Sarfraz Aslam, Sharareh Shahidi Hamedani, Shervin Shahidi Hamedani
The rapidly deepening climate crisis, biodiversity loss, and growing social inequalities have made the calls for systemic transformation louder, surpassing incremental reforms in sustainability (O'Brien et al., 2024). In response, the circular economy (CE) has gained prominence in recent years. CE emphasizes the extension of product life cycles through strategies like sharing, reuse, repair, and recycling, aiming to reduce waste and resource depletion (Arora et al., 2023 ). While CE focuses on resource efficiency and material cycles, scholars argue that the movement toward sustainable futures must expand to include societies that embrace circular principles, integrating values, governance structures, and social relations with production and consumption systems (Calisto Friant et al., 2024;Liu, 2024) Despite policy momentum, global progress toward circularity remains limited, highlighting an overreliance on technical and efficiency-driven solutions that neglect cultural, institutional, and educational transformations (Fraser et al., 2024;Zhang et al., 2025). Higher education institutions (HEIs) are, in this context, a powerful yet underexplored lever for transformation. Beyond teaching, HEIs act as knowledge authorities, social influencers, and environmentally significant infrastructures, playing a key role in shaping sustainable practices and values (Price et al., 2021;Sterling & Orr, 2001). This paper builds on sustainability education by linking educational transformation with broader socio-technical change toward circular societies. Despite their societal influence, the role of higher education in circular transitions remains an underdeveloped concept (Serrano-Bedia & Perez-Perez, 2022). This paper extends existing sustainability education and transitions scholarships by proposing HEIs as mindset infrastructures for CSs: that HEIs should be conceptualized and leveraged as "mindset infrastructures," systemic sites that foster and institutionalize the values and worldviews, along with the anticipatory capacities for CSs, rather than a focus on solely skills development and technological innovation.By "mindsets," we mean underlying ways of thinking that shape perceptions, decisions, and actions (Corcoran & Wals, 2004;Mezirow, 1997). Mindset is operationalized through both qualitative and quantitative methods. These include surveys, interviews, and pre-and post-assessments that measure shifts in values, attitudes, and anticipatory thinking related to sustainability and circularity.From CE to CSs: The Centrality of Mindset ChangeWhile CE aims to enhance resource efficiency and close material loops, CSs go further by integrating cultural values, social relations, and governance patterns. In addition to technological innovation, CSs emphasize regenerative development, social justice, and democratic participation, offering a holistic approach to sustainability beyond material efficiency alone (Kennedy & Linnenluecke, 2022).Nevertheless, the impact of higher education on circular transitions is generally very narrowly conceptualized. HEIs are often narrowly framed as providers of green skills and technological innovation. However, important as these are, they risk replicating linear logic without bigger cultural and educational changes. Sustainability education often operates in isolation across different subject areas, such as engineering, environment, and business, thereby perpetuating the notion that the need for circularity is a technical matter, rather than a collective social concern (Faludi et al., 2023).By bringing together researchers, teachers, policymakers, industry representatives, artists, and communities in institutional settings for dialogue and experimentation, HEIs are ideally placed to translate the generic objectives of sustainability into action-oriented transformations. Achieving this, however, requires redefining the HEIs' role in society, for example, by embedding sustainability across curricula, research agendas, campus operations, and community engagement, which we discuss in the following sections.This paper is based on the idea of HEIs as mindset infrastructures, which means that they shape values, worldviews, and collective imaginaries over time through their systems (Sharma, 2024). Mindset change must be linked to institutional action through curriculum, governance, and partnerships.Traditional pedagogies in higher education often focus on content transmission and disciplinary mastery (Bhardwaj et al., 2025;Falasi, 2024). However, CSs require a different kind of graduate who can handle complexity, uncertainty, and ethical trade-offs (Evans, 2025). Embed circularity in the whole curriculum rather than isolate it in specialized courses; this, in turn, will normalize sustainability as a common societal concern (Renfors, 2024).Transdisciplinary collaboration with communities, industry, and policymakers enables more relevant and legitimate circular solutions while exposing students to real-world complexity (Sica et al., 2025).Mindset transformation requires much more than classroom instruction alone (Ricci, 2024). Every aspect of HEIs' governance, procurement, and campus operations aligned with circular principles reinforces learning through lived experience (Kandpal et al., 2024). Governance, procurement, and campus operations must align with circular principles to reinforce learning through practice.Figure 1 illustrates the relationship between mindset formation, institutional functions, and societal outcomes. One ongoing problem with CE initiatives is that they marginalize the SAH (Calisto Friant et al., 2024). However, applications that relate to meaning, power, justice, and change must include contributions from SAH disciplines, such as participatory inquiry, narrative scholarship, ethical discourse, or artistic endeavors, that facilitate inclusive and democratic discourse on circularity. By re-centralizing SAH fields and combining them with STEM fields, a more regenerative, just, and culturally grounded circular society can be achieved in higher education itself, moving beyond circularity's focus on efficiency.Besides addressing the challenges of the moment, HEIs have the duty to build capacity for anticipation and for the unexpected. Futures literacy skills and practices, including scenario planning and participatory foresight, enable young people and institutions to respond critically to the futures of climate risk and socio-technical transition (Spanjol et al., 2023;Wang & Zhu, 2025). HEIs must also build anticipatory capacity through futures literacy and foresight practices to respond to long-term sustainability challenges (Aslam et al., 2022;Kohli & Fee, 2024).The mindset infrastructure approach holds that policy, leadership, and research in HEIs must move beyond technical training to embed sustainability across institutional systems. This includes integrating circularity into curricula, fostering transdisciplinary collaboration, and aligning governance structures with long-term societal transformation goals.