The multidisciplinary event “Digital Innovation and Circular Economy: What’s Next?”

On October 30th, 2025, the multidisciplinary event “Digital Innovation and Circular Economy: What’s Next?” was held at the Department of Economics of the University of Foggia (UNIFG).
The aim was to disseminate the results and explore future trends of the national project “WEBEST – Wine EVOO Blockchain Et Smart Contract”, as well as other initiatives such as the ERASMUS+ project “CL4Bio – Creative Learning for Boosting Bio-economy within HEIs’ Curricula” and various projects on circular economy.
The event began with an opening speech by the head of the Department of Economics Library, followed by institutional greetings from the UNIFG Vice-Rector, the Department Director, a council member of the Municipality of Foggia, and Professor Mariantonietta Fiore, who is the scientific coordinator of the WEBEST and CL4Bio projects.
Mipa Agricola, a pioneering agricultural company, was one of the main guests of the event, as it is the first in Italy to adopt circular economy principles. During the event, the “Circular Economy Ambassador” awards were presented to several guests — in particular, to Professor Mariantonietta Fiore and Fedele Colantuono for their work on the WEBEST and CL4Bio projects at UNIFG.
The event continued with various national and international presentations, including three engaging sessions: by Michael Paul Kramer from Hochschule Geisenheim University, who spoke about “Tokenization in the Network of Agro-food Supply Chains”; and by two Ukrainian professors, Tanklevska Nataliya and Budnyk Nina, who discussed respectively “Digital Transformation and Circular Economy in the Ukrainian Agro-food Supply Chain” and “Digital Innovation in the Ukrainian Agro-food Supply Chain.”
In this multidisciplinary setting, Foggia-based artist Enzo Ruggiero was also invited as a special guest; he creates artworks using discarded and otherwise unusable materials. More than 70 people from high schools, local businesses, and institutions attended the event and showed great interest in topics related to digital innovation and the circular economy.
The UNIFG team distributed learning materials from the WEBEST project and shared the website links to the tools developed through both projects.