The idea was born during a meeting with representatives of a few student academic organisations from different Krakow universities. The regional coordinator of SYMBI introduced and presented the project to the students who were interested in the possibilities of cooperation and the academic potential of industrial symbiosis. As one representative said, students were eager to get involved in research related to the project’s theme. In the following brainstorming and a heated debate, the participants came up with the idea of a competition to collect and describe solutions based on industrial symbiosis.
Following this interest, the Malopolska region launched the contest targeted at all members of student’s academic organisations of the Malopolska universities. The registration is open until the 8th of May and the papers may be filed until the end of June. The participants’ task is to find and describe successful examples of industrial symbiosis in the region as well as to design new solutions for the existing companies. The cases should be described in a provided template and may be supported with visual schemes or pictures.
The winners will be selected based on the specified evaluation criteria including: compliance with the definition of industrial symbiosis, quality of description and conclusions, visuals, innovativeness, and environmental impact of the solution.
The contest was initially presented and discussed during a conference which took place on 4th April in Krakow. On this occasion, a few organisations with their academic supervisors expressed their interest and willingness to join the competition. As it was stated in the discussion, students will receive support in their efforts to find interesting cases and approach the companies. The academic supervisors will help them prepare a questionnaire for companies and select interesting and viable solutions. On the other hand, the Malopolska Region has offered to help participants in contacting the companies.
It seems that Malopolska is on the threshold of an interesting and promising cooperation with the view of spreading the concept of circular economy and industrial symbiosis among young researchers who will carry the idea forward.
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