The University of Cape Town leads for Africa. STIPI at King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi leads for Southeast Asia.
Dr Anabel Marín
Non-resident Fellow/ Affiliate Research Fellow
Dr Anabel Marín is a Research Fellow and Leader of the Business, Markets and State Cluster at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS). Her research examines how mineral-rich countries can turn extraction into innovation, industrial development and fairer governance, with recent work on lithium value chains, civic power in mining conflicts, and critical minerals partnerships.
Dr Yingfeng Ji
Non-resident Fellow/ Affiliate Research Fellow
Dr Yingfeng Ji is a Research Fellow and Postdoctoral Researcher on the ERC-funded GRIP-ARM project at the University of Sussex. She holds a PhD and an MPhil in Development Studies from the University of Cambridge. Her research covers green industrial policy, China’s overseas supply chains, and the political economy of critical minerals, with fieldwork in Central Asia.
Dr Arnie Cordero Trinidad
Non-resident Fellow/ Affiliate Research Fellow
Dr Arnie Cordero Trinidad is a Research Fellow at the University of Sussex and an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of the Philippines Diliman. He holds a PhD in Sociology from Trinity College Dublin. His work on development, migration, class, and disaster risk reduction has been published in European Societies, Sociology, and the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction.
Dr Joanna Morley
Non-resident Fellow/ Affiliate Research Fellow
Dr Joanna Morley is a Fellow of the Critical Minerals Policy Lab and holds a PhD in Latin American Studies from the University of Liverpool (ESRC-funded). Her research focuses on the political economy of energy transitions, large-scale infrastructure projects, and contested natural resource governance in extractive industries.