CircleMED

An EU-funded project to develop the principles of circular economy at territorial level in the MED area

Programme: “Interreg Euro-MED 2021-2027”

Mission: “Strengthening an innovative sustainable economy”

Total budget: 1.854.529, 97 €

The European project CircleMED aims at converting the European Mediterranean area into circular economy based territories, supporting the development of the circular economy principles at a territorial level.

CircleMED aims to address a general lack of awareness and understanding, across different sectors of civil society, of the potential contribution of the circular economy to the promotion of sustainable development. Cultural barriers, lack of capacity for the industry to assess internal competences and of a network to optimise processes and prevent waste, inadequate information from public authorities, and a top-down approach, are just some of the reasons why circular economy still lacks an integrated approach in local territories.

CircleMED project will test, demonstrate and implement solutions for the territorial development of circular economy, involving university, industry, government, citizenship: the so-called quadruple innovation helix framework.

Each actor of the territorial environment: citizenship, industry and government, will be addressed with specific and targeted queries and activities, to ensure the most relevant contribution of the project for the development of circular economy solutions at a territorial level. Thanks to a multi-actor approach based on “knowledge exchange” rather than “knowledge transfer”, the project will actively promote inclusive governance approaches on citizens’ participation, transfer of practices and tools (especially digital ones) for the industry, and the creation of network systems – “hubs” – to learn through experimentation, build capability and promote initiatives that facilitate the scaling up of circular solutions, to create transferrable processes and solution for a participated circular economy.

The actions will be developed over the 30 months of CircleMED, but the aim is to create long-lasting impact on the regions involved.

The partners of the project: