The coming decade will be a defining test for humanity and its capacity to respond to unprecedented global challenges.
The MSCA Doctoral Network EarthSafe (Unveiling Earth’s Critical Resources for Clean Energy and a Sustainable Future) supports the rapid transition to green energy and low-carbon economies in Europe and beyond by creating transformational data-fusion platforms to inform and enhance global exploration frameworks for deep geothermal resources and critical minerals to support green technologies.
Unique holistic science
EarthSafe will train 10 DCs as part of a new generation of holistic and creative young researchers, with a deep sense of social and planet awareness, and with the right combination of technical and transversal skills to create innovative solutions for the benefit of society. The core philosophy of EarthSafe is deeply multi-disciplinary and its research program adopts a multi-method paradigm that harnesses:
The complementary strengths and resolutions of multiple satellite and land-acquired geodatasets.
A novel combination of Artificial Intelligence, probabilistic inverse theory and state-of-the-art computational modelling.
A new social innovation component to support the creation and adoption of socially-responsible and sustainable practices.
Science with global impact
Gaining access to one of the most abundant, reliable and clean sources of baseload energy in the world (superhot rock geothermal energy) and increasing our capacity to ‘see’ inside the Earth to find and quantify specific resources are two of the most society-relevant endeavours today. They are necessary for securing a sustainable and low- carbon energy future with minimum environmental footprint and for supporting the EU’s digital/green transition plans (including a well-informed plan for phasing-out critical non-renewable resources).
The open research programme of EarthSafe contributes directly to achieving these objectives by adopting a core philosophy for knowledge creation and dissemination inspired by that of the UN SDGs; we assert that there can be no real progress unless there is progress for all as part of a global partnership. The outcomes of EarthSafe are in principle usable by all, thus providing developing countries and vulnerable societies with new knowledge and cost-efficient tools to create new investment opportunities, improve their regional knowledge of the subsurface and natural resource reserves, and tackle inequality and energy poverty.
