What they do
The Restart Project is a UK-based social enterprise running community repair events (Restart Parties), campaigning for right-to-repair legislation, and collecting open repair data. Their events focus specifically on electronics: laptops, phones, tablets, game consoles, and small appliances. They also run corporate repair workshops and educational programs in schools.
Why they matter
Restart goes beyond repair events into systemic change. Their policy work contributed to the EU's landmark right-to-repair directives requiring manufacturers to make spare parts available for up to 10 years. Their open repair data (shared with the Open Repair Alliance) provides the evidence base for repairability scores and design improvement requirements. When the EU evaluates whether a product category needs repairability regulation, Restart's data is in the room.
How to support
Attend a Restart Party in the UK or start one in your area using their free community organizer toolkit. Their website hosts training resources for volunteer repair coaches. Donations fund both community events and the policy advocacy work that makes repair possible at scale.
Key project to explore
The Open Repair Alliance (co-founded by Restart) standardizes repair data collection across 25+ repair networks in 20+ countries. The resulting dataset powers repairability scoring systems that the EU now uses in product regulation. This is the infrastructure that turns individual repair actions into policy outcomes.