In times of decreasing resources and growing responsibilities, many industries are understandably skeptical towards what seems to be yet another buzzword. However, a transition to circular economy is both a necessity and an opportunity, with the potential to offer long-lasting economic, environmental and social benefits. By sharing knowledge, and setting up exchange platforms, regions, businesses and universities can initiate and facilitate activities on the path to circularity. In this context the University of Mining and Geology in Sofia opened the new academic year 2021/2022 with the new discipline “Introduction to the Principles of Circular Economy”, which is set as mandatory in 6 of the 48 master's specialties of the university. To help students studying the course, we published a "Guide to Circular Economy Basics", which in addition to the theoretical basis of circular economy, considers in the form of case studies 10 of the REDUCES good practices presented by the partners from Bulgaria; Maramures, Romania; Manchester, Great Britain; Valencia, Spain; Utrecht, The Netherlands and Southwestern Finland.
Together with the Status Quo Report in Bulgarian language, the Guide is part of the materials to present the center for transfer of knowledge, which will offer an author's developed course to the companies from the raw material industry and not only in Bulgaria. The course will advocate the principles of the circular economy and the potential of circular business models. The course is already being developed, and the expectations are that should find its realization in the Spring of 2022.
Furthermore the Bulgarian REDUCES Good Practices were included in the list of projects used for the preparations of the programming documents for the 2021-2027 financial perspective in the field of promoting the transition to a circular economy and presented in a workshop held on August 24th, 2021.
Another round of presentation of the REDUCES project progress was at the International Scientific Conference of the University of Mining and Geology "St. Ivan Rilski ”, which due to the pandemic situation was held online on October 22nd, 2021.
Vihra Andonova
Euro-Perspective Foundation
[email protected]
Vessela Petrova
University of Mining and Geology “St. Ivan Rilski”
[email protected]
