BRGM is France's public reference institution in Earth Science applications for the management of surface and subsurface resources and risks.

BRGM's scope covers several activities: scientific research expertise, innovation and transfer, analysis and experimentation, mining risk prevention and safety, higher education, ongoing vocational training, dissemination of knowledge and open science.

The establishment then strengthened its regional proximity and developed its role in renewable energies while focusing on commercial activities, particularly in the field of spatial planning.

In 1999, BRGM set up a new organisation to better tailor its offer to meet societal needs and better respond to new environmental challenges: groundwater resources, risks, geothermal energy, etc.

By withdrawing from its activity as a mining investor and transferring most of its engineering work in France to its subsidiary Antea, which was then sold in 2003, BRGM asserted its research and development role.

For this purpose, BRGM has acquired the means to generate value from its inventions by ensuring that its concepts mature more quickly and promoting their development and innovation jointly with industrial partners.

Within its specific areas of expertise, BRGM designs and develops methodologies for conducting analyses, characterisations, observations and experiments – whether in laboratories or on pilot sites – in gas, water, soil and subsurface environments.

BRGM's laboratories and technological platforms work in particular in the areas of environmental chemistry, metrology, the environment and sensors, isotope geochemistry, mineralogy, and studies in microbiology and molecular biology.

On request from the public authorities, BRGM also coordinates and manages several dozen websites and databases in the fields of geology, natural hazards (Géorisques[12]), water (ADES[13]), mineral resources (Minéralinfo[14]), geothermal energy (Géothermies[15]), etc.

Knowledge of the subsurface lays the foundation for improving the use of resources (e.g., water, energy, minerals and metals), adapting to the impacts of climate change, anticipating and mitigating natural risks and taking these into account in spatial planning.

Faced with the challenges posed by global changes, one of BRGM's core missions is to further our knowledge of groundwater, by monitoring and anticipating its availability and ensuring its quality.

BRGM conducts research and expertise on natural geological hazards: earthquakes, unstable ground, collapsing cavities, volcanic eruptions, shrinkage and swelling of clays, etc.

It observes mineral life cycles and value chains and is thus able to analyse the flows and dynamics involved, integrating environmental, economic and social factors to support the development of a more circular economy and more responsible mining.

It also designs innovative solutions for optimising the processing and recycling of mineral materials, using technologies with reduced environmental impacts and lower energy consumption.

It also develops applications and innovative tools based on data science and geoscience to model, predict and produce information on the state of the surface and subsurface, their resources and associated risks.

Water resources, natural risks, climate change impacts and subsurface geothermal potential in France are some of the core themes of BRGM's regional activities.

BRGM is actively engaged at EU level through its sustained involvement in European research programmes,[19] and support for public policy development and international cooperation.

BRGM has given its name to a major legal ruling handed down on 21 December 1987 by the first Civil Chamber of the French Cour de Cassation (court of appeal):[21] this judgment concerns “the general principle of law according to which the assets of public persons may not be seized", a principle that applies even to EPICs (Public establishments of an industrial and commercial nature) and which prohibits the use of proceedings for enforcement from private law against these establishments.