PhD Veiko Karu

What happens after extraction ends — and the real work begins? ⚒️

I’ve been following AfterMine: Post-Mining Bulletin to spotlight practical pathways for the next chapter of mining regions: reuse, reclamation, risk management, governance, financing, and “what actually works” on the ground.

If you’re working on mine closure, abandoned mines, brownfields, or just transition — subscribe and follow along.

AfterMine: Post-Mining Bulletin: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/aftermine-post-mining-bulletin-7422512689916301312/

Phosphorus keeps Europe fed. Rare earths keep it electrified. Estonia has a rock that can speak to both: phosphorite 💡

Estonia’s phosphorite is increasingly discussed not only as a fertiliser feedstock (P), but also as a potential source of rare earth elements (REE). A classic “co-product” opportunity if (and only if) processing and environmental performance can be proven at scale. ⚙️

A few Estonia-specific facts worth knowing:
📝 Scale: Estonia is described as holding the largest phosphorite reserves in the EU (~9.6 billion tonnes).
📝 Where: major deposits are along the north coast, incl. Rakvere, Toolse, Aseri, Tsitre.
📝 REE signal: reported total REE contents are ~200–300 g/t (Rakvere) and ~300–400 g/t (Toolse), with enrichment potentially increasing Toolse’s REE content to ~1200–1300 g/t in concentrate.

This is not just geology! It’s industrial strategy + social licence. The real question is how Estonia builds a responsible value chain (beneficiation → products → local benefits) under high expectations on groundwater protection, transparency, and community impact.

Estonian Business School role here is to help to make that turn “resource potential” into investable business cases: market strategy for P + REE co-products, resilience and stakeholder governance, concession/value-chain models, and an entrepreneurship pipeline that connects researchers, engineers, municipalities, and industry into scalable ventures.

If you work in processing, fertilisers, REE recovery, circularity, or regional development, what would you consider the minimum proof points for Estonia to move from debate to responsible ex*****on?

🎯 COST Action CA24160 — COS-MICs: Comics × Science

We’re uniting researchers, creators, educators, publishers, and end-users to make science more accessible through comics: advancing public understanding, education, and research across Europe and beyond.

Our aims
📝 Federate a global network and open up scattered research and resources; highlight under-represented voices and young researchers; build strong academic–industry partnerships.

📝Create practical tools: educational guides, a MOOC, an impact-assessment framework, a bibliography database, and collaborative comic anthologies.

📝Build capacity & inclusion: training schools, STSMs, and leadership opportunities for women and YRIs; strong participation from ITCs and Near Neighbour Countries.

7 Working Groups: Language of Science • Sci-/Non-Fiction Narratives • Science in Social Contexts • Comic-Based Practice & Research • Comics in Science Education • Gender & Science • Communication, Dissemination & Training.

If you care about science communication, education, and creative industries, follow COS-MICs and get involved.

Read more: https://www.cost.eu/actions/CA24160/

Want to experience Estonia’s entrepreneurial edge—not just read about it? 💡

Estonian Business School (EBS) is opening EBS Study Tours: a one-week, high-impact immersion in and the wider Estonian innovation ecosystem: built for entrepreneurs, universities, corporates, and prospective partners who want real collaboration, real insights, and real momentum.

What a study tour can include (tailor-made to your goals):
☝️EBS campus experience: hands-on learning methods, applied research, and how we turn ideas into action
🙋‍♂️Curated ecosystem access: conversations with founders, scale-up leaders, policy and industry stakeholders
🤝 Partnership building: co-developing programmes, short courses, micro-credentials, executive education, or joint projects
🌉 Market & network bridging: a practical gateway to Baltic–Nordic opportunities and collaboration pathways
🧑‍🎓 A “do-something” week: workshops, roundtables, site visits, and challenge-based sessions with faculty and students

If you’re aiming for global visibility, fresh markets, or next-level collaboration, this is a fast and focused way to explore what’s possible — together.

