I believe West Virginia University is very prominent in AMD. They collaborate and present research papers annually at the WV Mine Drainage Task Force Symposium that was just held yesterday and today!

Please take a look at the work of UQAT in Canada. http://irme.ca/en/

It is interesting that you ask this question. Please let me know why you ask this. From my perspective as long a research is going on. One can use it as an excuse not to find a solution. Just think about major environmental issues, such as acid rain or climate change lot of discussion and lot of publications but no action. Many of the “What if " projections of the Club of Rome we live through now, but at the time one said they just spread fear. I have lived long enough to make some observations. Change is the most difficult thing to bring about.

Thanks for your comment. I am thinking of going back to University and do some MSc or similar in this topic. That's the reason I am asking.

Ohio University is very active in AMD research and funds masters students in their Environmental Studies, Biology, Geology, and Plant Biology departments. Lots of interdisciplinary research going on.

In my experience, academic research is equally likely to be irrelevant as it is to be relevant. I think that the degree to which departments/academics are connected with the industry is a big factor in deciding between the two.

I suggest two ways to assess the connection between the university and industry. You can begin by asking researcher directly if they collaborate with mining companies and/or regulators (at abandoned sites). Another approach is to examine the published record and see how much of it is in the academic/scientific literature compared with industry meetings and publications. In my mind, a good MEND report or presentation at the West Virginia Mine Drainage Task Force is equal to five in GeochimicaetCosmochimicaActa or Ecological Engineering. These are fine, well-refereed journals, but they are 1-2 steps removed from questions that apply to mining scenarios.

Good point! The International Network for Acid Prevention Global Alliance (INAP-GA) is working on expanding the university network established through the GA member in the US, the Acid Drainage Technology Initiative (ADTI). Academic institutions that are interested should send me information on their designated contacts.

Do you know the journal Ecological Engineering? There are relatively few publications related to mine waste restoration, your formula of equal to five publications or presentations. Is indeed interesting

It will likely come down to particular researchers more so than the institution. I'd say find the areas of research you are most interested in AMD/ARD issues, and identify the researchers that publish the most in that field. Then identify their particular institution to help figure out where to go, instead of looking for THE institution. The institution is only as good as the researchers on staff. All that said, in Canada, a few institutions come to mind (and this is by no means the definitive list): UBC, U Sask, Waterloo, UofT, Queen's U, Dalhousie.

There are some thoughtful answers here. In terms of practical advice especially.

Let me take a somewhat contrarian, and old-fashioned view: research universities are not viewed by their faculty as being in the business of job training. That said, specific groups and individuals are very happy to work with people who will not, themselves, become professors at R1 universities.

It seems to me that overwhelmingly in the consulting business and in working directly for mines, the "professional" degree is the M.Sc. I am very happy indeed that there are people doing advanced research work in geochemistry, mineralogy, fluid dynamics, and numerical analysis - it is form these efforts that we will develop the tools that your generation will apply beyond what we can accomplish today. But the business of PhD research is not to provide reports that we consultants can apply in our *current* work, but rather to advance fundamental knowledge that will support the science and engineering for the future.

What then is the function of the M.Sc.level work? Well, it is to provide the student with some useful depth that begins to focus beyond the breadth that should have been the outcome of one's undergraduate-level training. For the sort of geochemistry that I do, I am looking for people who have knowledge of mineralogy, thermodynamics and kinetics, enough mathematics to understand how to solve problems in the physics of flow (calculus of variations and DiffEq) or potentially important questions in mineralogy (linear algebra). So, the M.Sc. program needs to include training and practice in some specific tools, which might be related to analytical chemistry or quantitative tools in modern mineralogy, or perhaps numerical analysis applied to thermodynamic and kinetic problem-solving. I also am looking for evidence that the candidate can define a problem in a useful way and then carry through the tasks needed to produce some solution: i.e. I want to see M.Sc. degrees that include a thesis. I'd also like to see this accomplished in some plausible period of time. It is *NOT* essential to me, at all, that the thesis work be in AMD. If the candidate has good qualitative and quantitative tools, s/he will be able to apply them in AMD problem solving (or water-treatment analyses, or) with little or no period of acclimatization. Course work on geochemical modeling without demonstrated knowledge of thermodynamics and mineralogy does not much move me. The manipulation of modern computer programs is sufficiently simple that the hurdle is always conceptualization of the problem and finding ways to test the solutions against geochemical reality that are the issues, not whether one can cause PHREEQC or React to execute a calculation.

Meanwhile, I look to people like Uli Mayer (UBC) for fundamental advances in solving problems in coupled flow and reactive transport, David Blowes (Waterloo) and Tom Johnson (Illinois) for how stable isotopes can be applied to metals to help us understand the processes and rates of redox and biogeochemical controls. Leslie Smith (also UBC) on flow of water through waste-rock piles where soil-like properties cannot be anticipated and our ideas of unsaturated flow and transport, I'd look with great anticipation to research work coming out of the advanced mineralogy programs. It then becomes *OUR* problem how to take the learning from that research and apply it in our day-to-day / project-to-project consulting or regulatory work.

Mark NAILS it for a contrarian 😉

You can explore the Environmental Management PhD program in Montclair State University. Currently, I am doing my PhD at MSU and my thesis is on "Green" Remediation of AMD impacted soil and water. All the full-time students in my program are fully or partially supported (tuition + DA) by university or various research grants. The uniqueness of this program is that every student is required to have an external dissertation committee member (either from industry or other agencies), who can help them to find job after graduation. Although NJ is not a mining state, we are working on various collaborative projects funded by federal and state agencies. For example, my own project is funded by OSMRE and my field site is in Carbondale, IL. Please let me know if you need more information about our program.

There's a lot to be said for getting a job in your field of choice and gathering knowledge via application in either primary industries or in consulting. I only have an undergraduate degree but lead a team of three PhD's.

If you're looking at the UK then there are several universities involved in AMD research

Newcastle University - Dr Adam Jarvis,

Cardiff University -Dr Devin Sapsford

Sheffield University - Dr Steve Banwart

In Spain some of the most active universities are:

Universidad de Huelva - Prof Jose Miguel Nieto

Universidad de Oviedo - Prof Jorge Loredo

Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research (IDAEA), Barcelona - Prof