CIRCULAR ECONOMY INNOVATION ECOSYSTEM BUIDLING IN SERBIA

During July 2021, sensemaking and policy mix prototype sessions were held with total of 33 stakeholders coming from funding organizations, ministries, chamber of commerce, companies, NGO sector and university .

WHY DO WE NEED SYSTEM MAPPING?

Sensemaking sessions had mapped stakeholders view on the challenge: “The lack of enabling factors for development and positioning of systemic innovation in the domain of circular economy in the Republic of Serbia”. Out of 110 mapped situations, CIREKON has extracted 21 situations from various domains which may be influencing further circular economy development, mostly aligned with the Green Agenda for West Balkans.

WHAT WHERE OUR MAIN OBJECTIVES?

CirEkon team had selected major virtuous loops from the work done,  thus influencing the system as following:

• Increase of understanding about CE, as a way to increase value in society, economy and nature
• Increase of knowledge and understanding about Cleantech industry
• Increase of attractiveness of CE for media chief editors, thus making the topic more interesting for the public
• Raising awareness of the benefits of using local, circular services and products among citizens
• Higher rate of budget support for innovation

INNOVATION & RESULTS

It was apparent that the innovation ecosystem is still in its very beginnings of development. It is necessary to move the innovative part of society to understand what CE is, find benefit in that system and become an active part of it.

Therefore, and CE innovation agenda is proposed to consist of three areas of effect for the systemic platform building.

The essence of the agenda is to push the systems towards innovation with the right knowledge and apply the knowledge in collaborative initiatives, while creating a new body of knowledge through experimenting, piloting and setting up novel processes.

CROSS CUTTING ISSUES

The proposed prototypes of activities 2022-2027  Serbia were extracted from the participants’ contributions and combined with the expert knowledge about systems and circular economy by CirEkon , and recognized as following:

1. Cultural shift
2. Data and knowledge to push for new collaboration
3. Teaming up for new opportunities
4. Innovation support team
5. Experiment driven industrial hives

Observations together with the 7-year experience in the field of circular economy in Serbia and region are placed in this system mapping project by CirEkon and in order to produce conclusions, aimed only at a systemic character of the CE development in country.

This project connected views of local stakeholders to the similar stakeholders from the Balkan region.

WHAT WE HAVE FOUND? INSTEAD OF CONCLUSIONS

1. Country needs fast and mass deployment of knowledge in order to prevent proliferation of low-skilled “experts”, using the opportunity to only label waste management or related fields in CE. Or – Create accreditation schemes for circular economy experts
2. Society needs to push the throw away culture and embrace responsible consumption
3. Clear criteria for CE development are necessary to move to a positive systemic direction, with minimized risks for lock-ins, therefore the support for nation wide analysis and research is necessary.
4. Promote and support analysis and research in the domain of CE. Serbia needs high quality argumentation why, in what areas and who of the actors should start developing CE models
5. Clear rules for actors are necessary, clear responsibility schemes to various public bodies is a necessity
6. Three very clear areas where the support and major channelisation is necessary are:

• Education (not training particularly)
• Collaboration (multistakeholder and interdisciplinary)
• Integrate digitalization into the CE development

7. Avoid funding without engagement and focus on co-funding from own resources.
8. Focus on impact driven funding
9. Accent knowledge and experience transfer to enable local workforce to move on. Short-term technical assistance is preventing large scale local development
10. Support media and full information dissemination through media, support documentaries, education and informational videos
11. Include society, decrease the accent of technology-only approach
12. Invest to counter green-washing and short-term solutions
13. When engaging companies, focus on innovation and co-development with their supply chains

14, Slight accent in the first period should be given to medium sized companies due to their capacity, and need to innovate to stay competitive and become part of EU value chains

15. Support beginning of the pipe solutions instead of end of pipe solutions
16. Support and promote active cities to become circular hot-spots
17. Focus on eco-system innovation approach rather than on specific isolated solutions
18. Urgently discover opportunities for tighter loops (maintenance, repair, refurbishing, re manufacturing)

FUTURE STEPS

Don’t let this blog be one of the many you have red.

We hardly work to make social impact  with CE need assessments  in our country and Balkan Region.

Implement circularity in your  business and everyday life for us and future generations.

We  are ready to listen,  lead you through cross mapping process and  give all our support.

Visit  https://circular-beacons.net  and  https://www.cirekon.rs for more details.

Let’s   work, innovate and transform everything to better!