Interested in hosting a delegation or joining as a partner?
Comment “STUDY TOUR” or send me a direct message. Let’s design the week around your objectives.
Read more: https://www.ebs.ee/en/university/international/short-immersion-and-study-tours

🌍 Erasmus+ Staff Exchange as a bridge between universities, ecosystems and future cooperation

At Estonian Business School, we see internationalisation not only as mobility, but as a practical platform for building long-term academic cooperation.

Erasmus+ Staff Exchange offers visiting lecturers, researchers and professionals a valuable opportunity to spend a focused week at , connect with our academic community and explore the Estonian startup and innovation ecosystem.

A well-designed staff exchange can create value on several levels:
🔹 stronger university-to-university cooperation
🔹 new teaching and research ideas
🔹 links with the Estonian startup ecosystem
🔹 international academic networks
🔹 future project and partnership opportunities

At , we aim to host international colleagues in a way that connects academic exchange with practical ecosystem learning. Depending on the visitor’s profile and interests, a one-week programme can include academic meetings, guest lectures, research discussions, company visits, startup ecosystem introductions and conversations about future Erasmus+ cooperation.

🎙️ In this podcast episode, we discuss one recent Erasmus+ Staff Exchange experience with Aniela Staszewska from Białystok University of Technology:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prMruBfdj5E

If your university is interested in Erasmus+ Staff Exchange cooperation with EBS, Tallinn is a strong place to connect academic learning, entrepreneurship and international collaboration.

Impact does not happen automatically. In a network like REMINDNET, impact is a product—designed, built, and distributed.

REMINDNET’s dissemination and communication work (WG5) is structured around tangible outputs: an REMINDNET website, open-access articles, public-facing content, good-practice guides for each thematic area, policy briefings, and educational materials. Results don’t stay inside the network.

For the current period, the plan is actively event-driven: core and working group meetings, workshops, and a 1st European conference on post-mining (Bodrum, May 2026) are set up to convert knowledge into shareable formats and stakeholder-facing narratives.

If you want to support project marketing in a way that actually helps the mission:
📝 share one case study (success or failure) from your region,
♻️ contribute a legacy site datapoint that can be mapped and visualised,
🙋‍♂️ propose a short interview/podcast topic,
🧑‍🎓or co-author a practice note that a regulator, municipality, or investor can use.

REMINDNET is building a shared European “operating system” for post-mining. Visibility is part of delivery.

Estonia’s mineral resources are a strategic economic assets. The key question is how we turn them into higher value, lower impact value chains. Estonia mines and uses seven main mineral resources: oil shale, dolomite, limestone, peat, gravel, sand and clay. These resources underpin construction, infrastructure and industrial capability, while also shaping regional development choices and societal expectations.

Eesti Geoloogiateenistus (EGT) provides the evidence base that makes smarter decisions possible. As a state agency under the Ministry of Climate, EGT’s role is straightforward: produce and maintain reliable geological information through mapping and surveys, preserve and provide access to geodata, advise public authorities, and support informed public understanding.

The timing matters, because industrial policy is increasingly explicit. The Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) is designed to strengthen the EU’s secure and sustainable supply of stradegic and critical raw materials for strategic sectors, and the Net-Zero Industry Act (NZIA) aims to accelerate net-zero technology deployment and strengthen European manufacturing capacity (including a headline ambition of ~40% of annual deployment needs by 2030). Both raise expectations for faster project pipelines, clearer bankability, and stronger societal value.

At Estonian Business School (EBS), we see a concrete role in helping Estonia’s mineral raw materials sector modernise through socio-economic and entrepreneurial levers. That means turning technical solutions into investable projects and scalable ventures: commercialisation and go-to-market support for novel technologies (exploration, processing, monitoring, circular solutions), investment readiness and risk framing, business-case development across the value chain, and stakeholder governance models that build long-term legitimacy. Done well, this is how Estonia moves from “resource availability” to “competitive advantage” creating more value per tonne while reducing footprint.

