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Sectors: Food (chain/systems) Manufacturing Transport and mobility

EIT Circular Economy Community

Updated on 19.09.2023

The EIT Circular Economy Community and its Knowledge & Innovation Communities (KICs) carry out activities that cover the entire innovation chain. These include public engagement project & awareness campaigns, training and education programmes, reinforcing the journey from research to market, innovation projects, as well as business incubators and accelerators. 

Through the KICs, EIT strengthens cooperation among businesses (including SMEs), higher education institutions, research organisations and the public. The EIT forms dynamic pan-European partnerships and creates favourable environments for creative thought processes and innovations to flourish. 

Target audience: EU initiatives
Countries: European Union, Switzerland, United Kingdom
Partner(s) email address: ignacio.calleja@eitrawmaterials.eu

Activities on circular economy

  • Support the innovation communities in developing a joint circular economy (CE) offer and to increase their visibility in the CE landscape. 

  • Strengthen collaboration with European Commission services through the implementation of a CE joint strategy. 

  • Initiate and strengthen the collaboration with other relevant stakeholders and initiatives in the CE landscape. 

  • Support breakthrough initiatives and start-ups through the Environmental Technology Verification (ETV) Programme. 

  • Collaborate with the European Commission in the implementation of the European Circular Economy Action Plan (CEAP). 

  • Collaborate with the European Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform (ECESP) through the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) and the European Commission (EC). 

  • Pool and create further non-technical knowledge regarding specific aspects affecting the adequate implementation of CE approaches, as well as facilitating the access to markets for innovative KIC solutions. 

Target territory

The EIT Circular Economy Community articulates its action through both pan-European programmes (such as the EVT Call and the Circular Economy Prizes) and actions implemented at the level of cities and regions by the geographical hubs within the KICs. 

Sectors

EIT Circular Economy Community is involved in, mainly, five sectors:  Raw materials, climate, food, manufacturing, and urban mobility. 

Key services provided for the circular economy

  • EIT Raw Materials: 

    - Integrating knowledge from industry, higher education and research. It is worth highlighting the strong education programme of EIT RawMaterials that includes Master’s degree education, PhD education, wider society learning, and lifelong learning. 
    - Engaging stakeholders – who are these stakeholders and how do they engage? 
    - Constituting innovation hubs to create collaborative environments between industry and research institutions. 
  • EIT Climate-KIC: 

    - Supported by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, EIT Climate-KIC identifies and supports innovation that helps society mitigate and adapt to climate change. In addition, they bring together partners in the worlds of business, academia and the public and non-profit sectors to create networks of expertise through which innovative products and services can be developed, brought to market and scaled-up for impact. 
  • EIT Food: 

    - Provides professional ‘food system’ skills for students, entrepreneurs and professionals through advanced training & education programmes, such as summer schools, MAs, PhD fellowships, MOOCs, etc. 
    - Promotes consumer awareness and behavioural change through targeted public campaigns as important measures to improve public health and adapt to climate change (reduce meat consumption and consume food sources regeneratively and locally where possible). 
    - Promotes the food system transition towards sustainability by supporting inventions & businesses contributing to resource stewardship. 
    - Builds a consumer-centric, connected food system by connecting stakeholders from all across the value chains. 
    - Increases consumer trust in the food systems by promoting the transparency of the food chain through support to clear nutrition product labelling, smart packaging, and digital tracking initiatives. 
    - Liaises with public authorities and private actors to facilitate the implementation of green procurements. 
  • EIT Manufacturing: 

    - EIT Manufacturing’s educational and training activities aim to enable the current and future industrial workforce to respond to societal challenges and market needs. 
    - EIT Manufacturing supports innovation and brings knowledge from universities and institutes to real use in the industry. 
  • EIT Urban Mobility: 

    - Creates systemic solutions that will more efficiently move more people around the city and free up public space. 
    - Brings all key players in urban mobility together to avoid fragmentation and achieve more successes. 
    - Engages cities and citizens, giving them the opportunity to become actual agents of change. 

All these innovation communities’ information and knowledge is successfully transmitted across Europe thanks to the EIT Regional Innovation Scheme, which has led to a significant expansion of EIT Community activities into more countries and regions across Europe since 2014. 

List of relevant material

Description of future collaboration with CCRI-CSO

  • Reciprocal exchange of information and valuable knowledge. 

  • EIT will contribute by shaping CCRI’s vision and objectives through their KICs. 

  • Partners and stakeholders from KICs will be able to collaborate with CCRI by developing innovative solutions and developing programmes. 

  • Potential collaboration between CCRI, EITFood and our Pilots, Flanders (Belgium) and Rubaix (France) and Fellow (Leuven). 

  • KIC Climate will highly contribute to CCRI by sharing results and findings of some of their demos and experiences. 

  • Possibility to launch one of EIT’s call for 2023 in collaboration with CCRI. 


Other potential ways of collaboration between CCRI and individual KICs are the following: 
 

  • Climate-KIC:  Exchange key learnings from our Circular Economy Deep Demonstrations; accelerating circularity in other EU-based cities, regions, and countries through systems innovation as a service. 

  • Manufacturing-KIC: Potentially contribute to: 

    - Achievement of CCRI’s vision and mission. 
    - Exchange of knowledge and know-how relevant for CE at local and regional scale. 
    - Potential mutual dissemination of CCRI or EITM materials, resources, and opportunities (including investment and co-funding opportunities). 
    - Further mapping of cities/regions/CIC’s needs and or R&D&I gaps. 
    - Any events or other relevant activities related to the manufacturing industries, including in terms of knowledge management and communication activities. 
  • RawMaterials KIC: 

    - Support link between cities/regions and industry (already collaborating with ACR+ in the H4C project; or ICLEI in the Circular Cities Declaration). 
    - Education activities for citizens and specially children at schools. 
    - Sustainable management of raw materials. 
  • Food KIC: 

    - Sectorial collaboration supporting Pilots & Fellows, mutual collaboration in organising events, scouting opportunities for co-funding. 
    - Collaboration on Education Activities (MOOCs, behavioural change campaigns, Youth Mission). 
  • Urban Mobility KIC: 

    - CCRI could advise on future calls of Circular Economy Prize.
    - Urban Mobility could potentially offer advice in CCRI’s calls and events. 
Target territory
Territories involved

large 500 000-200 000, medium 200 000-50 000, and small cities 50 000-5 000

predominantly urban regions, intermediate and predominantly rural regions, refer to TERCET typology NUTS 3 region

Key services provided