Circular Economy Entrepreneurship Competences for youth

The new Circular Economy Action Plan ‘For a cleaner and more competitive Europe’ is a key priority of the EU stating ‘the transition to a more circular economy, where the value of products, materials and resources is maintained in the economy for as long as possible, and waste minimized, is an essential contribution to the EU's efforts to develop a sustainable, low carbon, resource efficient and competitive economy’. To boost Europe's development, the economy must transform so today’s goods and wastes will be tomorrow’s resources. Circular economy is a solution to grow EU's competitiveness by protecting businesses against resources’ scarcity and unstable prices, initiating new business opportunities and more sustainable ways of producing and consuming, creating local jobs at all skill levels and opportunities for social integration. According to the Eurobarometer 40% of young Europeans emphasize the importance of changing behavior through environmentally friendly initiatives. Our project addressed these needs by developing youth initiatives and pilot training to improve the economic situation in the partners’ countries by creating their own businesses and realizing innovative ideas.

We wanted to achieve the following objectives: to promote employment and entrepreneurship in EU rural areas by increasing young people capabilities to reconvert empty spaces to host co-working & start-up incubators, exploiting potentialities offered by circular economy; - to promote youth skills and competencies for the development of co-working spaces & start-up incubators focused on specific areas: furniture, agro-business & building/housing; - to equip young people with relevant circular economy skills, that are at a cross roads between citizenship competencies and entrepreneurial competences; - to foster youth capabilities to operate at transnational level for developing joint concrete circular coworking projects; - to promote the learning of CE related subjects through creative and innovative teaching methodologies and training tools - to develop a training curriculum and schemes in the subject of CE - to develop a business self-assessment tool regarding the adoption of CE practices for further training (VLE and blended learning).

The following activities were implemented: A1. Project and Quality Management The aim of Project and Quality Management activities was to ensure the smooth and timely implementation of the project in terms of financing, administration, production and coordination. This included the following activities: project planning; communication; monitoring; fine-tuning; organizing partner meetings; drafting meeting minutes; coordinating, collecting and reviewing progress reports; defining of qualitative and quantitative success criteria; monitoring and evaluation; developing executive quality reports; reporting any significant deviation to the partnership and initiating a contingency plan; communicating with the National Agency etc. A1.1. Development of Project Work Plan (PWP) A1.2 Organization of partner meetings & conference calls: Kick-off meeting in Bucharest, 2nd Transnational meeting in Vilnius, Final Meeting in Palermo; training Mobility of young people. A1.3 Two Progress reports A1.4 Elaboration of QMP A1.5 Two Executive quality reports. A2. Dissemination & Exploitation Strategy focused on: clarifying the dissemination and communication scope, aims and timing; Identification and classification of the target groups and stakeholders; Elaboration of stakeholders’ engagement plan; Identification of the particular messages to be communicated throughout the project; Definition of dissemination, communication and exploitation means, methods and tools at national and European level (social networks, press releases, events etc.), including effective ways to collect feedback; Definition of success indicators; Clarification of IPR issues; Detailed action plan and reporting templates of the partners’ dissemination activities; developed and regularly updated the website in order to be firstly transferable and accessible in a worldwide level, and secondly, to be used as an e-learning material from deferent educational sectors. A2.1 Development of the Dissemination & Exploitation Strategy A2.2 Design of internal and external communication templates A2.3 Design of leaflets, videos, posters and roll-up banners A2.4 Monitoring of dissemination and exploitation activities and events All partners have: - Participated and provided input to the above activities and deliverables; Made explicit their commitment to provide resources that guarantee the sustainability of the project’s outcomes once it is over; - Used various project and own resources in order to disseminate project results and activities at local/regional/national and European level; - Engaged the target group and raised awareness of the project and its value to relevant local/regional/national and European stakeholders and multipliers; - Translated newsletters, leaflets text and other relevant material to their national language; -actively involved in the exploitation and sustainability efforts from the beginning of the project; and - Report implemented dissemination and exploitation actions, using the templates that were provided by the Dissemination & Exploitation Leader. R1. CE Sectorial Assessment; has been developed based on the proposal through the identification of the risks and opportunities for the value chain, analysis of business models and design of circular solutions. R2.Toolbox of Interactive Infographic Resources: developed 12 interactive infographics. R3. Virtual Learning Environment (VLE): developed the e-learning platform of the project. MEs: organized national info days in each country towards the end of the project. Continuously updated the project website (https://c-entry.eu) with relevant materials – news items, newsletters, etc. Organized the L/T/T event C1-Unpacking Circular Economy for next generation which took place for 5 days between June 04 and June 09 2023 in Athens, Greece and where each partner has sent 2 young people to be trained in various Circular Economy topics.

The results and outputs developed are the following: 1. CE Sectorial Assessment Methodology 2. Toolkit of Interactive Infographic Material 3. Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) Other results include: • Project Webpage with a link to Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) platform (https://c-entry.eu). • Four biannual newsletters (two per year for dissemination purposes). All partners contributed to the newsletters with results and activities achieved at local level. • Project presentation through Social Media for communication and dissemination purposes (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc). • Project management plan. • Quality Assurance Plan • Impact Assessment • Sustainability Strategy • Dissemination Strategy • Monitoring, dissemination and meeting reports, Survey Reports • 6 multiplier events organized by the consortium in all partner countries • Pilot blended training of young people in each partner country •Fostering youth capabilities to operate at transnational level for developing joint circular economy projects •Better understanding of benefits related to CE/waste management technical areas •Better understanding and acceptance of courses •Increased knowledge on CE subject areas •Improvement of the partners’ management and organization skills •Upskilling of partners’ staff on Circular Economy issues •Maximization of the cooperation among all the involved •Increase in the participants’ relational and communicative skills •Reinforcement of partners’ networking skills with business associations Enterprises and other Stakeholders in the sector under consideration and its value chain •Accomplishment of intercultural competences.