WE President monthly editorial

Dear Water Europe family,

Lisbon. The Autumn Board Meeting took place on 23-24 October, hosted by our member, Aguas do Portugal. We had some very interesting interventions from DG ENV and DG RTD, regarding the priorities for a new Commission, and plans for an all-new Water Partnership. Keep posted for more on this to come early 2020.

At this board meeting, a series of important proposals have been validated by the Board. The proposal to increase Water Europe’s engagement with pertinent water policy dossiers, and to reinforce staff, and services to members to make such an activity more effective, has been endorsed. The Board has also accepted Water Europe to become a founding member of the UN World Water Quality Alliance.

On more general, but not less important ground, the Board also accepted unanimously a clear willingness and engagement by Water Europe to be representative of society’s diversity in all its governance bodies. As such we make public our commitment to communicate, propose and implement specific actions leading to gender equality at Board, Cluster and Working Group level by 2022.

From Lisbon to Brussels. Water Knowledge Europe (WKE) edition concluded last week in Brussels. This was our last edition for H2020 Calls and as usual a big success. A compact and highly interesting programme, 250 B2B meetings in 2 hours, 13 Working Group meetings. I am pleased to see that the attendants that I had the opportunity to speak with, value as a most effective, valuable and result-oriented tool to exchange, meet, discuss, and promote projects and consortia.

We took advantage of WKE to present and launch a new WE publication: Analyses & Overview of WE members’ European Projects, you can download this document from our web site, and I suggest warmly you do just that. The key fact and the best possible reason to realize how much has been done in so little time: Water Europe members cover 74% of all water-related H2020 project participations!

From Brussels to Amsterdam. I had the chance to represent Water Europe at the Industry Leaders Forum 2019, as part of the Amsterdam International Water Week. It is a pleasure and reason for pride to confirm that the key elements of our Water Vision, very specially the concept of the Value of Water, but also our push for Water Oriented Living Labs, are being accepted, mentioned and used to construct new value proposals for better market uptake. Our ambassador programme is precisely intended to spread these concepts clearly and further.

The Board in Lisbon also decided to promote, push forward, and support our Water Europe ambassadors. An excellent and very interesting example of how you all can contribute to making the voice of water heard, as well as, opening our community to the most up to date, and valuable insights are provided by our new Guest editorial. Ilari Aho, Water Europe Ambassador has a video interview with the Minister for Environment and Climate Change, Krista Mikkonen in light of the EU Finnish Presidency.

Water Europe. Do more. Do better.

Join Water Europe side-meetings at the EUWIC2019

As a supporting partner of the EIP Water Conference 2019, Water Europe is getting ready for the much-anticipated event of the water sector. Back to back to the conference, Water Europe will host two side events on the 11^th of December. Following up on the successful workshop held in the context of ENoLL Open Living Labs Day in September, Water Europe is now organising the workshop ‘Living Labs for a Water Smart Society’. Building on the outcomes of the September’s event, the workshop will continue the discussion on how WoLLs can effectively drive the research and the development of innovative solutions in a real environment with the proactive involvement of the water actors and stakeholders and facilitate the market outreach of innovations.

• Side-event 1: Living Labs for a Water Smart Society

 Building on the outcomes of the latest ENoLL Open Living Labs Days, the Water Europe first workshop on “Living Labs for Water Smart Society” will continue the discussion on how WoLLs can effectively drive the research and the development of innovative solutions in a real environment with the proactive involvement of the water actors and stakeholders and facilitate the market outreach of innovations. The meeting intends to hold an open dialogue about the different types of sustainable water-oriented living labs, owing to the context-specific factors affecting the emergence of water problem types.

What are the WoLLs?

WoLLs (Water-oriented Living Labs ) are real-life, water-oriented and demo-type and platform-type environments with a cross-sector nexus approach, which have the involvement and commitment of multi-stakeholders (including water authorities) and a certain continuity (good chance to continue to their existence), and provide a “field lab” to develop, test, and validate a combination of solutions as defined in the SIRA, which include technologies, their integration as well as combination with new business models and innovative policies based on the value of water. There is no one single water problem type.

