The Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Centre for Sustainability is going strong, also in the second half of 2018. The collaboration between Leiden, Delft, Erasmus and Wageningen Universities in the ACCEZ (Accelerating Circular Economy Zuid-Holland) programme with the Province of Zuid-Holland really took off. We recruited a team to lead two pilot projects on a circular economy in the province, one led by our board member prof. Ellen van Bueren on the Central Innovation District (CID) in the Hague, and one led by prof. Koos Biesmeijer on the ‘Green hart’ rural area. There was more good news regarding CID – we teamed up with the scientific platform “Metabolism of Cities”, and we won the CID Challenge, which gives additional research funding to create a dashboard for all material flows in the city of the Hague.
This fall also saw the launch of our Circular Industries Hub, coordinated by Jan-Henk Welink of the TU Delft. The launch will be with a boom: on 19 December the Industry Hub organizes a graduation project market with organisations that include ABN AMRO, Alliander and others. The cherry on the pie was the Circular Economy Research Symposium held on 1 October at the Provincial government office in The Hague. Almost 200 students, researchers, government officials and professionals attended. During this symposium we also signed a collaborative agreement with the Top Sector Horticulture and Starting Materials (TKI TU), in which the Top Sector will support students and their supervisors if they are interested to work on a topic in this sector.
With all these achievements, it is hardly a surprise that the boards of Leiden University, TU Delft and Erasmus University Rotterdam decided Centre for Sustainability will continue in the next strategic collaboration period of Leiden-Delft-Erasmus between 2019 and 2024. We can look forward with confidence to 2019, and I look forward seeing you in the new year. For now, I wish you an excellent end of year period with your loved ones!
Prof. dr. Arnold Tukker
Scientific Director Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Centre for Sustainability
