Engagement with Higher Education Surface Pattern Design Students as a Catalyst for Circular Economy Action

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors present an interesting case study account concerning the interaction between higher education and industry. While the paper presents interesting contributions, its structure should be significantly improved and clearer. 

The objective of the whole research is not entirely clear - sometimes seeming like it relates to promoting CE and sometimes seeming to relate to promoting education for CE. 

The methods are not clearly presented - participants, data gathering techniques, and instruments, and not just the project itself, should be shown in the methods section. 

The discussion of results presents new theory - theory should be presented in the introduction, so it could later be mobilized in the discussion section. This section is more focused on the educational perspective of contributions to HE, which I feel is the more decisive point of the paper and therefore should be highlighted.

More theoretical and methodological sources could also help consolidate the paper and situate it within previous experiences in education for CE. 

I present a version of the paper in the annex with a few comments. 

I believe a revised version of the paper will interest a wider audience. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you for your review of the paper, “Engagement with higher education surface pattern design students as a catalyst for circular economy action” submitted for publication in a special issue of MDPI’s Sustainability journal. 

We appreciate the time you have taken to review the paper and have attempted to address your comments in our revised submission, please see attached. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

I found this to be an interesting and well presented article. The pedagogical underpinnings, the focus on the claims for a circular economy and the collaboration with an industrial partner were well formulated and enacted. while a wider critique of the circular economy approach would have been nice to see I recognise that the activity was designed to partly test out how CE principles might be applied in practice. In that sense it did show positives  (a CE c solution for one product line) and negatives (the challenge on the company to  redesign all its operations.

Author Response

Thank you for your review of the paper, “Engagement with higher education surface pattern design students as a catalyst for circular economy action” submitted for publication in a special issue of MDPI’s Sustainability journal. 

We appreciate the time you have taken to review the paper and have attempted to address your comments in our revised submission, please find attached. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have addressed my concerns, and the manuscript is now publishable.