How to attract students to solve circular challenges?

The study visit programme designed by SEKUENS that supports university master’s courses related to industrial circularity.

On 1 April, Masters students from the University of Oviedo visited COGERSA's LIFE Infusion semi-industrial pilot plant, designed to recover resources from the treatment of landfill leachate and liquid digestate from the municipal organic fraction (FORM).

It is the first study visit of the 2024/2025 academic year, organised for students of the Master in Chemical Engineering and the International Master in Technologies and Management for the Circular Economy - IMATEC.

Asturias Paradise Hub 4 Circularity manages the network of R&D pilot plants that replicate processes applicable to waste recycling. Public and private owners of R&D pilot plants have opened their doors to postgraduate students thanks to the mediation of SEKUENS. The activity aims to attract the attention of future researchers to valorisation technologies.

Each academic year, UNIOVI Master's coordinators can request a group visit for students to pilot plants in support of a Master's module. A search engine on the SEKUENS website allows the selection of the pilot plants, as it describes their equipment, tested applications, input and output streams, capacity and operating models.

Next, the owner of the selected pilot plant prepares a fact sheet on the operation of the facility and arranges the date of the visit. The visit is led in by the plant technicians in either Spanish or English.

After the visit, the students complete a graded assignment, the content of which relates to alternative uses of the pilot plant in circular economy applications, focusing on areas of interest agreed between the facility owner and the teacher.

89 students have participated in the 5 editions held between 2023 and 2025.