A new project seeks to exploit existing regional and international structures, programmes, and initiatives in order to teach circularity to entrepreneurs-to-be, with the ultimate goal of bringing key sustainable improvements into the entrepreneurial system.
- The project, called Circular Economy Innovative Initiative for an Entrepreneurial Europe (CITE), aims to create a new dynamic and agile ecosystem in and between higher education institutions that will boost textile circularity and circular economy in innovation and entrepreneurial courses.
The Partners: The CITE consortium is led by RWTH Aachen University, and includes five other partners with industrial, entrepreneurial and innovative expertise:
- HoGent (Belgium), Saxion University of Applied Sciences (Netherlands), Vilniaus Kolegija (Vilnius University of Applied Sciences, Lithuania), Istanbul University (Turkey), and Textile ETP (Belgium).
The project is being financed by EIT Manufacturing (which is co-funded by the European Union).
The Objectives: The consortium has a four-pronged objective:
- Enhancing the quality of innovation and entrepreneurial education,
- Fostering institutional engagement and change,
- Contributing in the development of innovations and businesses,
- Strengthening partnerships.
The Context: No more than 40% of produced textiles are recycled, with only 1% in certain areas.
- By 2025, EU member states are obliged to implement a system to collect and separate post-consumer textiles (according to the new European Waste Framework Directive).
- This represents is a huge entrepreneurial potential to increase the reuse rates and recycling into higher value materials.
The outcomes of CITE will be scaled up to other Higher Education Institutions and regions (ideas, pilots, demos, initiatives and networks), and aims to impact the world of circular economy on a European level.
