One of the main objectives of RIS COMEX is to involve inland navigation stakeholders during the execution of the project in order to identify the needs and requirements out of their daily business and to get meaningful input based on their practical experience. This is essential to enable the project consortium to define and realise the envisioned services in an optimal way. Therefore, stakeholder management is foreseen on two levels within RIS COMEX. On one hand the so called RIS COMEX Industry Reference Group (IRG) consists of European branch organisations representing specific stakeholder groups within inland navigation. On the other hand the individual project partners will get in direct contact with their national stakeholders to identify their needs and requirements and to fine-tune the defined services accordingly. The first IRG meeting with representatives of four European branch organisations (Inland Navigation Europe, European Barge Union, Association for European Inland Navigation and Waterways, European Federation of Inland Ports) took place on 17th of May 2017 in Brussels where the further cooperation was discussed and the next steps were agreed on. In this respect, the RIS COMEX project consortium is looking forward to a fruitful cooperation with the future users of the envisioned services throughout the project lifetime.
