Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda on Circular Economy

Switching to a circular economy means changing the entire system we live and operate in – and this will not be achieved through single-point interventions. Systemic change means shifting both the function and structure of a system and sustaining change over time through programmatic intervention.
The global COVID-19 crisis has exposed fundamental flaws in current economic and resource systems. The circular economy can boost the EU’s resilience against similar future crises by securing material supply, decoupling environmental degradation from economic growth and reducing the dependency on material consumption as the means to socioeconomic prosperity.

The SRIA was developed based on eight priority themes (biomass and biotechnologies, chemicals, construction and demolition, food, plastic, raw materials, waste and water). The themes build on four societal areas that face sustainability challenges (urban areas, industrial systems, value chains and territory and sea) to identify priority areas for CE research and innovation (aka. Innovation fields) that tackle EU region-wide issues and facilitate the circular economy transition. Based on the innovation fields, four joint programmes were developed in this SRIA:
1) Circular Cities,
2) Circular Industries,
3) Closing the Loop and
4) Resource Efficiency on Territory & Sea.
(Source: document “Executive Summary”).