When? Wednesday, December 11, 2019

What time? From 09:30 to 12:00

Venue: Palacio de Congresos de Zaragoza – Room 8

If you are interested in joining the meeting please contact Anca Popa . For more information regarding Water Europe’s publication dedicated to the WoLLs, please click here.

• Side event 2: Human Capital in the Water Sector – towards a European skills agenda?

Same time, the European Junior Water Programme (EJWP) and the WE Working Group on Human Capital are jointly organising the ‘Human Capital in the Water Sector – towards a European skills agenda?’ session that will present the findings of the consultation on Human Capital in Europe happened earlier this year, creating this way more insights, knowledge and collaborative actions on this significant topic and its effect for the achievement of the Water Smart Society.

During the conference, Water Europe will have its own stand. Seize the chance to pass by to meet us and discuss with us.

When? Wednesday, December 11, 2019

What time? From 16:15 to 18:00

Venue: Palacio de Congresos de Zaragoza – Room 2

For more information or to register to the ‘Human Capital in the Water Sector – towards a European skills agenda?” workshop, please send an email to info@juniorwaterprogramme.eu 

RIMA’s Calls: 8.1 million for SMEs

RIMA’s Open call for small & medium-sized and slightly bigger companies has still one month to go before selecting its winning applicants. Launched within the framework of the H2020, RIMA (Robotics for Inspection and Maintenance)  is an acceleration project that aims at connecting research and industry organisations to deploy robotics technologies in I&M (Inspection & Maintenance) applications to fit market needs. Water Europe is a partner of RIMA project, representing the water sector.

The first open call of the project, launched in September 2019, will select 25 European Technology Transfer & Technology Demonstrator Experiments in the fields of water supply & sanitation; road, rail & infrastructure in cities; transport hubs; nuclear infrastructure; oil & gas extraction; energy generation & distribution. Proposals for the water sector include I&M robotic solutions for clean water, wastewater, and stormwater infrastructures.

Each selected consortium will receive up to €300.000 equity-free funding, access to acceleration services and expertise of a network of 13 Digital Innovation Hubs (DIHs), all dedicated to help the innovation and commercialization process of new I&M robotics solutions in Europe. Applications to the Open Call will be accepted until the 19th December 2019 at 16:00 CET.

To apply and find more detailed information, please click here.

Interested? Please click here to watch the new video of RIMA.

What should you expect from G-STIC Conference 2019?

The third edition of G-STIC is coming up on 20-22 November in Brussels with a compelling agenda of different thematic programmes, aiming at bringing forward market-ready integrated technological solutions that can have a big impact on the achievement of the SDGs. Chief among them remains the water topic and Water Europe is glad to actively contribute to the conference’s discussions with three WE ambassadors present to address how we can embrace water innovations and accelerate their wide-scale deployment.

In particular, Alexis de Kerchove, WE Board member and member of the WE Vision Leadership Team on Water-Smart Cities will share his insights, delivering a keynote speech on ‘Urban water sector technological transitions and innovations towards 2030’ , the moment that Mehdi Ahmadi, leader of the WE WG ‘Nature-Based Solutions’ will elaborate on how water and climate-resilient management will shape the transition in water management and contribute to delivering the SDGs. Durk Krol, WG Executive Director will moderate the panel discussion on the topic ‘Grey to green infrastructure: can nature teach us climate resilience?’

To read more on the G-STIC Conference, click here.

Climate change is real and already happening’ says Tim aus der Beek, leader of the WE WG ‘Water & Climate’ 

Why is it important to have a new Working Group dedicated to the theme of ‘Water & Climate’?

The occurrence and use of water are largely dependent on the climatic conditions and equally affected by them. Climate change is real and already happening. As shown by the European drought in 2018, many different water-related sectors are affected, for example, food production, transportation, health and ecology. This means that the water sector, in general, needs to cope and adapt to these changes. Therefore, it is very important to have a Working Group at a European level, where researchers and stakeholders get together on a regular basis to define problems, develop solutions and discuss implementation options. Water Europe provides an excellent platform for this work. Especially, as the new Working Group also aims at integrating relevant water and climate topics from other Working Groups, such as Water and: Agrifood, Nexus, Ecosystem Services, Energy.

