In the CircleUp project, we’re always looking for opportunities to connect with like-minded initiatives that are trying to figure out what the circular economy could look like. That’s why we were so happy to get the chance to take part in the EPSRC-Defra circular economy workshops held on 20 June 2025 – an afternoon of deep discussion.

What happened at the workshop?

The workshop was hosted by one of the UK’s research councils, the Engineering and physical scie and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), and a government department, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). The aim was to bring together researchers working around the circular economy to explore how future UK research policy can move beyond recycling and embrace other circular models.

It was a great opportunity to get into detailed discussion about what the circular economy looks like in practice including:

• How do we define and differentiate the 8Rs of circularity?
• Which Rs are underrepresented or misunderstood?
• What support do researchers need to explore new areas?

Two interesting themes continued to come up throughout the afternoon.

1. Interdisciplinary work is key, especially including social science perspectives to help navigate the huge behavioural and systems change that’s needed to achieve circularity.
2. Researchers are keen to work in an applied and embedded context, collaborating with businesses, communities and policy makers in localised, regional networks.

UK vs EU: a tale of two circular strategies

As a Horizon Europe project, CircleUp is rooted in the EU’s ambitious Circular Economy Action Plan. But in each of our four pilots (Norway, Germany, Latvia, and the UK), national and local policies also play an important role. It was interesting to compare the policy approaches in the UK with the presentations from the EU Green Week conference at the start of June.

What’s shared?

• A focus on the numerous R-strategies beyond recycling (there are too many to count!)
• A growing emphasis on behavioural and systemic change and the need for interdisciplinary research

What’s distinct?

• The UK’s approach is increasingly sector-specific, with five priority areas: chemicals & plastics, textiles, agri-food, transport, and the built environment
• EU initiatives like the Circular Cities and Regions Initiative (CCRI) emphasize regional scaling and real-world testing of circular economy research.

In particular, it seems there’s a lot the UK could learn from the CCRI network which speaks to the need for a more localised and applied approach to circular economy research.

What does it mean for CircleUp?

Just like at the EU Green Week, there was a lot of inspiration for CirlceUp in the future of UK circular economy research. It’s great to see an increased emphasis on interdisciplinary work which is at the heart of the CircleUp approach and a growing recognition of the value of applied “real-world” research. We’ll be watching with interest to see how the UK circular economy strategy continues to develop from here.