“The ‘Circular Economy’ has become a new buzzword in debates about sustainability. Circularity, however, is usually presented in terms of scientific and technological challenges that often neglect the socio-political aspects related to the transition towards more sustainable futures, such as participation, co-creation and social justice. We argue that the Circular Economy agenda might greatly benefit from the field of Responsible Innovation. This argument is at the centre of the EU-funded project, ‘A Just Transition to Circular Economy’ (JUST2CE), which aspires to address the present shortcomings of Circular Economy literature and practices. JUST2CE aims at understanding, in a critical way, under which conditions a responsible, inclusive and socially just transition to a Circular Economy is possible and desirable, what technical, political and social factors can enable or hamper such transformation and how these aspects can contribute to the development of transitional policy measures.

Keynote speaker

Mario Pansera, researcher in social sciences researcher at the University of Vigo, focusing on Responsible Research and Innovation and Innovation for degrowth/postgrowth.

Panelists

Dimitri Corpakis, GRACE advisory board member, independent expert on innovation, growth and technological change.

Rosa Arias, CEO and Founder at Science for Change, D-NOSES project coordinator at Ibercivis Foundation.

John Munthe, Vice President, Research, IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute.

Moderator

Simos Veloudis, Associate Professor, Senior Researcher – South-East European Research Centre (SEERC), GRACE expert partner.