The Circular Economy paradigm, accelerated within the context of Industry 4.0, has been increasingly applied both inside and outside the manufacturing domain. The set of new capabilities, skills and competencies developed through I4.0 need to be augmented and enhanced in order to conform to the Triple Bottom Line perspective (profit, people, planet). These enhancements initially affect supply chain management and then expand towards entrepreneurship, business model development, innovation management and societal development.
Research shows that there is significant potential to address the complex challenges towards a more sustainable and resilient society by cross-fertilizing these disciplines through the Circular Economy (CE) perspective, via provisioning of new courses and practical cases. For this reason, the joint CE-I4.0 evolution needs to be grounded on a new set of knowledge and best practices to be provided through both higher education (HE) and vocational education and training (VET), demanding systemic approaches for sustainable development. CERES recognizes the need to shift the restricted focus of CE from firms to a more extended and system-level view that considers skills, competences and knowledge needs (provided from various business sectors such as e-waste, textiles, renewable energy, etc.) to be supplied to HE and VET. This would catalyse the embracement of CE under a social development perspective from the preliminary stage of training and education.
In this context, CERES’ new innovation ecosystem, the Circular Economy Digital Innovation Hub (CE-DIH), is aimed at promoting connectedness among stakeholders and generating a systematised set of services, skills, competences and knowledge capable of supporting the multi-faceted CE domain. The CE-DIH can be strategic not only to raise awareness but also to provide the most suitable and complete set of services to support the circular enrichment and transition of both companies and individuals in society.
Bando:
ERASMUS-EDU-2022-PI-ALL-INNO
Role of Politecnico:
Partner
Scientific coordinator of the Polytechnic:
Prof. Giorgio Mossa (DMMM)
SSD:
ING-IND/17 – Industrial mechanical plants
