Tomas Michel, President’s Editorial
Dear Water Europe family,
The Water Europe Board convened in Athens two weeks ago. It has been a too long time since our board members have not had the chance to meet in person, discuss and exchange views. We had almost become used to convene over the screen. In this lovely and hospital city, the meeting was this time a completely different and rewarding experience. Among the key topics of our agenda were the WE Membership Customer Journey, the renewal of our Vision Leadership Teams (VLTs) for the term 2021-2023, as well as the new Working Groups’ structure that will be put in place for the period 2021-2024.
The long-excluded possibility for coming together and exchanging in person is now also just around the corner for our members on the occasion of Water Knowledge Europe 2021, coming up in less than 10 days.
Water Europe has carried out an analysis of the Horizon Europe work-programme 2021-2022 to identify the water-related calls for proposals and offer the opportunity to WE members and all the event’s participants to get prepared to develop robust and successful project ideas. The analysis produced a set of documents – one for each cluster of the Pillar 2 of Horizon Europe – that highlights the selected calls for year 2022 and explain the rationale of the calls through the “Destinations” of the work-programmes of each cluster.
The Water Knowledge Europe 2021 autumn edition will be a hybrid event, allowing those who can attend physically to enjoy the event’s plenary sessions and the networking dinner but also giving the opportunity to the ones joining online to participate in the B2B meetings and the Working Groups sessions. On the other side of this hybrid experience, from the 8th to the 16th of November, all our Working Groups will host their meetings online, enabling its members to join remotely no matter where they are.
Concerning our advocacy tier, Water Europe is releasing a position paper titled ‘Addressing Pollutants of Surface and Ground Water’. Water Europe shares the concern about the presence of pharmaceuticals, microplastics, pesticides, industrial chemicals, (heavy) metals and other substances in European polluting surface and groundwater bodies. In support of the objective to “protect the aquatic environment and human health from chemical pollution through achieving good surface water”, Water Europe encourages upgrading the list of priority substances for surface and groundwater as follows to generate new economic, social & health and environmental benefits. Read the full position paper here.
We do not only need to be proactive and efficient, we also need to communicate about our actions and results. To make accessible and understandable to everyone the advocacy work done within Water Europe, we have launched a new series of videos ‘It’s time to be Water-Smart’ with the first video dedicated to the Textile strategy. If you wish to get informed on the water challenges, the recommendations that Water Europe brings forward, and how you can contribute, you need to subscribe to our channel. Watch here our first video.
