5th General Meeting of Water2REturn in Ljubljana, Slovenia
The 5th General Meeting of Water2REturn project took place in Ljubljana, Slovenia on June 26th – 27th, 2019.
Water2Return project is two years old already, and the partners have met once more to share the latest updates of the project development, being especially focused this time on innovation, intellectual property, market penetration and communication activities. In addition, the current stage of the demonstration site construction at “Matadero del Sur” was shared and discussed.
This event took place during two consecutive days:
June, 26th. By this time of the project, the first review carried out by the European Commission as funding body had finished, so its main outcomes were shared and discussed with the rest of the partners, together with the measures to be taken in order to follow the reviewers’ suggestions.
In addition, the organisation and reactivation of the External Expert Advisory Board was a key point during this meeting. This Board is meant to be integrated by relevant stakeholders of the sector, and it is expected it assists and facilitates the decisions made by the consortium members. It is therefore closely related with the stakeholders consultation and engagement strategy, and it is a key opportunity to find further end users of Water2REturn system, as well as to explore in depth the regulatory and societal barriers for the use of recycled products such as the ones to be manufactured in the project framework.
The last developments with regards to the lab tests carried out within each treatment line were shared by the research partners, as well as the results of the preliminary tests carried out on agronomic products (concretely, on biostimulants).
Furthermore, a technical discussion on the system implementation at Matadero del Sur was held, discussing about the next activities to be carried out at the site and the timing for each of them, trying to shorten as much as possible the remaining implementation period.
Last but not least, an update on last dissemination activities was undertaken, with special emphasis on the last developments of the project website.
This first day finished with a field trip to University of Ljubljana’s Algal Park, where they demonstrate and test different kinds of algae treatment and the effect of biostimulants on crops, among many other tests and experiments.
June, 27th. The second day meeting was mostly devoted to innovation management, exploitation of results and intellectual property, among other issues.
In addition, the already done and upcoming work in relation to the environmental, economic, social and risk assessments was revised and planned to the next months; moreover, the Layman’s report, i.e., a key item for a social awareness campaign addressed towards civil society organisations, was introduced to the consortium.
Finally, two working sessions were organised; the first one was devoted to the development of the project demonstration and marketing video, and the second one to the organisation of the capacity building strategy of the project, consisting on two series of workshops: one for the slaughtering industry and one for the farmers and consumers.
This meeting is expected to be the last one before Water2REturn system is ready and producing secondary raw materials for manufacturing agronomic products.
