The event attracted around 50 participants from different European countries, and aimed to promote cooperation and co-creation among ECIU universities by sharing and discussing the state-of-the-art in circular economy and sustainability research at Linköping University.
"Such networking meeting, as we had in Linköping, is very useful, not only because it provides insights about colleagues' research, but also because it allows sharing of the experience of working with the business. By sharing the best practices of our work on the circular economy, we can identify the synergies in further collaboration, which are the basis for systemic circular change," says Viktorija Varaniūtė, project leader and associated professor at Kaunas University of Technology in Lithuania.
The event commenced with Jelena Kurilova-Palisaitiene welcoming the attendees and giving a short INSCE project overview. This was followed by a presentation by Tomohiko Sakao on the cross-over between circular economy and AI and the importance of interdisciplinary research to this field. Murat Mirata then talked about facilitating industrial and urban symbiosis through the mobilization of tangible and intangible resources. Wisdom Kanda addressed the challenges of circular start-ups and the support they need from ecosystem actors to get over them, while Sara Gustafsson spoke about the role of municipalities in forwarding sustainability, stressing the importance of cooperation, coordination, and collaboration. Erik Sundin concluded the academic presentations with his talk on remanufacturing in a circular economy context.
The lecture also featured presentations from some industries collaborating with Linköping University, including Petra Hammarstedt, Qlean Scandinavia AB, whose video was recorded and shown and Joel Smedberg, Brighteco AB, who presented ongoing collaboration about drivers and barriers to circular lighting.
