Thank you.
One of our distinctive features is our proximity to the mining industry, with which we work very closely. This collaboration is done through our pre-competitive research program with our members, who are primarily large mining companies. It's also done as part of the consortium, in which we play a key role in bringing together various industrial partners around the table, so as to prevent each company from developing its project in parallel. This collaborative approach allows us to reduce risks, and share costs and benefits.
One particular aspect of mining project implementation is worth mentioning: the scaling up and industrialization component, which is essential to technological development. We often tend to view technological development as linear, that is to say from basic research to commercialization, but what we do is actually much more complex when we develop processes. This is where the need for scaling up becomes extremely important, and this is what the consortium is aiming for. It certainly works at the pilot scale to be able to reduce project risks, but it also goes as far as the demonstration scale to be able to further reduce risks before the commercialization stage.
Unlike other minerals like iron or gold, for which the processes are better known, there are significant risks for rare earth elements. The consortium's goal is to take the knowledge of the deposits—including everything from extraction, concentration, hydrometallurgy, so separation and purification—to produce permanent magnets. That is really what the consortium project is about.