The CIRCULAR consortium met on the 23rd and 24th of April at the University of Almeria in Spain to hold their second in-person coordination meeting.  During the meeting the partners discussed management and financial issues, as well as an update on the different Work Packages and activities were given by the Work Packages leaders. Work Package 2 was finished last year with the co-creation of the CIRCULAR Model and right now the CIRCULAR consortium is working on Work Package 3 (Capacity-Building) and Work package 4 (Living Labs).

After the Second Coordination Meeting, CIRCULAR Partners participated in the Blended Bootcamp that took place from 24th to 26th of April 2024.  The Blended Bootcamp workshop formed part of the Capacity-Building Training activities within Work Package 3.  The workshop in Almeria was the piloting bootcamp for the bootcamp that will be implemented at the Southeast Asian partner universities in June and July this year. In the piloting bootcamp, all three modules that form part of the Capacity-Building training were presented to the participants. The training programme was divided into a general module about circular economy, a module dedicated to academics and a module for researchers. After the theoretical input, the CIRCULAR partners took part in some interactive and practical sessions on local context analysis, barriers and stakeholder engagement.

Bootcamp participants also had the opportunity to visit some greenhouses that form part of the Andalusian Observatory for Circular Economy. Thanks to this this visit, participants could get firsthand insights into circular economy research done in the region with largest concentration of greenhouses worldwide.