Preface

We present to your attention the selected papers of the International Scientific and Research Conference on Knowledge-based Technologies in Development and Utilization of Mineral Resources held in the online format within the framework of the Scientific and Practical Coal Forum of Scientific and Educational Centre “Kuzbass” 8-11 September, 2020 Traditionally, the conference is held every year in June as a part of the International Exhibition “Coal of Russia and Mining” but due to the spread of the COVID-19 the conference was shifted to September 8-11, 2020 and the International Exhibition “Coal of Russia and Mining” in 2021 was cancelled. In this situation, the organizers of the conference decided to hold the conference within the framework of the Scientific and Practical Coal Forum of Scientific and Educational Centre “Kuzbass” on 8-11 September, 2020 in on-line format in order to ensure the safety of conference participants in connection with the spread of the coronavirus. The conference was dedicated to the 90 th anniversary of the Siberian State Industrial University (Novokuznetsk, Russia), which was one of the organizers of the conference. The conference co-organizers are Federal Research Centre for Coal and Coal Chemistry SB RAS (Kemerovo, Russia), JSC VostNII Scientific Centre for Industrial and Environmental Safety in the Mining Industry (Kemerovo, Russia), University of Science and Technology Liaoning (Anshan, China). The event was actively supported by the Administrations of the Kemerovo Region-Kuzbass and the city of Novokuznetsk. The Programme Committee and Organizing Committee with the scientists from Russia, Kazakhstan, Germany, Slovakia, Serbia, China were involved into the preparation of the conference. The virtual conference via Zoom was held on the basis of Siberian State Industrial University. It consisted of two parts-plenary session and four breakout sessions. At the plenary session presentations by the Chairman of the Organizing Committee (15 minutes), by the moderators of breakout sessions with overviews of the topics planned for discussion in their breakout sessions (20-30 minutes) were made. List of Conference photos, Programme Committee, Organizing Committee, Members of the organizing committee, are available in this pdf.