How do we promote exchange between industry, society, education, and research to advance the Circular Economy globally? How can synergies be created between industry, politics, and science? At TUM, more than 100 researchers from over 30 institutes are addressing these questions as members of Germany’s largest research network, “TUM Mission Network Circular Economy” (CirculaTUM).
In this year’s retreat from July 19-20 at the Cohaus Kloster in Schlehdorf at Kochelsee, valuable contributions for exciting discussions were presented by passionate stakeholders. Among them were Niclas-Alexander Mauß from CIRCULAR REPUBLIC, Lucía Lara Vargas from the TUM Venture Lab Sustainability & Circular, Jaimee Lau from the Chair of International Relations at TUM, and guests Jonas Barth and Enno Lang from TU Darmstadt’s Institute for Production Management, Technology and Machine Tools (PTW). Scientific insights into sustainable business start-ups and the concept of the Learning Factory of the TU Darmstadt were provided, the relevance and challenges in integrating climate metrics for the selection criteria for public funding programs were discussed, and the complete sector cycle for batteries was presented. The wide range of topics highlighted the versatility and complexity of the circular economy today. For this reason, the goal of the two-day retreat was to strengthen CirculaTUM’s influence as a link between industry, science, and the public and to realize further transdisciplinary research projects.
In summary, valuable progress was made in several focus areas during the two-day meeting to further strengthen the exchange between the mentioned fields. We sincerely thank all participants for the lively discussions and ideas. CirculaTUM lives and gains in importance through the commitment of everyone. Together, we drive sustainability and innovation to shape a circular future.
To also (in the future) strengthen the networking of the numerous members and to promote synergies in terms of content, feel free to follow us on LinkedIn or find out more on our CirculaTUM Webseite, which we are currently working on at full speed.
If you have further questions or are interested in joining the network, please get in touch with the new CirculaTUM coordinator Ann-Christin Kessler at circula@tum.de.
