Circular economy requires rethinking and redesigning of products and services to enable product reuse, recycling and cascading. The use of secondary materials is an essential part of circular economy and it is in a central role in EU's action plans. This paper examines, how a Circular Material Library can be used as tool of user oriented design to promote regional circular economy, innovation and competencies in companies. The Circular Material Library differs from the existing material libraries in that it will focus on available recycled materials. Due to the increased understanding of materials, new symbiosis products and industrial symbiosis networks can be created. Especially SME's would benefit from this public tool.

The growing importance of "practice-based innovation models" has challenged the current consensus on the role of universities as main drivers of regional innovation systems. New models are needed to ensure the efficiency of co-operation between the region and universities. In this article, we present and analyse the effects of one practice-based innovation tool, the advisory professorship model, developed in the Lahti region, Finland. The Lahti region is relatively big by Finnish standards, but has no university of its own, which makes new types of knowledge transfer necessary. The empirical analysis is based on interviews of the companies that participated in the materials technology advisory professorship programme, developed and operated by Tampere University of Technology. In the analysis, we utilize the conceptual framework and analytical matrix developed by Tura et al. [(2008) Breaking inside the black box: Towards a dynamic evaluation framework of regional innovative capability, Science and Public Policy, 35(10), pp. 733 -744] in the measuring of regional innovation capability. The study approach is based on regional and industrial viewpoints. In the light of the study, the programme had positive impacts on the innovation capability and innovation processes of companies. The advisory professorship model can be considered a useful practice-based innovation tool for regional university-industry co-operation with some limitations.