The Circular Skills Programme was first created by the sustainable education cooperative Leren voor Morgen in collaboration with the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management and the Goldschmeding Foundation. The Circular Skills Programme works to bridge the gap between the vocational education and professional practice in the circular economy, such as in construction. It does this by identifying skills gaps in industries adopting circular economy strategies and puts in place regional projects-while encouraging educational reform on a national level to close the gaps.

A partner of the Circular Skills Programme is TIP Circulair, run by Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences. TIP Circulair is a learning community for students and professionals that looks at how the adoption of circular economy strategies is changing occupational requirements and how best to translate this into occupational profiles.

To support the retention of young people coming into the industry and maximise the potential for innovation through knowledge exchange, leading professionals and engineers from the TIP community are paired with young interns and apprentices working within construction and installation companies. They meet once a week to discuss successes and challenges in order to jointly develop their circular knowledge. The TIP Community also comes together for ten half-days spread over 20 weeks to exchange knowledge and receive master classes on emerging approaches from the circular construction and installation field.

TIP Circulair is an example of how to facilitate mutual learning between professionals and interns or apprentices, as well as how co-creation and action-based learning can be used to overcome concrete challenges in the workplace in a timely way.