Developing a successful design brief that tackles the current growing environmental problems, challenges the current dominant systems and enables circular solutions is a complex task. Briefs are an integral step for framing the design projects and they require a systemic approach to facilitate desired sustainable outcomes from projects. While there are studies exploring the preparation of successful briefs, there aren’t many that focus on design brief development in circular economy education. This paper examines the design brief formulation process of eleven product design projects from four consecutive training programmes in four European universities in collaboration with sixteen companies. These eleven projects were developed for the Circular Design Internships conducted as a part of the Learning for Innovative Design for Sustainability (L4IDS) Erasmus+ Knowledge Alliance project. L4IDS project aims to create better learning environments for the circular economy in universities and enterprises. In this paper, developing briefs is regarded as a creative process aiming to provide a guide to support students and enable effective learning, facilitate creativity and inspire innovation for the circular economy. Throughout the four internships, the brief development process has evolved together with the internship structure based on the data collected and feedback provided to the subsequent internships by the previous ones. Extended schedules including reflections of internship supervisors, evaluations of interns and companies were one of the methods used to deliver effective feedback. Considering the brief making process of these eleven design projects, the five main steps of brief making for circular design were identified including reviewing the existing resources, emphasising the importance of systems thinking in a circular economy while defining the objectives, selecting the industry partner and emphasizing the importance of collaboration for the circular economy, focusing on circularity during the detailing, and communicating expectations. Finally, the paper outlines how design briefs changed throughout the consecutive internships according to the different structures of the four education programmes. Then, it will discuss the characteristics of the circular design briefs and preparing an adaptable brief conforming to the structures of various universities. As a result, suggestions on how to develop design briefs for the circular economy are presented. Although it is not possible to design a brief template applicable to all kinds of projects, the outcomes of this paper could be used to create a guide for preparing design briefs for the circular economy.