Circular Economy: Education, Skills & Behavioural Change (SSH Partner)

Expertise: Over many years, CRN has developed and implemented numerous projects related to circular economy, social entrepreneurship, and sustainability education — including CicloSchools (school hackathons on circular economy), CircleVET (VET-level circular economy skills), Circular Skills (training modules for circular economy in VET/SMEs), and Circular City (adult education for circular entrepreneurship).

What we offer:

• Education & skills development: Ready curricula and training modules for circular economy applied to schools, vocational training (VET), social enterprises, SMEs, including disadvantaged groups.

• Behavioural change & awareness raising: Tools and materials (from previous projects) to influence consumption, repair, reuse, circular behaviour among citizens, consumers, local communities.

• Community hubs / circular labs: Experience developing circular-economy community hubs and facilitating co-creation between citizens, local businesses and social enterprises.

• Social readiness & human-centric design: Ensuring that circular innovations are socially accepted, understandable, and accessible — especially important in technical projects dealing with plastics, bio-materials, textiles, reuse.

Our role:

• Partner for Education / Training / Social Readiness / Communication & Dissemination / Behaviour Change / Community Engagement.

• WP-lead for tasks on circular economy literacy, vocational training, social acceptance, and outreach.

Ideal consortia:

• Projects under Cluster 6 (circular economy / bioeconomy / textiles / plastics / sustainable production & consumption) that need a strong social, educational, and consumer-engagement dimension.

• Technical consortia developing new materials, circular systems, recycling / reuse technologies — who need to ensure real-world uptake and change at user/community level.

Why CRN:
Because for circular economy to succeed, technology is not enough: people need new skills, awareness, and acceptance. CRN’s long-term track record shows that we can deliver that missing piece.