Mineral and Energy Economy Research Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences
Poland (Project leader)

Mineral and Energy Economy Research Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences (MEERI PAS) was established in 1986 in Cracow as a constituent unit of the PAS. The organisation's main research areas include Polish mineral resources, geodynamic synoptic and geothermic of Polish geostructural basins, development of information systems for the purpose of forecasting development of the mineral resources economy, fuels and energy economics, regionalisation of Polish energy policy under economic and ecologic considerations, Industrial waste storage in exhausted mine sites and management of municipal waste, sustainable development of Polish regions. Within these areas, the scientific activities of the Institute are as follow: assessment of efficiency and profitability of new investments in the mineral resources economy and waste management; assessment of the possibilities and economics of unconventional energy sources use; life cycle assessment and life cycle cost analysis, municipal waste management, WEEE waste management; legal and economic aspects of industrial waste storage and re-use/recycling. MEERI actively cooperates with the city authorities of Cracow, for example in the implementation of the SYMBI project - Industrial Symbiosis for Regional Sustainable Growth and a Resource Efficient Circular Economy and project oto-GOZ - Development of a system of measurement indicators, enabling the assessment of progress in transformation towards circular economy and the impact of a circular economy on socioeconomic development on the mesoeconomic (regions) and macroeconomic (national economy) level.