Cataly(c)st aims to bring best practices from the research world, the maker communities, the youth movements and industry into one strong initiative.
By Ragnhild Nordeng Fauchald, Phd. student, Engage
Sustainability and Engage;As previous presented, Engage is participating in the Cataly(c)st project. The project “CATALY(C)ST: Youth Change Makers as Catalysts for a transition to a Sustainable Circular Economy” involves partners from five Nordic countries (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland) and it is co-funded by the Nordic Innovation. The project aims to bring best practices from the research world, the maker communities, the youth movements and industry into one strong initiative.
Circular Economy
This will allow unusual partners to join in on one uniform agenda to speed up development of Nordic sustainable Circular Economy impact projects. Therefore, the project is also an important contribution to the focus on working for sustainability at Engage. Not only does the project especially focus on the 12. and 13. Sustainability Goals, but through the project, Engage focus on sustainability through the 17. Sustainable Development Goal by working systematically and strategic with project partners and the 4. goal for making our students education more relevant for the challenges they will meet in their working life.
Development of Tool-kit and Resources by – and for – the Youth Change Makers
Through systematic multidisciplinary collaboration between students and researchers from the project partners DTU, DTU Skylab, KHT, Aalto, EFLA and Engage, and the involved industry partners, Cataly(c)sts purpose is to develop a tool kit including relevant methods, activities, designs and other research-based material to use in Circular Economy related real-life cases. By engaging both students and young employees from our industry partners in the development, Cataly(c)st aim to do this as practice oriented and relevant as possible for the change makers and their everyday work of Circular Economy.
Entrepreneurship education
Engage is well known for working strategic with entrepreneurship based on the Engage Framework. One important contribution from Engage in the project is therefore to help develop a framework for the Cataly(c)st tool-kit and to contribute to the tool-kit with relevant methods and activities that are used in entrepreneurship education that can be transformed to the field of Circular Economy. In this way Engage work with both Climate challenges goal 13 and to develop Sustainable Consumption and Production patterns, as described in the 12.goal.
Relevant Cases in Student Activities based on our industry partners needs
To develop a tool-kit itself is not valuable unless the tools is relevant for the young change makers and their possible future work place. That is why the industry partners is such involved in the project as they are. The industry partners will develop student activities and student tasks where the students will be challenged to use tools from the toolkit combined with academic competences from the field of circular economy to solve cases from the industry partners. A win-win situation for the students and the project partners! Doing this also contributes to actively working with the Sustainability development goal 4 – Quality education – and specifically the goal 4.7; “Ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development (…)”.
Multidisciplinary collaboration across countries now and in the future
The multidisciplinary development of tools, framework, community and student tasks across the participating universities are also a key element in the project. Engage contributes with our entrepreneurship – and innovation knowledge, while other universities contributes with expert competences in Circular Economy. In that way, we share and create new knowledge across borders and fields, which itself fits into the 17. Sustainability Development Goal; Partnership for the goals. Through the Cataly(c)st-project, we aim to develop a Digital Community of Practice as a tool for doing it possible for youths to cooperate and co-create the future Circular Economy practice. The digital platform will be a delivery from the project that gives the youths a platform to communicate and practice sustainable circular economy in partnerships for the future.
Read more about United Nations Sustainable Development Goals