Author: Matthew Sarfas

The UCL Plastic Waste Innovation Hub would like your help to better understand the factors affecting household maintenance and repair (carried out yourself or using professional services) of home appliances and electronics across the UK. Your participation will help develop ‘Right to Repair’ policy and support the UK towards meeting important environmental targets.

The first part of the project is a short survey about your opinion and behaviour towards maintenance and repair of home appliances and electronics. See Participant Information for details. The second part is an optional Logbook to share a few details about your maintenance and repair experiences. See Logbook Guidelines for details.

Take Part 

The project has been highlighted and reported on by the Guardian and BBC Radio 4. Read more by following the links below.

BBC Radio 4 The Guardian

As part of the UKRI National Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Research programme (NICER), funding is being made available to support SMEs engage with and benefit from access to expertise at five research centres via collaborative research and development (CR&D) activities. The aim of this competition is to support feasibility studies, industrial research and experimental development projects that address the challenges of transitioning to a circular economy. Projects are particularly encouraged that focus on retaining the maximum amount of value in a product or system.

A broad spectrum of circular economy approaches will be in scope, for example:

• repair
• reuse
• remanufacture
• recycle
• regeneration

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will invest up to £1 million in circular economy innovation projects. Your proposal must demonstrate how you will create a step-change in the adoption of circular economy approaches. Projects must also have a total eligible cost of between £50,000 and £100,000, be carried out in the UK and last between 9 and 12 months. 

Additional details, as well as a list of full elegibility criteria, can be found on the UK Government Funding website. 

The application deadline for support through the CircularMetal programme is 12 November 2021. 

Full competition details and application information

Key members of the CircularMetals Centre have spoken out about the need to turn today’s high-carbon steel sector into tomorrow’s net zero champion. They propose a vision of the complete re-utilisation of steel which can lead to savings of up to 86% of greenhouse gas emissions, as well as using 85% less energy and 40% less water consumption. As most of the UK’s 11-12Mt of scrap is exported and downcycled, there is a ready supply of steel which could be used domestically to help us achieve out net zero targets; Although this will require considerable investment in scrap sorting and infrastructure within the UK.

Read the full post on UCL’s website, which describes the challenges and benefits in detail by clicking here.

The CircularMetal Hub is supporting an opportunity for all of our academic colleagues and collaborators to submit a paper to the Virtual Special Issue of the Resources, Conservation & Recycling Journal on the topic of “Building back better with synergistic climate change and circular economy interventions”. The deadline for submitting papers is September 30th 2021. Professor Raimund Bleischwitz of CircularMetal and UCL is one of the guest editors!

Find out more Submission guidelines

Important Dates

Full paper submission deadline: September 30, 2021

Final decision notification deadline: January 14, 2022

Publication: As soon as accepted (VSI)

The CE-Hub is looking to fund its first round of Feasibility Studies. These studies will accelerate Circular Economy research, innovation and implementation with a specific focus on the five resource flows connected with the UKRI funded National Circular Economy Centres. Research into specific enablers or barriers that are common to multiple centres, resource flows and/or sectors are encouraged. These can include, but are not limited to:
– Metrics and Indicators
– Product and Service Design
– Business Models including citizen adoption
– Digital Technology
– Procurement
– Finance
– Skills and the future of work.

The total funding available for this call is £200,000 and we want to fund as many high quality applications as possible. Feasibility Studies will be funded to a maximum of £50,000 at full Economic Cost (fEC). Funding will be awarded at 80% fEC (total project value cannot exceed £50,000). Projects can be between 6 and 12 months in length and must be completed before the end of November 2022. Applications where a portion of the project costs are met by industry funding are also welcomed.

The aim of the fund is to provide the wider Circular Economy community with the opportunity to undertake interdisciplinary, cross-value chain, foresight, speculative and potentially high-impact research to accelerate innovative solutions in collaboration with the NICER Programme. Proposals that consider different scales (including regional and place-based research), new collaborations between sectors and disciplines, and involve and / or led by early career researchers will all be encouraged. Projects will also be expected to ensure that their research involves explicit collaboration with industry partner(s) providing direct or in-kind support.

More information is available below:

CE-Hub Website Fund Overview Full announcement information

On Monday 10 May, the Centre for Circular Metals was launched online by public webinar.

Guests and speakers included Vice Chancellor of Brunel University London, Professor Julia Buckingham and Baroness Brown of Cambridge. Partners discussed how they will be working to achieve the goal of making the UK the world’s first metal fully circular economy . The welcome session included a discussion panel of academics and industrial partners, where viewers could ask questions relating to the project. A recording of the full event is available online:

This Centre is a collaboration between Brunel University London, Warwick Manufacturing Group and University College London. It is part of a series of five centres receiving a share of £22.5 million of government investment. Together, the centres will be lower the environmental impact of production and consumption of resources across the UK.

Learn more about the team who will be working to achieve a circular metal economy.