The Metcelerate Program is designed to help mining companies bridge the gap between academic knowledge and operational expertise. It can be a big gap. Mineral processing engineers typically graduate from university with an academic grounding but too few of the practical skills they will need in their roles. This begs the question… how do they learn the rest?
Over the course of a comprehensive 20-month curriculum, participants in the Metcelerate Program will learn the technical and practical
skills they need to excel in their role and generate additional value for your organization. Developed specifically around key performance
drivers for mineral processing engineers, the Metcelerate Program delivers accelerated expertise in metallurgical process monitoring,
analysis, and optimization.
To meet 21st century workplace requirements, Metcelerate courses have been designed with input from mining organizations and developed in close collaboration with world-leading subject matter experts and experienced learning designers. Here's what that looks like:
The result is a one-of-a-kind program that is centered around the operational realities your organization faces, sharply focused on practical skills like process management, process improvement, and problem-solving.
The Metcelerate Program covers all the essential metallurgist functions in eight core courses. The total duration of the program is approximately 20 months.
Structured program of applied online training
Each of the eight courses in the Metcelerate Program has been carefully designed to deliver the knowledge and skills an engineer needs to maximize their workplace contribution and impact.
Here's what you can expect:
This course serves as the foundation of the Metcelerate Program by examining the full mining value chain and highlighting how individual roles contribute to overall business performance. Participants will analyze company production and sustainability reports to understand how operational decisions influence profitability, environmental outcomes, and long-term value. The objective is to help participants recognize their potential to impact bottom-line performance, either positively or negatively.
Key learning outcomes include the ability to:
This course helps learners understand how the characteristics of ore minerals — including their composition, texture, and associations — fundamentally control the economic and environmental outcomes of mineral processing, and how both valuable and gangue minerals influence these results. Key concepts such as mineral properties, texture, liberation, and deposit type are reviewed, together with the main mineralogical characterization tools used in industry. The approach is practical and focused on operational decision-making.
Key learning outcomes include the ability to:
This course introduces experimental design and statistical tools as a foundation for data analysis in mineral processing. It explains how to structure trials, interpret results, and reduce uncertainty in technical decision-making. Key concepts such as hypothesis testing, regression, and principles of experimental design are reviewed, with a practical focus on solving operational problems using plant and laboratory data.
Key learning outcomes include the ability to:
This course covers the theoretical and practical foundations of comminution, integrating key principles of fragmentation, size reduction, and the operation of crushing and grinding circuits. It explores the relationship between energy input and particle size reduction, reviews the technical characteristics of conventional and emerging equipment, and introduces current approaches to monitoring, modelling, optimization, and process control. The course combines theory with applied analysis, with a strong emphasis on performance evaluation and continuous improvement of comminution operations.
Key learning outcomes include the ability to:
This course covers the fundamental principles and leading practices in mineral flotation, examining the physical and chemical factors that influence flotation performance across the mineral surface, pulp, and froth phases. Tools and techniques for measuring and monitoring flotation circuits are introduced, together with the concept of reaction kinetics as a foundation for understanding flotation models and predicting circuit performance. These principles are linked to practical approaches for circuit diagnosis and optimization, supported by examples from representative industrial operations.
Key learning outcomes include the ability to:
This course provides a high-level overview of physical separation methods used in mineral processing, distinguishing between solid-liquid and solid-solid separation, and is delivered in two parts that may be taken separately. It introduces the underlying technical principles and illustrates their application, including their use to pre-concentrate ore, reject waste early, and recover high-value components such as coarse gold or magnetite. Processes include dewatering by thickening and filtration, gravity separation in aqueous or dense media, magnetic and electrical separation, and sensor-based sorting, together with the principles that guide their selection and performance.
Key learning outcomes include the ability to:
This course introduces the fundamentals of hydrometallurgy within the context of mineral processing. It provides an overview of leaching chemistry, the key factors that influence reaction rates and metal recovery, and the main process configurations used in practice, together with a brief overview of downstream purification and recovery stages. The course is designed to build awareness and understanding of key concepts and issues rather than to develop advanced technical expertise, helping participants recognize when hydrometallurgical considerations are important in operational and decision-making contexts.
Key learning outcomes include the ability to:
The capstone of the program is a process optimization project, where participants apply the knowledge and skills gained throughout the courses to a real workplace challenge. Working individually or in small groups, participants identify an operational issue at their plant and design a structured technical investigation to address it. This hands-on experience builds confidence, strengthens problem-solving capability, and delivers tangible value to their organization.
Key learning outcomes include the ability to:
Full course descriptions are available to organizations on request.
All courses are accessed via a dashboard on our secure, stable learning management system.
The home page for each module sets out the learning objectives and course structure.
Course content is organized as online lecture packs that can be viewed at the learner’s convenience.
Assignment questions are downloaded and completed assignments submitted via the course home page.
Weekly Zoom tutorials allow learners to interact with course leaders and peers. Sessions are live and recorded for later access.
This final capstone course allows learners to test and refine their skills in a real-life, in-plant setting.
Register now for our 2026 cohort. Programs start in April. Want to know about our English, French, or Spanish programs? Talk to us today!
| Course | Duration | Start Date | End Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Orientation | 1 week | 07/04/26 | 12/04/26 |
| 1. Mineral Processing in the Mining Value Chain | 3 weeks | 13/04/26 | 03/05/26 |
| Process Optimization Project – Module 1 * | 1 week | 11/05/26 | 17/05/26 |
| 2. Process Mineralogy | 6 weeks | 18/05/26 | 28/06/26 |
| 3. Experimental Design and Statistics | 9 weeks | 06/07/26 | 06/09/26 |
| 4. Comminution | 12 weeks | 14/09/26 | 06/12/26 |
| Process Optimization Project – Module 2 | 2 weeks | 07/12/26 | 20/12/26 |
| 5. Flotation | 12 weeks | 11/01/27 | 04/04/27 |
| 6. Physical Separation – Solid-Liquid | 2 weeks | 12/04/27 | 25/04/27 |
| Physical Separation – Solid-Solid (elective) | 4 weeks | 26/04/27 | 23/05/27 |
| 7. Hydrometallurgy – Module 1 | 3 weeks | 31/05/27 | 20/06/27 |
| 8. Process Optimization Project – Modules 3 & 4 | 27 weeks | 21/06/27 | 26/12/27 |
| Pyrometallurgy (elective) | 9 weeks | TBC '27 |
|
| Hydrometallurgy – Module 2 (elective) | 4 weeks | TBC '27 |
* Participants learn about project definition after the Mining Value Chain course.
They are encouraged to choose a process optimization project and start planning this early in the program. After the core online courses
are complete, learners finalize their projects and write up their project report.
Only Metcelerate delivers the in-plant skills development program that’s designed to support your engineers — and your business. Find out how it could benefit your organization.
