CIRCONOMY® Hubs

CIRCONOMY^® Hubs are distributed innovation ecosystems made up of cooperating players and stakeholders from science, industry, politics, administration and society. Each hub deals with one specific area of research in the circular economy (e.g. urban systems, industrial biotechnology, renewable energies) and supports the value-based transformation to the circular economy (the mission) with its specific results. The hubs produce joint strategies and roadmaps, areas of focus for R&D and measures for transfer and education. They do this by creating and using a common data space that enables fast learning within and between CIRCONOMY^® Hubs, networks the best solutions and promotes agile cooperation.

The aim is to build an architecture of mission-oriented CIRCONOMY^® Hubs across Germany that can be connected to the existing innovation strategies and roadmaps and put them into practice quickly. This is possible because:

• mission-oriented hubs set clear focus areas and contribute significantly to the achievement of societal goals (such as the German sustainability strategy);
• CIRCONOMY^® Hubs offer proposals for implementing innovation projects from the Circular Economy Roadmap for Germany;
• CIRCONOMY^® Hubs can handle increasing system complexity and create the circular ecosystems that are needed;
• material/product cycles, digitalization, financing opportunities and business models need to be considered in a joined-up way;
• CIRCONOMY^® Hubs put the focus on the innovation system, and
• the transformation has only just begun and CIRCONOMY^® Hubs offer early solutions to these challenges thanks to their concept, structure and mission orientation.
  
  

CIRCONOMY^® Hubs: Picture of the future

CIRCONOMY^® Hubs should not be seen as projects, but instead as future-shaping infrastructure to accompany the “decade of the circular transformation.” During this time, they serve as a compass for forward-looking action for industry, science, politics and society, and support the central mission of technological sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Germany. Setting up CIRCONOMY^® Hubs as an infrastructure for circular ecosystems requires a dedicated funding program over a long period (at least ten years) with a volume of 100 to 200 million euros invested in a mission-oriented way (systems research funding).

This will create an infrastructure for sustainable cooperation that focuses on missions while always remaining agile. The establishment of the hubs will:

• increase opportunities for breakthrough innovations;
• promote the transfer of knowledge through education/training, but also in business start-ups through societally relevant issues;
•  help to find internationally marketable solutions more quickly thanks to accelerated learning effects, and
• create sustainable value because sovereign value cycles are geared toward societal value.