CIRCUL’ARTs is a multi-disciplinary and  international Cost (Horizon Europe) type of research and mobility network. The network consists of aprox. 300 members and is active in the period 2024-2028.

It develops an innovative methodology to stimulate the emergence of solutions towards more circular and sustainable cities, based on a ‘dynamic ecology of knowledge’. This implies new ways of co-creating knowledge, sharing it and transforming it into action, orientating our learning towards more practical action. Most of all, this new methodology consists in stepping out of a Euro-centric perspective and taking into consideration plural voices and needs, ancestral and indigenous knowledge, creative micro-strategies developed at a local level, ancestral practices, community building strategies, solidarity practices around circularity – a body of information that has remained hitherto unconsidered in the field of Circularity.

The project has as a main aim the collection of innovative methodologies in circularity and is constituted on three main Action Lines : 
⟶ Researching, collecting and systematising immaterial resources (practices, belief-systems, cosmologies, ancestral and contemporary traditions and their transformation, creative approaches, strategies of inclusion and community building) that are  connected to circular practices in the urban environment. Special focus: re-connotation and reinvestment of historic circular practices into the present.
⟶ A focus on Extra-European Circular practices  in circularity (Latin America, Africa).
⟶ Contemporary Art as a means to develop, bring in circulation new methodologies in circularity: conceptual approaches and community-based projects.
⟶ The research methodology will have as a starting point case-studies analysis. We envision bringing the knowledge collected into a global circulation, appealing to artistic practice – as a form of creating information exchange in a participative and creative way and of producing topic solutions. Art, and the de-colonisation of thought and knowledge will allow us to develop a methodology that is in itself sustainable and circular.


This innovative methodology will be applied to the following 5 thematic Working Group lines (whereas the 6th Working Group is concerned with Dissemination of  produced content and Recommendation formulated for institutional use and policy makers).
1. Plural schooling and critical pedagogies
2. Urban rituals, performances, street theater, music
3. Urban installations and gathering points
4. Innovation through creative and circular technologies
5. Connecting ‘natures’ in the urban context
6. Dissemination and recommendations. 

CIRCUL'ARTs is organized  around 4 TRAINING SCHOOLS/ STATIONS (on the duration of the Action),  corresponding to 1-2 Working Group Themes. In each TRAINING SCHOOL the content produced will be presented publicly in a cultural institution, counting with invited speakers, artists and practitioners (academic and non-academic) with a special focus on participants from Africa and Latin America. The TRAINING SCHOOL will be based on the collaboration with cultural, citizen and public institutions (schools, museums, galleries,  citizen organization, activist asociations). Each TRAINING SCHOOL will be composed by following formats: exhibition + events and discursive formats, Short Missions (research grants), documentation. 1 TRAINING SCHOOLS/ STATIONS will be organized per COST year.
CIRCUL'ARTs  is STRUCTURED  in the following network.

Download MOU PDF

⟶ Gathering ongoing theoretical research outputs on each of the WG's themes. 

⟶ Gathering historic material to the research theme (collecting archive material, historic sources, old and new practices and work already realised in these fields), ancestral, historic, so-called 'traditional' and vernacular practices

⟶ Compile a database of recent work realised in the specific field of each WG -  collecting names and projects realised by contemporary architects, artists, philosophers, theoreticians, activists, etc. 

⟶ Creating a database of possible specialists for each WGs to be invited (and in which quality) to the Training Schools/4 STATIONS, Short Term Scientific Mission, volume contributors and the other available formats.

⟶ Crystallising  and theorizing new methodologies and best practices  in circularity – according to the themes of the WGs.

⟶ Preparing  scientific publication, website, multimedia documentation and other forms of scientific dissemination

⟶ WG Leaders inviting for their WGs an expert and the trainers for the traning schools.

⟶ Preparation of the 4 TRAINING SCHOOLS/ STATIONS (on the duration of the Action),  corresponding to 1-2 Working Group Themes. In each TRAINING SCHOOL the content produced will be presented publicly in a cultural institution, counting with invited speakers, artists and practitioners (academic and non-academic) with a special focus on participants from Africa and Latin America. The TRAINING SCHOOL will be based on the collaboration with cultural, citizen and public institutions (schools, museums, galleries,  citizen organization, activist asociations). Each TRAINING SCHOOL will be composed by following formats: exhibition + events and discursive formats, Short Missions (research grants), documentation. 1 TRAINING SCHOOLS/ STATIONS will be organized per COST year.

⟶ The knowledge generated in the WGs is translated in relevant recommendations for urban institutions and policy makers for the development of more inclusive and diversified urban strategies. 

⟶ Development of the dissemination strategy.

⟶ WG Working Meetings (organized by the WG leaders) are virtual.

⟶ The FOUR STATIONS (1/year) are the project's global meetings in various media and formats, that will cummulate following structures and grants: Training Schools , Conference, Exhibition /Screening and Performance Program, Grants for Young Researchers, Editorial Board Meetings, Collaborations with cultural, citizen and public institutions.

Circul'Arts is a European Project/Cost Action set at Universidade Lusofona, Lisbon, Portugal, at the Interdisciplinary Research Center for Education and Development (CeiED).

CIRCUL'ARTS thanks to the Cost support infrastructure and management, to Universidade Lusofona, to all the involved institutions and most of all to all members, experts, researchers, collaborators, and to all the artists who generously contributed to building the content of this project and site.