Tom Cross
Thesis: Geographies of Rare Earths: analysing rare earth governance & financing in the UK
This PhD will look at rare earth elements (REEs), widely classed as 'critical minerals' due to their importance to our technological objects & economy, and the risks to their supply chain. While there is growing scientific enthusiasm and government support for REEs to achieve the UK’s low-carbon energy and national defence goals, a significant gap remains in understanding the socio political implications of these ‘critical materials’ developments. The PhD will fill that gap through researching one of these elements - neodymium - as a window onto broader REE geographies. Principally the PhD will analyse how as 'critical minerals' rare earths are interacted with by material scientists & geologists, commodity traders & the extractive industries and state governments. The overarching research question is: How is neodymium financed & governed as a critical material in the UK? How does its materiality effect and complicate this financing and governance? The project draws on 'new materialism' approaches and will implement an ‘interscalar’ lenses to offer a fresh conceptual and methodological approach, challenging existing frameworks such as global production networks, geopolitics, and securitization.
Biography:
Tom is a ESRC DTP funded PhD Researcher within the School of Geography Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Birmingham, and part of its Environmental and Energy Transformations Cluster and its new Geopolitics and Human Security Cluster. His research centres on understanding how rare earth's are governed and financed as designated 'critical minerals' in the UK and Europe, and what those efforts tell us about supply chain resilience, ideas of criticality and the difficulties of dealing with materials. Prior to this PhD he did BA Geography at UCL, Msc Environment & Development at LSE - publishing his Msc dissertation - and after graduating a stint as a rowing coach and a researcher for a recruitment firm. He came back to academic study for his deep interest in the critical minerals sector, and welcomes people reaching out to discuss all things to do with it.Publications:
Cross, T. (2026). Coffee, Ceylon and Kew Gardens: The hard work of maintaining a plantation system through plantation science. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 44(2), 341-362. https://doi.org/10.1177/02637758251347690
Other research interests:
- Anything to do with making me better at endurance sports.
School of Geography Earth and Environmental Sciences
University of Birmingham
2026 Cohort
Supervisors:
Dr Karg Kama
Dr Julian Clark