Swift action critical to mining’s future, says earth sciences lecturer
- 24 October 2025
Indrani Mukherjee thinks the geoscience community could do worse than look at the marketing juggernaut that is Taylor Swift Inc for inspiration as it tries to connect with the next generation or two of geologists and environmental scientists.
The earth sciences senior lecturer at University of New South Wales told IMARC 2025 in Sydney the industry continued to struggle to win the hearts and minds of young people, contributing to a “crisis” in new geoscience student intake into university courses in her adopted home of Australia.
“I came to Australia in 2014 and I have seen in the last 10 years how the reputation of geoscience has declined,” Mukherjee said in her keynote IMARC address, Geoscience in crisis: how to win back the next generation.
“We’ve always seen this coming. But this year I was at the Shine Dome [in Canberra] where the Australian Academy of Science [AAC] pointed out geoscience was in deep crisis.
“They released a report on what science capabilities will be needed in great supply in the next 10 years to meet the challenges of the [following] decades.”
The academy’s Australian Science, Australia's Future report sounded alarm bells generally about the country’s science “talent reservoir” and R&D investment levels but highlighted particular concerns in geoscience and materials science despite Australia’s decades of mining-related prosperity and preeminent position in the industry globally.
“The geoscience capability pipeline in Australia is weak,” said the AAC report, which was a focus of its recent national symposium at the academy’s Shine Dome headquarters in the nation’s capital.
It said future skills shortages would be compounded by the ageing profile of the current Australian workforce and reduced international professional migration levels, no doubt partly impacted by increased demand for geosciences in many countries. The AAC also said observed trends might “understate the scale” of the problems because of new earth science department closures and discontinuation of undergraduate majors.
News this month the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) was folding its earth science school into its biological and environmental sciences department and cutting lecturers drew objections across the geoscience community.
Renowned Australian geologist Jun Cowan said: “Sure, geologist and mining engineering courses don’t make money for universities but resource extraction is the number one pillar of Australia’s economic growth. We are profitable for our nation. Isn’t that more important? We just happen to be so efficient that we don’t require a huge workforce to accomplish economic viability.
“My prediction [is that] Saudi Arabia and other nations such as China will grow their expertise in mining over the next decades while Australia's influence will continue to shrink. Eventually geologists from the BRICS countries will dominate this industry because Australian geologists will no longer exist because its geology departments have all closed.”
Mukherjee, who came to Australia with geology degrees from the University of Delhi and earned a doctorate at the University of Tasmania in 2017, said a 2024 Australian Geoscience Council survey of high school and university students underscored a long-term connection between low secondary school interest and engagement with earth sciences, poor university enrolment rates and course closures.
“The younger generation are not enthusiastic or passionate about earth sciences,” Mukherjee said.
“So there is a problem. And the forecast for earth sciences in Australia is not looking good at all.
“With all the talk this week about critical minerals, with the $8.5 billion investment between Australia and the United States of America, it's incredible how the geology departments at universities are like an ICU at a hospital.
“It doesn't add up.
“Unless we can engender passion in the younger generation about geoscience there will be a gap in the [future] mining workforce.
“I don't know who's going to explore for those critical minerals that these politicians keep talking about.”
In an era of peak mining public relations and marketing spend, the public’s distrust of the industry seems to be growing. It is an indictment of the messaging, or more likely its authenticity.
“Clearly what we've been doing in the past ain’t working anymore,” Mukherjee said.
She said some mining people might not appreciate who Taylor Swift was, or the American artist’s music, but “what you need to know is that the marketing team knows what they're doing”.
“They’re getting it super right. We need to do be doing something like that.
“We need to market our subject as a solution and not a problem.
“And we really need to master the art of science communication.”
That included putting “our best lecturers” in front of first-year students to go beyond jargon and resonate on why the dolerite, diorite, muscovite, phyllite, etc, were important to society.
Mukherjee said, more than ever, industry and industry bodies had to collaborate extensively with policy makers, government and “politicians in particular”, and use new technologies, to elevate awareness of the challenges in front of the mining industry and its need for smart people to help address them.
“In geoscience there’s never been a more important time for a united front,” she said.
“We should really be united in the way we approach the younger generation in the next 10 years.”
