Bringing plastics into the circular economy is one of the great challenges of our age. C-PlaNeT lays the foundations for a New Plastics Economy through a European Joint Doctoral Programme that trains 15 Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) to become part of a new generation of scientists, engineers and policy makers for the EU’s circular economy, which must include the design, processing, use and reuse of plastics. C-PlaNeT focuses on excellent international research, training in complementary skills, including entrepreneurship and the translation of research into policy, international as well as cross-organisational and intersectoral mobility, active involvement of the non-academic sector, dissemination, awareness raising and public outreach.

As a truly multidisciplinary proposal, C-PlaNeT is well-balanced across different scientific fields of equal importance: chemistry, social sciences, engineering, political sciences, product design and business model development. Moreover, through the 20 non-university partners, C-PlaNeT is anchored across all sectors relevant for the Circularity of Plastics. All ESRs will advance the current state-of-the-art of their respective fields, which together cover the whole life cycle of plastics. To this end, they are supervised by at least 2 promotors from 2 universities and a partner outside university, with whom they will also take an internship. They will participate with each other in a cooperative learning scheme to take their research beyond the borders of their own respective disciplines and gain a holistic appreciation for the complex issue of Plastics in a Circular Economy.

As such C-Planet has the ambition to be a game changer for the circularity of plastics as a material resource, based on and excellent and multidisciplinary research and training programme.