Marina Schmitz, Mirjana Matešić and Mislav Ante Omazić of the IEDC-Bled School of Management discuss the challenge of moving to a circular economy.
Since January 2024, 10 organisations in four European countries have been working on the following question, if Europe is serious about a circular economy, who is actually going to teach people how to run one? Become, short for Boosting Circular Economy Expertise through learning communities, is a project that was designed to do just this.
Co-funded by Erasmus+, it runs until mid-2027, bringing together four universities, two vocational colleges and four employers from across Finland, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Bulgaria.
The consortium first mapped existing and missing circular skills in its four regions.
The gap analysis that was carried out was then backed up by the development of modular training materials and a training week in Bled (Slovenia) in May 2025 for around 30 educators, followed by a second week for 20 company practitioners in March 2026. Circular hubs and local learning communities are also operating in all four countries.
