To the define the big societal and environmental challenges that CiD students will tackle during the academic programme, Ersilia harnessed the 6 observatories CiD project has, aimed initially at identifying and addressing market needs and emerging professions related to Design for the Circular Economy.

CiD Innovation Ecosystem showcasing observatories (in pink): European Urban Transformation Observatory, European Bio-based Innovation Observatory, European Circular Economy Observatory, and three local observatories in Hannover (Germany), Barcelona (Spain), and Genoa (Italy).

During the first three months of the project, our observatories conducted focus groups and one-on-one interviews with more than 40 stakeholders. The mission was to pinpoint societal and environmental challenges that could spark innovation in Circular Design, inspire start-up projects within CiD, and guide our educational program. Through a convergence process, we evaluated and refined these challenges, combining them into a coherent and effective framework.

We clustered the challenges into three primary pillars:

1. Climate-Neutral Cities
2. Climate-Adaptive Cities
3. Climate-Neutral Products & Services

Additionally, some challenges were classified as transversal, addressing Urban Circularity, Bio-Regional Material Flows, the Adaptation & Mitigation Connection, the need for storytelling about bio-based materials, products & services, and the need to update Public Procurement & Law.

However, simply presenting these challenges might not be enough to inspire our students. We need to clearly define the problems and create compelling stories around them.