A long collaboration between Regional Development Agency for Podravje – Maribor and School Centre Ptuj has led to a generation of students who will gain the knowledge to become Industrial Symbiosis facilitators.

INSET project partner Regional Development Agency for Podravje – Maribor has set up a very fruitful collaboration with the School Centre Ptuj, which is both a VET and Higher education organisation.
As a smaller and flexible knowledge provider, they are always looking at new ways to provide knowledge and new topics, which would equip their students with skills they will need in the future.
It is for that reason that they are very interested in presenting the Toolkit of the INSET project to their students and have agreed to provide inputs for the Curriculum developed by the project partnership, as well as include it in their regular work in the upcoming academic year.
Such collaboration is part of RDAPM’s mission to disseminate knew knowledge in the region and raise regional capacity and competitiveness, especially in the field of circular economy.
We have already hosted the freshmen students and presented the project to them in order to raise awareness about the topic of industrial symbiosis, as well as align our work in the project with the curriculum of the school, at allow for their uptake of the project results with this generation of students in their sophomore year.
As their students of economy, they are already looking for ways to implement their theoretical knowledge in various companies they are involved with, ranging from family companies in the local environment, to large regional companies they are conducting their practical part of study programs in.
As one of the students said: “It’s such knowledge, like knowing how to implement industrial symbiosis, that sets us apart from other students and gives us the edge, making us a more desired candidates for jobs with added values, once we finish our studies.” And as her example showed, their family company has already started looking for ways to connect to a larger regional player in food processing, so they could implement symbiosis in practice.