If you are active in Estonia’s mineral value chain, what is the single biggest bottleneck today: data, skills, finance, regulation, or social acceptance?

The Baltic Sea is our shared classroom — and the Baltic University Programme (BUP) is one of the strongest platforms to make that collaboration real.

BUP connects 110+ universities across the Baltic Sea Region to advance education and research in sustainable development and democracy. A particularly practical entry point is the BUP Course Platform, including free MOOCs that bring sustainability challenges into a Baltic context: cross-disciplinary, applied, and easy to integrate into teaching and learning.

Why this matters for Estonian Business School (EBS): business transformation is now a core sustainability lever. At , we bring the management, entrepreneurship, finance, and governance lens that turns sustainability knowledge into implementation: strategy, business models, investment readiness, responsible value chains, and measurable impact.

A core strength of BUP is practical coworking between partners: universities co-create course content, share cases and guest teaching, and build joint projects that move faster than institutional boundaries. This reduces duplication, strengthens quality, and helps mobilise multidisciplinary teams around Baltic Sea Region challenges.

If you are part of the BUP network (or collaborating with it), I would welcome connections around:
✅ joint student challenges with companies and municipalities
✅ guest lectures and shared cases on circular economy and responsible business
✅ project partnerships that translate research into practice across the region

See the BUP opportunities: https://www.uu.se/en/collaboration-innovation/the-baltic-university-programme

If you’re building visibility, trust, and thought leadership, a podcast is one of the most efficient formats you can invest in. 💡

At Estonian Business School ( ), our podcast studio is designed to turn good ideas into high-quality, shareable content and fast.

What makes the EBS podcast studio valuable is not just the equipment. It’s the opportunity to package expertise into a format that travels: short episodes, expert interviews, student-led conversations, project updates, research explainers, and partner spotlights.

Ways partners and colleagues can use the EBS podcast studio:
✅ Record expert interviews on leadership, innovation, ESG, circular economy, and entrepreneurship
✅ Produce mini-series for projects (Erasmus+, Horizon Europe, COST Actions) and stakeholder engagement
✅ Capture visiting professors and international guests while they are in Tallinn
✅ Create student-facing episodes that connect learning to real market cases
✅ Build employer branding and ecosystem visibility with founders, investors, and industry leaders

For universities and organisations, this is a practical tool for dissemination and impact: one recording session can generate weeks of content across LinkedIn, newsletters, course pages, and project channels.

If you are visiting EBS or planning a collaboration, please consider adding a podcast recording slot to your agenda. It’s a simple step that can amplify your work well beyond the room.

EBS podcast channel: https://www.ebs.ee/en/podcasts

Sustainability is no longer a separate topic on the side of business strategy. It is becoming part of how organisations compete, manage risks, build resilience, and create long-term value.

💡 This is why microdegree learning matters.

The microdegree “Sustainable and Green Transition: Strategies, Practices and Resource Management” is designed for professionals who need to understand the green transition not only as a policy agenda, but as a strategic business challenge.

For the EBS Green, Circular Economy and Resources Knowledge Team, this programme represents an important part of our mission: connecting research, education, and practice to support sustainable transformation.

The programme is especially relevant for developing T-shaped professionals:

➡️ professionals with deep expertise in their own field,
➡️ but also with the broader strategic understanding needed to connect circular economy, energy transition, critical raw materials, resource efficiency, innovation, and business model development.

This type of competence is increasingly necessary for managers, entrepreneurs, graduate students, and specialists who are expected to make decisions in complex sustainability contexts.

Lifelong learning is no longer only about updating knowledge. It is about building the capacity to work across disciplines, translate sustainability into practical decisions, and lead change inside organisations.

The microdegree starts on 21 August 2026 at Estonian Business School .

Learn more and register:
https://www.ebs.ee/en/continuing-education/microdegrees/sustainable-and-green-transition-strategies-practices-and-resource-management