Circular solutions in biomedicine

ended

Public healthcare system in Ukraine is responsible for over 10% of total annual waste generation. Together with biomedical research institutions it has become one of the major wastemakers. Nevertheless, healthcare professionals still concentrate solely on safety, efficiency and convenience of medical technologies rather than on recycling of wastes. The medical leftovers do require special treatments before disposal. However, up to now, little efforts were paid to reuse and recycle the healthcare wastes. The mainstream approach in healthcare industries still features the simple scheme: resources→production→usage→waste. Clearly, this approach falls into an old time linear economy concept. This way of doing healthcare will end soon. We can now decide either it ends together with exhaustion of resources and accumulation of wastes with severe consequences from the changing climate. Or, alternatively, we will sit down and think about adopting European principles of circular economy also to the public healthcare system. The goal of this Chair is to introduce European fundamental doctrine of circular economy to biomedical professionals and in parallel to materials science experts. Circular solutions in biomedicine are more difficult to introduce in comparison to e.g. food and transport industries. We hypothesize that the most adequate methodology to fulfill the goals of the Chair is a set of new interdisciplinary teaching courses where the problems of circularity in biomedicine will be highlighted from two sides: from the medical, and from the materials science points of view. The Chair also has a research and a broad dissemination programs. This way the Chair will deliver critical knowledge about European principles of circular economy to biomedical scientists, materials researchers and healthcare professionals. The Chair will also motivate interdisciplinary cohort of researchers to find ways for the healthcare system to move towards European circular standards.