What are the main priorities of the newly launched Working Group?

The Working Group “Water & Climate” was first established at the Water Innovation Europe meeting in Brussels in June 2019. The scope of the working group aims at (i) understanding the current and future impact of climate and climate change on European water availability and management, (ii) sustainable and innovative solutions to mitigate and cope with these impacts, and (iii) enable and improve participation of different water stakeholders and sectors. Furthermore, the Working Group Water & Climate will define and prioritize R&D gaps and provide an overview of strategies and measures to adjust European water management to a changing climate on multiple scales.

What are you currently working on and what are you expecting to deliver within the upcoming year?

We have used the first two meetings in June and October 2019 to attract new members for the working group and together we have gathered and prioritized the most important topics concerning water and climate. Our next step includes the description of problems, related research needs, as well as options for solutions, mitigation and implementation. We will start with the highest-ranked water and climate topics. By the end of next year, we are planning to summarize the results in a white paper, which will be publically available and also be delivered to the European Commission.

WE Working Groups Updates

WE Working Groups have set up their meetings for the much anticipated Water Knowledge Europe 2019 event.

On the 31st of October, the Working Groups will convene to present the latest advances of their WGs, their current activities and their annual work plan for 2020, in parallel with their preparations for the H2020 calls. As every year, the meetings will be divided into morning and afternoon parallel sessions for participants who want to attend different WG meetings.

In the afternoon, a joint meeting of the three Working Groups ‘Contaminants of Emerging Concerns’, ‘Bathing Waters’ and ‘Urban Water Pollution’ has been organised with the aim to put together efforts and resources on common water challenges and produce a work plan for the development of a white paper on water pollution.

FYI, Water Knowledge Europe 2019 standard fee will end on the 28h of October! If you wish to attend the event & join the Working Groups, please register HERE asap.

The detailed schedule of the Working Groups meetings follows below:

aqua3S project officially launched!

The H2020 project aqua3S has officially started its activities. On the 25th and 26th of September 2019, the kick-off meeting of the project was held at the Centre of Research and Technology Hellas (CERTH) premises in Thessaloniki, Greece.

aqua3S is a new project that will create strategies and methods, enabling a water facilities to easily integrate solutions regarding water safety. aqua3S combines novel technologies in water safety and security, aiming to standardise existing sensor technologies complemented by state-of-the-art detection mechanisms.

aqua3S coordinator is the Information Technologies Institute (ITI) of CERTH and more specifically the Multimedia Knowledge and Social Media Analytics Laboratory (MKLab). The aqua3S consortium consists of 23 partners from 10 European countries (Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, France, Greece, Italy, Spain, Germany and United Kingdom). The consortium includes 4 water-related first responders organizations (LHA2, RCM, SVK, WBL), 1 water authority (AAWA), 5 water utility operators (AcegasApsAmga S.p.A., EYATH, SOFYISKA, SUEZ Smart solutions, Vivaqua), 1 public security agency (BDI), 6 academic/research institutes (CERTH, CENTRIC, FZU, ICCS/NTUA, UNEXE, USTUTT), 4 technical SMEs (Everis, mirSense, DRAXIS, EGM), 1 SME working on ethical and legal issues (Trilateral) and Water Europe to support all the dissemination actions. Representatives from all partners were present at the kick-off meeting, empowering the project with their own particular skills and expertise. Each partner will have a critical role to play in the development of aqua3S the next three years.

Jan Hofman, leader of the newly launched WG ‘Water Security’ shares his insights with us

Why is it important to have a new Working Group dedicated to the theme of ‘Water Security’?

