IFIXIT GMBH

Their core work

iFixit is the European arm of the globally recognized repair advocacy and documentation company, specializing in making consumer electronics repairable. They bring deep practical expertise in product disassembly, repairability assessment, and design-for-repair principles to EU research consortia. Their core contribution is hands-on knowledge of how devices are built, how they fail, and what design choices make repair feasible or impossible — essential ground-truth data for circular economy research. They also contribute consumer-facing data acquisition and product testing methodologies that bridge the gap between laboratory analysis and real-world device lifecycles.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

iFixit's H2020 journey shows a clear shift from materials-focused recycling toward upstream design intervention. Their early work (2014–2018) centered on end-of-life processing — disassembling e-waste, recovering polymers and critical raw materials like lithium and antimony. By 2019, their focus moved decisively toward preventing waste in the first place: design for repair, product longevity, and fighting premature obsolescence through consumer testing programs. This mirrors the broader EU policy shift from waste management to circular product design, and positions iFixit as a practice-informed voice in the ecodesign debate.

iFixit is moving upstream from end-of-life recycling toward influencing product design standards and consumer rights — expect them in future projects on Right to Repair regulation, ecodesign criteria, and repairability scoring.

How they like to work

iFixit consistently participates as a partner rather than leading consortia, which fits their role as a specialized knowledge provider embedded in larger research efforts. With 39 unique partners across 12 countries from just 3 projects, they work in sizable European consortia (averaging 13+ partners per project). This broad network signals they are comfortable integrating into diverse teams and contributing domain expertise without needing to drive the overall research agenda.

Despite only three projects, iFixit has built a remarkably wide network of 39 unique partners across 12 countries, reflecting their participation in large multi-national consortia focused on circular economy and electronics sustainability. Their Stuttgart base connects them well into the German manufacturing and sustainability research ecosystem.

What sets them apart

iFixit brings something almost no other consortium partner can: real-world, hands-on disassembly and repairability data from thousands of consumer devices, backed by a global community of repair practitioners. While most partners in circular economy projects approach from materials science or industrial engineering, iFixit provides the practical "can a human actually fix this?" perspective that grounds research in reality. For any consortium working on ecodesign, product longevity, or circular electronics, they are one of the few organizations that can deliver both credible technical assessment and consumer-facing communication at scale.

Highlights from their portfolio

• PROMPT
  Directly addresses premature obsolescence with multi-stakeholder product testing — highly aligned with EU Right to Repair legislation and ecodesign regulation trends.
• CloseWEEE
  Largest funded project (EUR 394,998) tackling the full WEEE recycling chain from disassembly to critical raw materials recovery including lithium-ion batteries and flame retardants.
• sustainablySMART
  Bridged the gap between manual repair and industrial remanufacturing with sorting and disassembly automation for smartphones and tablets.