There are projects you follow on paper, and there are projects you feel in a room. On 9 and 10 June, in Ghent, EVEN CLOSER was very much the second kind.
The consortium gathered in a city that seemed chosen on purpose. Ghent is medieval canals and church spires on one side, and one of Europe’s most restless tech and startup ecosystems on the other – a place that has quietly become a magnet for people building things that don’t exist yet. It’s hard to imagine a better backdrop for two days spent talking about what Europe’s circular future could actually look like.
Day One at De Krook: Regions, Work Packages, Rhythm
Day one opened at De Krook, the city’s library and civic landmark, with coffee, handshakes, and that particular energy of people who have been emailing each other for months finally sharing a table. The morning moved through the project’s work packages, region by region, partner by partner – Calabria, Slovakia, the Azores, Aruba, West Finland, the Eastern Netherlands. Different geographies, different starting points, the same question: how do we get better at recovering what we already have?
What stood out wasn’t any single presentation. It was the rhythm. Partners arrived prepared. Materials were ready. Timelines held. In a consortium of this size and ambition, that is not a small thing – it’s the difference between a project that exists and a project that moves. The Q&A sessions ran long in the good way, with hands up and follow-ups and the occasional productive disagreement.
The afternoon carried through pilot plants, recycling technologies, quantum applications, and digital product passports, and by the time the day closed, the conversation had spilled well past the agenda.
Between Courses: The Evening in Ghent
The conversation continued along the canals during the evening city walk, and then over dinner at De Kunst – an underground restocafé with an inner garden that felt less like a restaurant booking and more like a good decision. Some of the most useful exchanges of the two days happened there, between courses, without a slide in sight.
Day Two at Zebrastraat: Widening the Room
Day two moved to Zebrastraat and picked up where the energy left off: the accelerator programme, investor relationships, logistics networks, policy labs, communication strategy. Shorter, denser, forward-leaning. Then the doors opened for the Public Session, where the consortium was joined by European, national and regional voices – policymakers, innovators, investors – for two panels on interregional cooperation and on financing the value chains Europe says it wants.
That’s the part worth underlining. EVEN CLOSER isn’t a closed circle. Over two days in Ghent, the room kept widening: partners meeting partners, partners meeting investors, regions discovering that the problem they’d been solving alone had already been half-solved four countries away. Networking is a tired word for what actually happened, which was closer to matchmaking.
The consortium left Ghent with momentum – the kind that comes from a project delivering on schedule, with partners who show up and a mission that keeps finding new allies.
Next Stop: Malta
Next stop: Malta, for the third Consortium Meeting. New island, same direction, and the sense that the best part of this project is still ahead of it.
See you there. 🇲🇹