Erasmus + CIRCULAR: Kick-Off Meeting and Peer Learning Workshop

                                                                                                                           

CIRCULAR - Circular Economy Living Laboratories supporting Social Innovation in Southeast Asia is a collaborative project to mitigate waste management problems, promote circular economy approaches and improve the quality of life of local communities. CIRCULAR is an Erasmus+ CBHE Project (101082209) comprising of 9 universities from Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos, Spain and Portugal. The project focuses on circular economy issues as a framework to stimulate engagement with the community, government and industry in the setting of a university’s teaching and learning environment.

Universiti Sains Malaysia serves as the lead institution, together with Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Malaysia), International Consulting and Mobility Agency Sociedad de Responsabilidad Limitida (Spain), Universidad de Almeria (Spain), Instituto Politecnico de Coimbra (Portugal), National University of Laos and Savannakhet University (Laos), Royal University of Phnom Penh, and Svay Rieng University (Cambodia).

CIRCULAR Kick-off Meeting was held on 9^th and 10^th May 2023, hosted by our partner Instituto Politecnico Agraria de Coimbra, Portugal where updates were presented on the activities and action plans. More importantly, representatives get to know each other and learn more about our institutions.

We continued with the Collaborative Peer Learning Workshop from 10^th to 12^th  May 2023. We had some motivating and enriching discussions on case studies from Portugal, Spain, and Laos. Participants relate to programs and initiatives on wastes and other circular economy projects that we currently conduct at our institutions and in the local communities. We deliberated on further actions to map stakeholders and among the questions we needed to answer are: How do we work with our local partners? What are their needs? How do we co-design the program? We truly look forward to the next meeting with our stakeholders.