Terms of Reference

CERIG Aims and Objectives:

The aim of the CERIG is for members to work together to connect complementary expertise and experiences to facilitate circular economy innovation and research in Wales. This is to be achieved through the following objectives:

• Establishing a forum to share good practice and facilitate knowledge exchange between academia, business and policy makers.
• Encouraging and supporting collaboration to increase circular economy research capacity in Welsh institutions.
• Engaging with industry to develop industry led research.
• Providing evidence to inform Government policy and programmes.
• Showcasing Wales’ circular economy outputs internationally, thus supporting the development of international partnerships.
• Collaborating on curriculum development and training.
• Working with the Global Regional Centre of Expertise (RCE) network (acknowledged by the United Nations University) to share learning and good practice at regional, national and international levels.

Group membership:

Membership is open to Higher Education Institutions (HEI), industry representative bodies, Government representatives and publicly funded research, innovation and knowledge transfer organisations in Wales. Members may recommend new members to the CERIG management team.

Operating arrangements:

The CERIG management will be co-ordinated by Swansea University through Dr Gavin Bunting, with secretariat support provided by Ann Stevenson, Cardiff University. Responsibilities will include:

• Convening group meetings at least 3 times a year.
• Managing the delivery of operational functions of meetings, e.g. agendas, minutes, venues.
• Co-ordinating access to reports, presentations and discussion notes through an agreed on-line document storage mechanism.
• Developing and co-ordinating an online discussion forum through LinkedIn and twitter activity to facilitate exchange of good practice, funding opportunities, news and events.
• Co-ordinating press releases and media activity.
• Co-ordinating a group newsletter up to 6 times a year.   

Member Remit and Responsibilities:

By being a member of the CERIG, members agree to:

• Voluntary involvement in the group activities.
• Contact details being included on a directory of membership to be shared with members of the group.
• Use their expertise to work together to maximise collaboration on sharing of good practice, experience and expertise, input to evidence, knowledge exchange, curriculum development and training and industry led research between academia, business and policy makers.
• Support the engagement, knowledge exchange and dissemination activities of the CERIG, its members, the Global REC network in Wales and circular economy outputs of Wales.
• Allow materials provided to be made available to all members of the group.
• Liaise with their networks on the activities of the CERIG and provide feedback to the CERIG to inform discussions and activities of the CERIG.
• Provide input to meetings, discussions, materials and outputs of the CERIG as appropriate.
• Champion circular economy thinking in their own institutions.
• Any decisions of the group being based on a majority decision of over 60% of members present.
• Provide a deputy to attend meetings where appropriate with the proviso that the deputy is well briefed and can decide on issues where necessary.
• Ensure mutual respect of the aims and objectives of different member organisations.
• Consent to the attached Privacy Notice, compliant with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
• Notes taken by the secretariat of meetings, materials supplied to the meetings and online discussions, information and materials relating to the CERIG to be used as data for research purposes by Ann Stevenson on a non-attributable, anonymised basis (as applicable to organisation, individual and specific activity details) in line with the attached information sheet.

Working Groups:

Members may establish task-orientated working groups to support the aims and objectives of the CERIG. Where working groups are established, members agree to abide by the overarching member remit and responsibilities and the following:

• Convene as required through face to face, telephone, email or online forums to deliver the work being undertaken
• Provide updates to the CERIG on activities through LinkedIn, meetings and newsletters.
• Allow members of CERIG to input into the activities and outputs of the working group.
• Dedicate the necessary time and effort to achieve the objectives of the working group.

Information protection:

In order to protect stakeholder organisations, confidential information and Intellectual Property (IP) rights related to the activities of the CERIG, the following provisions will be in place:

• The management team will abide by the attached Privacy Notice.
• To enable sharing of information within the group, the Chatham House rule[1] may be invoked at meetings and applied to the on-line closed group discussions as required.
• Any information members choose to share with the group will not be included in publications or case studies unless permission is expressly given.
• Audio or video recording will only be carried out with permission of individuals concerned.
• Minutes will be circulated to members for comment prior to finalisation and, along with other data, will be maintained by the Secretariat.
• Media activity relating to the group activities is to be agreed in advance with the group.
  
  

[1] When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed.