Evidence and open data
Collect and analyse information from open sources and scientific publications on environmental pollution and protection, and publish data based on the institute's own scientific expertise.
A non-profit scientific association working on environmental pollution and protection, the quality of soil, water and air, and the biological technologies that restore degraded environments.
RIES — Research Institute for Environmental Studies — is a non-profit association constituted under Portuguese law on 19 September 2023 and seated in Parede, in the municipality of Cascais. It is registered as a research institution with the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT).
The institute studies how pollutants behave in soil, water and air, how microbial communities respond to them, and how biological methods can restore what has been damaged. It works through international collaborations, publishes its results in peer-reviewed journals, and provides consultancy grounded in its members' own research.
RIES is governed by a general assembly, a board and a supervisory board, as set out in its articles of association.
The purpose of the association, as set out in Article 2 of its articles of association, grouped here by theme.
Collect and analyse information from open sources and scientific publications on environmental pollution and protection, and publish data based on the institute's own scientific expertise.
Sample and process environmental samples, and build prognoses on the quality of soil, water, air and other environments.
Analyse environmental data with bioinformatic, statistical and specialised software; use geoinformatics systems and artificial intelligence to analyse, forecast and manage territories.
Reveal the mechanisms underlying interactions between living organisms and their environments, and analyse the effects of humans on environments and of environments on human quality of life and health.
Develop environmentally friendly technologies for the bioremediation and biorestoration of polluted and degraded sites, and green technologies for agriculture.
Develop zero-waste and low-waste strategies for industry, settlements and agriculture, and new technologies, mechanisms and machinery that reduce waste production and resource consumption.
Participate in international environmental research projects and provide consultancy based on the members' expertise and on the institute's own research.
The themes below reflect the peer-reviewed work published by the institute's members.
36165160200811A-C006-A1FCPolina Galitskaya is the founder and President of RIES. She is an environmental microbiologist whose research addresses soil microbial ecology, the bioremediation of petroleum-polluted soils, biochar and carbon sequestration, the spread of antibiotic resistance in agricultural systems, and the relationship between environmental microbial diversity and human health.
Before founding RIES she was Professor and Head of the Biocontrol Laboratory at the Institute of Environmental Sciences, Kazan Federal University. Her work is carried out in collaboration with research groups in Portugal, Finland, Russia, Spain and Cuba, and appears in journals including Scientific Reports, Frontiers in Microbiology, BMC Public Health, Microbiology Spectrum and the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
Works from ORCID; citations, h-index and i10-index from Google Scholar, retrieved 28 August 2026.
For research collaborations, project partnerships, consultancy enquiries or press, write to the institute by email. You will receive a reply as soon as possible.