To reflect the growing demand for skills in the industrial sustainability area, academia, researchers and business leaders join forces to co-develop Circular Economy course for universities finest.

Through innovation, the European raw materials sector will play a key role in helping to achieve the objectives of accelerating the green transition. The sector therefore needs access to a talent pool of highly skilled workers who are knowledgeable and trained in the latest state-of-the-art technologies. The new project CLOCKS, funded by EIT RawMaterials, will kick off this month to develop a series of 1-week international PhD Summer Schools. The aim of the course will be to build new proficiencies and skills as well as an entrepreneurial mindset that can best support the transition to a circular paradigm of production and services.

CLOCKS stands for “CLOsing the loop: building circular sKillS on the entire value chain for Circular Economy” and is coordinated by the University of Padova. The project will target PhD students and professionals working in circular economy and raw materials. The PhD Summer Schools, providing an Open Badge, will offer an exciting programme encouraging companies to work with the students, including challenges, a hackathon, in field laboratories, as well as highly transversal and intersectoral teaching content.

The consortium of CLOCKS is composed of seven partners from Italy, Slovenia, Germany, and Poland, including three universities, the University of Padova (project coordinator), the University of Ljubljana and the Justus Liebig University of Giessen, two research centres, the Fraunhofer Institute and the Mineral and Energy Economy Research Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences (MEERI), and two industries, UMICORE and Novu s.r.l.

The education sector will play a vital role in Europe’s ambitious goal of reaching a net-zero goal by 2050 and educating a new generation of sustainability pioneers with an entrepreneurial mindset. The CLOCKS Summer Schools will join the EIT RawMaterials PhD Schools that align with focus on the three Lighthouse frameworks: Responsible Sourcing, Sustainable Materials and Circular Societies.

Source: European Institute of Innovation & Technology (https://bit.ly/3c6ItVM)