Conducting Research on Eco-innovation and Circular Economy in SMEs

In December 9-10th 2021, The University of Castilla La Mancha in association with the European Council for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (ECSB), who co-brands the event, organizes a two-day conference at the Faculty of Social Sciences in Cuenca Campus with the title “Conducting Research on Eco-innovation and Circular Economy in SMEs”.

Nowadays we are more conscious than ever about the climate change impacts in every dimension of our life and the fact that we are worsening life conditions for future generations. Therefore, there is agreement at all levels (policy, civil society, business leaders) about the urgent importance of acting to handle environmental challenges. Environmental sustainability refers to the set of corporate behaviours and strategies that “mitigate a firm’s impact on the natural environment,” which include “implementing products, processes, and policies that reduce energy consumption and waste, us[ing] ecologically sustainable resources, and employ[ing] environmental management systems” (Walls, Phan, & Berrone, 2011: 73). Along this line, eco-innovation and circular economy business models are referent behaviours for achieving environmental sustainability.

We aim it as an interactive event that, hopefully, supports our participants in actively making a difference with their work.

The Conference will consist of plenary sessions and thematic sessions for the different topics of the papers submitted. These sessions will be held in English.

We welcome contributions of conceptual and empirical (qualitative or quantitative) nature. Topics include, but are not limited to:

Ecoinnovation in the transition to a Circular Economy.
Embedding circular economy into business models
Sustainable Entrepreneurship
Regional policies in support to a Circular Economy transition.
Sustainability in Higher Education- educational formats
Sustainability and new technologies (AI, digitalization, …)
Circular economy progress across different sectors
Behavioural economics for environmental sustainability
There will be a platform provided by UCLM for abstracts submission and information related to the Conference.
Conference URL site: https://eventos.uclm.es/69506/detail/conducting-research-on-ecoinnovation-and-circular-economy-un-smes.html?private=4b3a5d169d76a11aec3a
If you have any questions, please contact Cristina.Diaz@uclm.es

IMPORTANT DEADLINES:

Extended Abstract submission: until 5th November, 2021
Announcement of accepted abstracts: November 12th, 2021.
Registration: from 12-19th November 2021.
Conference dates: December 9th afternoon)-10th (morning), 2021.
The conference will be presential, but we will organize it so that interested researchers can also participate online via Teams meetings.

Paper Submission Procedure
Extended abstracts (2 pages) should be submitted in PDF format through this website by November 5th 2021. An additional front page of the document should include the title, authors, affiliations and contact details. The abstracts should contain necessarily the following information:
• Purpose
• Design/methodology/approach
• Results/Findings
• Conclusions
Extended abstracts will be reviewed by the Scientific Committee and communication of acceptance of papers will be held on November 12th.

Registration fees:

ECSB members and online participants: 30 euros

Non-ECSB members: 90 euros

Location:

Facultad de Ciencias Sociales del Campus de Cuenca-Universidad de Castilla La Mancha (UCLM), Avenida Alfares, 44, 16002, Cuenca

The historic fortified city of Cuenca is located on a look-out point between the gorges of the Huécar and Júcar rivers. Its steep streets, unaltered proof of its medieval past, as well as its consideration as a city-come-landscape, gained it recognition as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996. By Train: 50 minutes on the AVE from Atocha Station.

https://www.esmadrid.com/en/trips-cuenca?utm_referrer=https://www.bing.com/

Some details

Apart from the sessions in which we will discuss the papers presented by attendants, in this moment we have confirmed the following keynote speakers:

Marta Gómez Palenque, General Director of Circular Economy at the Regional Government of Castilla La Mancha (JCCM) “ Estrategia de Economía Circular y Transición Ecológica en Castilla La Mancha” (Circular Economy Strategy and Ecological Transition in Castilla La Mancha)
Alberto Aragón Correa, Prof. Strategy and Sustainability at Univ. Granada and Honorary Professor at Univ. Surrey (https://aragoncorrea.me/) “Sustainable Management: An inescapable challenge”

Available the timetable for the conference

Conducting Research on Circular Economy_TIMETABLE

[1] Acknowledgments: This event will be partially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities Grant (Open innovation strategies for the adoption of eco-innovations in the transition to a Circular Economy RTI2018-101867-B-100), the University of Castilla-La Mancha and the European Regional Development Fund (2018/11744). The ECSB will also cobrand the event.