Christa Barkel’s scientific contributions

The aim of this Handbook 3 “Blockchain-based Waste management” is to guide professionals in the waste management sector on how they should implement IoT and Block-chain technology as strategies of Circular Economy. Therefore, it is addressed to practitioners knowing about the advantages of using the Blockchain technology as well as having a sufficient understanding of the Circular Economy and its goals. The structure of the handbook follows a deductive logic by presenting, in the first part, the changing role of municipal solid waste management within the transformation from the currently linear economic system to the Circular Economy. The focus is always on the use of Blockchain technology, which can make a substantial contribution to the transformation of municipal waste management. The three topics, the Circular Economy, the transformation of municipal waste management and the use of Blockchain technology, are interlinked and ways are shown how Blockchain technology can facilitate the needed role change of Municipal Waste Managers in various aspects. The second part of the handbook contains a clear guidance for waste managers on how to implement Blockchain Technology and to convert existing processes into Blockchain-based processes. This part provides guidance for the best use of Blockchain and smart contract technologies within the waste sector and supplies a coherent blueprint for implementation and application of these innovative technologies in municipal and local corporate organizations.

The task of this study is the comparative analysis of the diffusion process of Blockchain into the national higher education systems as well as analysis of best-practice examples. It is part of the EU Erasmus+ project "BlockWASTE", which has as its overall objective to promote the application of Blockchain in municipal waste management through the development of targeted university curricula and study plans on the Circular Economy and Blockchain, training manuals and other educational tools. With this goal in mind, the first question to be answered is where there is a need for Blockchain. This again translates into questions like What is the status quo of the diffusion of Blockchain innovation in university education and research in the participating partner countries of the BlockWASTE project? What are the main drivers and reasons behind the fact that the diffusion process for the integration of Blockchain innovation in science and teaching is faster in some countries and slower in other countries despite good framework conditions? But the present study is not only intended to be a snapshot of the diffusion process of innovation in higher education of different European countries. A major focus of the study is to learn from best practice examples of university education in Blockchain. In the framework of the BlockWASTE project, this implies analyzing the innovation downstream and universities’ own development of curricular and educational material and tools.

The aim of this comparative study is to document the status quo in the digitalization of municipal waste management in EU countries, in order to ultimately examine in which areas the implementation of blockchain solutions makes sense. Blockchain is only a database solution that allows to trace and track transactions within a waste chain, to transfer digital assets from peer to peer and to use smart contracts for automating processes. But for a database application like the blockchain, the decisive factor is of course the automatic collection of data via Internet-of-Things devices such as sensors and cameras, and the analysis of the data via AI applications. Ultimately, this comparative study is also about the question of the digital readiness of municipal waste managers as regards the use of blockchain solutions. This comparative study is based on the description of the status quo of digitalization in municipal waste management in the five countries of the project partners: Estonia, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands and Spain. The IT solutions used are of course de-pendent on the organisation and processes of municipal waste management in each country. Consequently, the actual description of the use of IT in the municipalities is pre-ceded by a chapter on the organisation of municipal waste management in the respective country. In addition, best practice examples of each country are briefly described where available. Obviously, a comparative view of only five of the 27 EU member states has limited significance. To mitigate this limitation, the results of the analysis are benchmarked with the results of other studies on this topic. However, the data and the number of studies on this topic are limited. The study is part of the BlockWASTE project, which is an EU-funded Erasmus Plus project. The project aims to address the interoperability between waste management and blockchain technology and to promote its proper treatment through educational training, so that the data collected is shared within a safe environment, where there is no room for uncertainty and mistrust between all parties involved in waste chains or cycles. Further information is available from the BlockWASTE project website https://blockwasteproject.eu.