“What we’d like to do here is get businesses to come to the school and talk about how they ... manufacture products. Then get them to hand their products over to pupils to be redesigned in a circular economy sense.” Steve Parkinson The European Commission adopted an ambitious Circular Economy Package, that will help stimulate Europe's transition towards a circular economy, foster sustainable economic growth and generate new jobs. The Package consists of an EU Action Plan for the Circular Economy that establishes an programme of action, aimed to "closing the loop" of products through recycling and re-use. The overall aim of CircleVET is to evaluate and exchange smart practice methods on circular economy skills in VET. We want to create a comprehensive compendium of hands-on methods on European level. The first phase will be a desktop-research on identifying smart practices in teaching and applying circular economy principles based on critical design thinking and co-design. Parallel a need assessment will be launched in order to understand the demands of the education provider in the three chosen case study sectors (Fashion, co-working, recycling) and the learners in the partnership countries. The results will be presented at Transnational Meetings and will result in an assessment system for smart practices, suited for the self-assessment of educators and a synthesis report. The collected practices, methods and experiences are tested and reviewed in three thematics training labs: 1. Testing circular methods in Fashion 2. Testing circular methods in Recycling 3. Testing circular methods for co-working and innovation hubs To achieve this main goal the implementation phase of the project will lead to 4 main results: Result 1: Elaboration of at least 70 smart practice methods of teaching and training circular skills in Europe Result 2: The development of an assessment tool/ criteria catalogue Result 3: policy recommendation. Result 4: A project eBook. The smart practice assessment is based on the ‘Eightfold Path analysis’ developed by Bardach: 1. the partnership develop a realistic expectation by getting to know the field. 2. We analyze practices and compare them with a criteria Catalogue. 3. We test the practice. 4. We create a SWOT analysis and reflect on the transferability. 5. We document and review the practices with recommendations on where and how to use them. Methodology of the Training labs The design of the training labs will be based on Kolb's experiential learning theory, represented by a four stage cycle: - Concrete Experience - Reflective Observation of the new experience - Abstract Reflection, - Active Experimentation Co-creation labs typically involve hands-on activities in which a varied group of peers expresses experiences and explorer potential solutions. An embedded process is co-discovery, involving the participants to explore a topic in a collaborative setting. Co-creation labs also facilitate and enable speculation. This is a way to use the current desires, struggles and experiences of the participants as a jumping-off point to look into the future. Collaborating in this way provokes discussion and creates valuable insights into all aspects of a topic being investigated and (re)designed. Participants become deeply involved and especially in a peer-learning setting, create tailored solutions for their everyday world. We expect all participants of the project to be more conscious about the necessary circular economy skills in their work. We expect them to be ready to share their new knowledge, to teach and encourage others to understand the ongoing transition towards circular economy and its potential. We expect that the facilitators will gain new tools to train and teach social innovation in VET. The method handbook will provide easy hands-on tools, providing innovative methods, which will motivate the learners to stay involved. The learners learn new skills, strengthen their awareness on new transformational processes in economy and make them aware of their potentials as entrepreneurs. On the local level the project will result in an increase of awareness on circular economy and the potential of local loops, especially in our three case study sectors fashion, coworking and recycling. We expect to influence with the recommendations and smart practices European discourses on teaching and learning skills needed for the circular economy future. The practice evaluations and the training modules are aimed to gain impact on scientific research, but as well curricula design in school, adult, youth and vocational education providers. The continuing development of a European network of circular co-creation hubs will enable a wide sharing of the training modules and will enable users’ skills which will ensure that this circula economy continues to go forward with strength, recognition and provide a pathway to further education, mobilisation and greater social innovation.
Circle VET Project Circular Economy – we all care about it, collectively and individually, but somehow, we have so far remained apart. This is one of the main lessons we have learned during the CircleVET project. While countries like Finland are ahead in integrating circular economy in their vocational education (VET), others, like Germany, are catching up and still others, such as Turkey, seem to be lagging behind. However, all over Europe, new ideas are emerging on how to integrate the circular economy into vocational education. Their practical implementation is a European topic, and this is precisely what CircleVET has focused on. All participants of the project have become more aware of the need to use circular economy skills in their work. They are ready to share their newly gained knowledge, to teach and encourage others to understand the ongoing transition towards circular economy and its potential. The trained facilitators have acquired new tools for training and teaching circular economy in VET. The partners went through different processes, learnt a lot from each other and improved the knowledge and skills of their staff. E-book The compendium was produced as a result of the Circle VET project. It is a comprehensive compendium of hands-on methods used across Europe. This manual provides easy-to-apply innovative tools and methods designed to motivate learners to stay involved and update their skills for the ongoing transition from a linear to a circular economy. Evaluation of good practises CircleVET has developed an assessment grid for practices based on the following four principles: • interdisciplinary approaches; • real-life relevance and applicability; • critical Thinking (rethinking) of the current status; • flexibility and versatility. After identifying and evaluating smart practices in teaching and applying circular economy principles, we came to the conclusion that our foremost task should be to focus on determining methods that provide an introduction into and a general overview of the possibilities to teach the basics of circular economy. At the same time, our visits to various organisations and businesses have demonstrated that good practices exist in all partner countries, even though they are often not yet being identified and labelled as “circular”. During several transnational meetings, we have presented more than 70 smart practices, not only from Finland, Germany, Italy, Slovakia, Spain and Turkey but also from Belgium, France, and the Netherlands. During the second meeting in Madrid, we established an assessment grid – a tool which was very helpful for selecting practices that are among the smartest. Those presented in this e-book are in our opinion the most interesting, representative, useful and transferable ones. 3 online labs All practices, methods and experiences collected were tested and reviewed in three thematic training labs: Testing circular methods for co-working and innovation hubs: general and business oriented methods Testing circular methods in Fashion Testing circular methods in Recycling The design of the training labs was based on David Kolb’s experiential learning theory, represented by a four-stage cycle: concrete experience, reflective observation of the new experience, abstract reflection, and active experimentation. The three labs consisted of practical activities during which a diverse group of peers shared their experience and explored potential solutions with the aim of co-discovery, that is exploration in a collaborative setting. Not offline but online... Initially, we had planned to meet physically for these labs, but the onset of the Covid19 pandemic and the restrictions on travelling and meeting during the last part of the project made this impossible. Thanks to the German National Agency we were able to move the labs online. Policy recommendation The detailed discussion of the selected practices has allowed us to work out recommendations on where and how to use them. Based on the lessons learned while testing these methods in our labs, we have decided to target the recommendations at practitioners and decision-makers. On the local level, our project has resulted in an increasing awareness of the importance of the circular economy and of the potential of using local dissemination circuits, especially in the fashion and recycling sectors. We wanted to contribute to European discourses on teaching and learning skills required for a future circular economy. All project results are intended to help designing curricula for schools and providers of adult, youth and vocational education providers by offering ways to promote further education, mobilisation, and greater social innovation in this field. Our ultimate goal is to contribute to finding new, innovative means that allow us to move away from a culture of “produce to discard”, as outlined by the European Commission, and work toward the European Union’s Circular Economy Action Plan.