The role of higher education institutions in training engineers for the era of circular economy: the Portuguese case

The transition from linear economy (LE) towards a circular economy (CE) is Europe Union´s (EU) concerned and involve lot of efforts and actions. Education for circular economy (ECE) is emergent. This paper aims to map Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in Portugal, Bachelor’s and Master’s degree programs and Postgraduate courses in Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM) that address CE in their curricula with the aim of empowering students for the new era. A systematic search was performed to identify B.Sc./ M.Sc. in IEM of Portuguese Universities and Polytechnic Institutes, public and private, analyzing the content of their curricular units. As results, this study did not identify a strong interest about CE on the part of HEIs and their lecturers. Findings suggest that HEIs are not training future IEM engineers for the era of CE. This study contributes to make an alert to HEIs and their lecturers to review their teaching process, stimulating to improve the quality of the IEM curricula. We suggest a deep reform of the professional curriculum system, enriching curricular. Future studies can approach skills and competences developed towards CE what facilitate a redesign of courses.