Dialogue between Academia and Industry as the driving force for Innovation in Circular Economy

“What we need to think about when we think about disruption in circular economy is first, zero waste, second maximum value and especially adapt to the right market,” highlights Maria Manuela Pintado, Director of the Centre for Biotechnology and Fine Chemistry at Universidade Católica Portuguesa on the latest episode of Reach out Podcast.

“Innovation in Circular Economy” follows up on two-part episode "Circular Economy - General Concept and Theme Introduction" within the Transform4Europe’s podcast series, co-produced by Católica.

In this episode, moderated by Beatriz Bernardes, PhD student in Biotechnology and Católica’s representative at Transform4Europe's Student Council, Maria Manuela Pintado and Guido Bortoluzzi, Professor at the University of Trieste, dive further into the topic of innovation in circular economy, highlighting the crucial role of collaboration between academia, industry, and public policy in accelerating practical, real-world circular economy solutions.

The industry “challenges us with their needs”, says Professor Maria Manuela Pintado. And in this relationship, dialogue, trust and confidentiality are crucial.

But innovation is not just creating new things, Guido Bortoluzzi states. "To create sustainable products you need a sustainable mindset, so you need a sustainable, innovative work behavior. We developed the scale, we tested the scale and actually we found, as expected to be honest, that there was a strong, let's say connection between, the intention to to be sustainable and to live in a sustainable way and then the ability of people to create sustainable products."

Recorded during the Universidade Católica Portuguesa's Innovation Day - which marked the 40th anniversary of the Faculty of Biotechnology and the 5th edition of the T4EU Science Café, this discussion is part of a two-part episode, and you can listen to the first part here.

Listen to the full episode here: