The Circular Economy paradigm, accelerated within the context of Industry 4.0, has been increasingly applied both inside and outside the manufacturing domain. The set of new capabilities, skills and competencies developed through I4.0 need to be augmented and enhanced in order to conform to the Triple Bottom Line perspective (profit, people, planet).These enhancements initially affect supply chains management and then expand towards entrepreneurship, business model development, innovation management and societal development.

Research shows that there is a significant potential to address the complex challenges towards a more sustainable and resilient society by cross-fertilizing these disciplines through the circular economy perspective, via provisioning new courses and practical cases. For this reason, the joint CE-I4.0 evolution needs to be grounded on a new set of knowledge and best practices to be provided through both high education (HE) and vocational education and training, demanding systemic ways for sustainable development. CERES recognizes the need to shift the restricted focus of CE from firms to a more extended and system-level view that considers skills, competences and knowledge needs (provided from various business sectors such as e-waste, textiles, renewable energy, etc) to be supplied to HE and VET. This would catalyse the embracement of circular economy under a social development perspective from the preliminary stage of training and education.

In this context, CERES’ new innovation ecosystem, the Circular Economy Digital Innovation Hub (CE-DIH), is aimed to promote connectedness among the stakeholders and to generate a systematised set of services, skills, competences and knowledge able to support the multi-faceted CE domain. The CE-DIH can be strategic not only to raise awareness but also to provide the most suitable and complete set of services able to support the circular enrichment and transition of both companies on the market and individuals in society.