CESAR – CIRCULAR ECONOMY SKILLS AND AWARENESS RAISING Erasmus Project

Project Title

CESAR – CIRCULAR ECONOMY SKILLS AND AWARENESS RAISING

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Energy and resources; Open and distance learning

Project Summary

In 2015, the European Commission established a unique comprehensive strategy, the Circular Economy Package, aiming to close the resource loop by introducing measures covering the whole life-cycle of products and materials – from production and consumption to management of waste and its re-use as secondary raw materials in the economy. The suggested measures also tackle climate change with energy savings and reduced greenhouse gas emissions, and include the first-ever European Strategy for Plastics.
A Circular Economy is part of the modernization and transformation needed for the EU to become the world’s first major economy to go climate neutral by 2050, as per the long-term strategy put forward by the Commission in November 2018. Furthermore, the EC is currently reflecting on which steps are now needed to make Europe ever more sustainable. This transition has the potential for the creation of a wide diversity of job typologies, but for that is necessary re-skill the actual and future workforce, aligning it with the needs and challenges of this new economic model, where different types of circular activities require different skillsets.
So, education, awareness raising and training are fundamental elements for this move towards a circular economy, and the schools have a major role in it. The teacher profession is also considered an indirect circular job due to its contribution on educating the future consumers and workforce on the circular economy.
Within this context the CESAR project aims to:
• Raise awareness on circular economy;
• Enhance the power and benefits of circular economy;
• Promote awareness among teachers and students on greener methodologies and approaches;
• Establish students’ initiatives to investigate local and regional problems that require sustainable and/or circular solutions;
• Enhance the students’ skills for circular economy, helping to prepare the future workforce for the transition challenges from the linear to the circular economy.

In order to achieve this, the partnership will design and develop a set of educational and training materials that can be used by the teachers on the VET (and other schools) courses to promote the awareness raising and skills development of the students on CE subjects.
The project will produce:
1. A Set of Educational Materials for Awareness Raising in Circular Economy.
2. A Set of Training Materials for Skills Development in Circular Economy.
3. The Programme of a Course in Circular Economy for VET students that can be use by schools in curricular units, within the scope of their curricular flexibility and autonomy.

The development of these 3 outputs will be supported by another project activity and output, the Circular Economy at Schools “State-of-the-Art” Study. The objective of this study is to find out what and how is taught about circular economy at schools, mainly VET schools, in the partner countries and made a collection of good practices.
To ensure that all resources developed are accessible at any time, to any interested learner or VET staff, teachers and educators, and in a range of formats for use on different media devices, an online interactive project webpage will be developed where all materials can be accessed.

The partnership of this project, composed of 7 partners, from 5 different countries (Finland, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain), is a well-balanced and strong one, with a mix of partners in close relation to VET education and training and common commitment to raising awareness about the circular economy among the scholar and training communities.
During the project lifetime a group of teachers and students by country will test, evaluate and comment a pilot version of the produced materials, in order to get inputs for their review and improvement.
The partners will be responsible for organising one Multiplier Event in each partner country upon completion of the whole set of CESAR intellectual outputs. Furthermore a Final Conference will be held at project’s end to promote its results to stakeholders, decision- and policymakers at regional, national and European level.

The project will include all the necessary planning, management, and resources in order to be successfully implemented, and it will also deliver, in addiction to mentioned before, a comprehensive project management toolset (work programme, quality assurance, risk management and compliance), interim and final reports, and a Dissemination & Exploitation Strategy, project logo, leaflet and website. Apart from these tangible results, the project will also achieve important intangible results for the partnership, such as transfer of knowledge, know-how and experience amongst the partners.

On completion, the CESAR project will be able to provide access to a comprehensive learning programme and materials promoting circular economy concept, principles and objectives that has been tested, piloted and validated in VET learning settings.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 182630 Eur

Project Coordinator

Mínimos Quadrados – Investigação e Desenvolvimento, Sociedade Unipessoal LDA & Country: PT

Project Partners

• Stiker Global Services
• TIBER UMBRIA COMETT EDUCATION PROGRAMME
• Calasanz Santurtzi S.L.
• Axxell Utbildning AB
• AEVA – ASSOCIACAO PARA A EDUCACAO E VALORIZACAO DA REGIAO DE AVEIRO
• Internationaler Bund – IB Mitte gGmbH für Bildung und Soziale Dienste Niederlassung Sachsen