The RISERS partners met on 11–12 May in Oeiras, Portugal, for the 5th RISERS Consortium Meeting, hosted by ISQ, at a particularly important moment for the project.
With RISERS entering its final months before the project concludes in December 2026, the meeting was an opportunity not only to coordinate the remaining activities, but also to reflect on the significant progress already achieved — and on the important challenges still ahead if Industrial Symbiosis is to scale across Europe.
Over two intensive days, partners discussed progress on the RISERS Industrial Symbiosis Standardisation Roadmap, policy recommendations, activities bridging R&D and standardisation, guidance and capacity-building activities supporting the uptake of the roadmap, dissemination planning, as well as exploitation strategies for the project’s key results.
We have solid reasons to be proud of our collective efforts so far. One of the major milestones is the publication of the first draft of the RISERS Industrial Symbiosis Standardisation Roadmap, now available for public consultation on the RISERS website until the end of June. Developed with the support of around 120 experts from industry, research, policy, and standardisation communities, the roadmap has evolved into a comprehensive and actionable document that will also serve as an important tool for engagement with Technical Committees and standardisation bodies across Europe.
Beyond the roadmap itself, RISERS has already achieved significant progress through stakeholder engagement activities and active interaction with policy, industry, research, and standardisation communities via surveys, workshops, consultations, and Working Groups. The project has also mapped key standardisation gaps and R&I needs and delivered a first set of policy recommendations addressing barriers to Industrial Symbiosis implementation across Europe — including the particularly challenging issue of harmonising End-of-Waste approaches across EU Member States.
At the same time, the RISERS community and outreach continue to grow steadily:
🔹 more than 8,500 website visitors
🔹 over 40,000 LinkedIn views
🔹 30 external events attended
🔹 26 dissemination materials produced, including factsheets, podcasts, videos, interviews, and the RISERS Insights Briefs.
Day 2 of the meeting focused strongly on exploitation activities and the identification of RISERS Key Exploitable Results (KERs). Partners discussed how the project outputs — including the roadmap, policy recommendations, training and awareness materials, stakeholder engagement formats, and guidance for Technical Committees — can continue creating value beyond the project lifetime and support future initiatives, standardisation activities, policymaking, and industrial uptake across Europe.
The workshop also helped identify opportunities for future collaboration, knowledge transfer, and wider uptake of RISERS results by industry, research organisations, policymakers, and standardisation communities.
The final phase of RISERS will now focus on validating the roadmap with stakeholders, finalising recommendations and guidance documents, preparing the RISERS Final Event in Brussels, and strengthening exploitation pathways for the project’s key outcomes.
These achievements are also the result of an incredibly committed RISERS team that has shown remarkable creativity, efficiency, openness, and willingness to support each other throughout the project. The collaborative spirit within the consortium has been one of RISERS’ greatest strengths and an important reason why the project has been able to deliver ambitious results.
A big thank you to our colleagues from ISQ for excellent organisation and all RISERS partners for the productive discussions, openness, creativity, and collaborative spirit throughout the meeting. The final stretch begins — and there is still a lot to achieve together.
