Design for the Circular Economy discussed in a multidisciplinary workshop
On 9 June, the 1st National Workshop of the KATCH_e project, entitled Design for the Circular Economy, was held at the University of Aveiro, with the participation of associations, higher education institutions and national companies.
The objective of the workshop was to present the project and to identify and analyze the training needs, state of the art, trends and policies in Circular Economy in Portugal.
The University of Aveiro is a partner of the project, coordinated by the National Laboratory of Energy and Geology – LNEG, which is an alliance of knowledge among higher education, companies and research centers to create skills in the field of product development services for the circular economy and sustainability in the construction and furniture sectors (http://uaonline.ua.pt/pub/detail.asp?lg=en&c=48151).
The Portuguese partners identified several national organizations as potential stakeholders of extreme relevance in the field of the Circular Economy and of the target sectors, and launched them the challenge to participate in the project.
The workshop featured an opening session in which the UA Vice-Rector, Prof. Dr. Gonçalo Paiva Dias, that welcomed the participants and the initiative, followed by a working session attended by about 20 entities, including business associations, higher education institutions and also professionals and companies of the region.
This session, facilitated by elements of the UA and LNEG project team, sought to discuss with all participants two key issues for the development of the project:
- A) What are the priority challenges, products and services for design for the Circular Economy in the construction and furniture sectors?
- B) What are the skills and training needs for the design and development teams?
From the sharing of knowledge, experiences and visions on these subjects, that took place in this workshop, it will be possible to begin to outline the curriculum in order to build a course that seeks to develop tools for the systematic integration of the circular economy in design.