Water Security is an umbrella for addressing the multitude of water-related challenges and issues. It is related to the capacity of a population to safeguard access to adequate quantities of water of acceptable quality, for protection against water-related disasters and for preserving ecosystems. Water Security puts water at the heart of society. So, it relates to the Agenda 2030 and SDG6. Water Security requires a holistic view which is provided by Water Europe’s Vision 2030 and SIRA. The key challenge of achieving Water Security is developing long-term pro-active approaches. The new Working Group will focus on this holistic approach and translate it to local situations. It also offers Water Europe and its members to reach out beyond Europe’s borders. Improving Water Security in Africa and Asia, areas where the population will grow unprecedented, is central for Europe’s development.

What are the main priorities of the newly launched Working Group?

The importance of Water Security is clear. However, the way it is defined makes it challenging to use and assess. The main priority now is to develop a quantitative assessment framework for Water Security. How can we measure it? What are the performance indicators? Where can we find the required reliable and open data? How the assessment framework provides action perspectives? These are important questions to be answered to develop long-term sustainable water management and governance leading to increased water security.

What are you currently working on and what are you expecting to deliver within the upcoming year?

The working group is planning a workshop at KWR Water Research Institute, to set the first steps for creating the assessment framework. In addition, we will look forward to the upcoming Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe calls with relevance to the theme. And of course, the working group will seek close collaboration with Water Europe members through other Working Groups and the Clusters.

Water Europe President Editorial, September 2019

Dear Water Europe family,

A new season is well on its way, and after a short break to catch our breath, Water Europe is busy again shaping and streamlining its activities, and efforts to make water heard, and more important on the EU agenda. The Water Europe Board will start the season travelling, and the Autumn meeting scheduled to take place on 23-24 October, will be held in Lisbon hosted by our member, Aguas do Portugal. Many thanks to our host.

A new season, and a new name, both new beginnings, will come with lots of other changes: Water Europe will soon launch its rebranded website. Look out for it!

This autumn’s agenda is once again loaded with exciting occasions to meet up, exchange and collaborate. Preparations for Water Knowledge Europe 2019 are underway. We have identified 38 water-relevant calls from the running H2020 Work Programmes that offer the opportunity to address several categories of R&I water challenges.

The EIP Water Conference 2019 is coming up on the 12th of December in Zaragoza and Water Europe will of course participate, be there, and make its presence felt.

The new EU Commission will kick-off on the 1st of November. Environmental issues seem clearly on the ascent with a senior Vice-President for Green deals.

These changes also affect this newsletter. With this issue, we are inaugurating a new format, for our invited editorials, trying to bring relevant EU opinions closer to you, betting on an even more personal approach, such as an interview with specific questions and answers.

We are thankful, and proud to have Mrs. Veronica Manfredi, Director for Quality of Life (Air, Water & Industrial Emissions), of the European Commission, inaugurating this new format. I hope you find it interesting. Our thanks to Mrs. Manfredi for making this first “move”.

Unchanged in this new season, remains our determination to contribute not only to research but also to water innovation, bringing water knowledge to the market.

Water Europe successfully organised a workshop on Water Oriented Living Labs with the participation of some of our Cluster Leadership Teams during the ENoLL Open Living Lab Day 2019 (OLLD) held from the 3rd to the 5th of September in Thessaloniki, Greece.

Water Europe is organising a Water Market Europe edition in the context of Aquatech Amsterdam 2019 on 5-8 November 2019.

Welcome all back, welcome to this new season, …let’s just… do it!

Field visit to the ZERO BRINE demo-site in Poland

On the 8th of October, ZERO BRINE project invites you to discover how to recover resources from wastewater and increase energy efficiency in the mining industry. Saline wastewaters are a concern of many industries. The coal mining industry in Poland is a case in point: discharging around 4 millions tons of sodium chloride into rivers every year. ZERO BRINE is turning this problematic waste into a source of income by recovering all materials such as water, salts, and minerals for reuse in industries while curbing energy use.

During the site visit, journalists, industry experts, academics, and policy-makers are invited to see the technology and to learn the latest results and benefits for the environment, society and business, thus advancing the triple-bottom-line of sustainability. Due to limited capacity on-site, interested participants need to reserve their spot here.

To check the agenda and read more, please click here.