Project information:
Official name of the project: CIRCULAR BRIDGE: Cross-Border Pathways for Circular SME Growth
Duration of the project: 1.6.2026 - 31.3.2027
Project coordinator: VAMK
Project partners: Mittuniversitetet
Funding: Interreg Aurora, Regional Council of Lapland
Budget: 39 998 €
Contact person in VAMK:
Sanna Peltonen, Senior researcher (RDI and Business Unit)
tel. +358 207 663 633, sanna.peltonen@vamk.fi
Project description
Sme and micro-enterprises face increasing global competition and challenges in integrating circular economy principles and sustainable solutions into their business models. Transitioning towards circular business models requires new forms of collaboration, knowledge sharing, and value chain thinking that extend beyond traditional organisational and national boundaries.
Circular Bridge is a cross-border small-scale project between Finland and Sweden that strengthens the knowledge and capacity of business-promoting actors, clusters, and industry associations to support manufacturing SMEs and micro-enterprises in developing circular, sustainable, and value-oriented business models through servitization.
Total budget of the project is 39998 €. VAMK’s share of the budget is 19999 €. The project is funded by Interreg Aurora 25998 € and Lapin liitto 4900 €.
Goals
By the end of the project, the partnership will have mapped cross-border SME needs through structured interviews, jointly developed a circular servitization strategy and roadmap, and disseminated the results to stakeholders for uptake beyond the project period.
Results
The key outputs of the project are a cross-border challenge analysis report and a circular servitization roadmap, both jointly developed and jointly owned by the project partnership.
