The Policy Lab for Circular Regions gets to a new dimension! Join now.

In 2017, Veltha and its partners on the SCREEN (Synergic Circular Economy across European Regions) project established a Policy Lab in order to ignite the analysis on circular economy projects, with a two-fold aim.

Firstly, it ensured that the analysis and the proposals developed within the project were discussed both with regional and EU-level policymakers, as well as with other key stakeholders.  This is a key step in order to guarantee the feasibility, relevance and effectiveness of the proposals. 

Second, it acted as a platform for synergy creations, triggering the regular exchange of information and feedback among the participants in order to take into account all the views during the actual implementation. The Policy Lab was a collaborative tool within the SCREEN project aiming to match with each other the different issues raised by the partners and regions, explore possible scenarios and co-design solutions for better policies.

When the project was successfully terminated, the partners decided to continue working within the Policy Lab on a voluntary basis: such a work lead to the new INTERREG EUROPE project “REPLACE” “Regional Policy Actions for Circular Economy, started on 2019.

Now the Policy Lab is going go one-step forward. In March 2020, the European Union adopted the new Circular Economy Action Plan “For a cleaner and more competitive Europe”. There is a pressing need for smooth communication and coordination between the regions in order to bring innovative proposals to Brussels.

The circular economy has to be the centre of the development strategy and the only way to tackle this challenge is to address it jointly. In order to facilitate these needed partnerships, Veltha has decided to enlarge the Policy Lab and its network, also exploiting the DIGIPRIME project ( Digital Platform for Circular Economy in Cross-sectorial Sustainable Value Networks ) and its envisaged circular economy platform.

How will the Policy Lab 2.0 be?

The new version of the Policy Lab will work in 3-month periods in which a main research question will be posed by Veltha to the regions based on their needs.

Inside each period, a sub-question will be asked each month and then a monthly web meeting will take place between all the participants. After the first meeting, Veltha will merge all the information received from the internal discussions of the regions and from the meeting and brief all the participants on the current state.

Then the second sub-question will be posed and so on. The goal of asking a particular general question each period is to devote our efforts into building a structured common answer, which will be collected in the form of a publication. 

What’s in for the partners?

The partners of the Policy Lab will be engaged on a voluntary basis, giving them enough flexibility to conduct their own internal discussion. They will have a platform to connect and collaborate with other European regions working on similar issues, from which to take best practices or form alliances to work on a specific project. Moreover, each (3 months) period the new publication will be lobbied in Brussels by Veltha, thus ensuring that the real needs of the regions and their proposals reach the decision-making bodies. 

Interested in joining the Policy Lab?

Apply at this link: Screen-policy-lab.mn.co