NWA research programme: circular economy

Coordinating Body SIA, TNO and NWO have opened a call inside the NWA-route Circular Economy. The goal is to arrive at two research projects that offer concrete plans of action in the transition to a circular economy.

Themes: built environment and plastics
The researches, with a term of two years, will address the opportunities for circularity in both the built environment and the plastics industry. Especially in these areas the Netherlands has a significant industry, including SME, with great ambitions regarding their contribution to the transition to a circular economy. In addition, these two thematic areas have a good research infrastructure to ensure the quality and applicability of the research.

Form: content-based collaboration
The substantive questions from the field require interdisciplinary collaboration between alfa, bèta- and gamma scientists in the domain of both practice-oriented as well as applied research. Researches of (vocational) universities, TNO, and governmental knowledge institutes will work together in each of the two projects. The researches will be extra valuable due to the close collaboration with stakeholders from the field.

In consultation with the NWA-route Circular Economy, the decision was made to arrive at the two research proposals through the sandpit-method, in which a select group of people works on two separate project proposals in a series of workshops. During the process experts and other participants provide feedback to the project proposals. The result is two project proposals that are submitted for review by Coordinating Body SIA. Around €500.000 will be made available for each of the two selected research proposals. The most suitable participants for this sandpit-process will be searched for via open invitation.

Parties involved
The NWA-route Circular Economy has compiled the program framework together with the Coordinating Body SIA, TNO, NWO domains Exact and Natural Sciences (ENW) and Social and Human sciences (SGW). The program is partially supported with contributions of the Ministries of Infrastructure and Water Management (IenW), Internal Affairs and Kingdom Relations (BZK) and Education, Culture and Science (OCW).

Interested?
Read more on the NWA-website about participating and signing up.

The call is now open and closes on March 15th.