As the Chair of Water4All, could you share a few words about the partnership and its significance in ensuring water security for our planet?
I can mention 3 things, our ressources, ambitions, and approach. The Water4All partnership is probably the largest water research and innovation funding network ever created in Europe, potentially involving the best and the brightest brains across the continent. Given these resources, everybody in the partnership shares the vision and the ambition of taking the European water research and innovation to the next level with the aim of ensuring water security for the planet. We are fully aware that this vision is a tremendous task, and we need to focus not only on how we solve the challenges existing in Europe, since all the major challenges have to be solved on a global level. That is also why we currently strive to expand the partnership beyond Europe.
The fact, that the partnership includes both problem owners and end-users and those institutions and individuals who provide solutions to these problems gives us the benefit of shaping and earmarking our solutions specifically to the most urgent problems.
There is a broad understanding among the partners of the real meaning of the word innovation, that the research has to be solution-oriented, and instruments and technologies for transferring research findings into real solutions are totally necessary to fullfill the ambitions we have for the partnership.
A Water-Smart Society is a society where the true value of water is recognised and realized. What do you see as the main challenges in achieving this vision, and how can Water-Oriented Living Labs (WOLLs) contribute to this effort?
I think there is a recognition of this within the partnership. However, it is crucial that there are no obstacles for the various stakeholders to work together to achieve the vision. In some countries, there is not a long tradition for research funding to target innovation the broad sense, where the ultimate aim of the research should be underpinning the development solutions and technologies to meet the challenges in the water sector. Therefore, some of the researchers and also the end users are not so much used to work in multistakeholder consortia. Furthermore, some of the funding agencies are not used to require such an approach from the researchers and might not have the legitimacy to provide funding to end-users such as utilities and companies. In Water4All, this focus is the basis for all our actions and the whole partnership is built on this way of thinking. So we are getting there, but we have to realize that it takes time to implement this in all our interventions, calls, etc.
One of the main anchors of innovation is the demonstration aspect, that the solutions which have been developed through our research are demonstrated at different scale in order to adjust, modify and adapt the solutions for various purposes. In that respect, it is very important that we have the clusters on board, since their approach is exactly the multistakeholder approach. The WOLLs, which mostly are provided through the involvement of the clusters are also a crucial part of this approach, since they provide platforms for demonstrating and testing the tools and instruments at pilot and full scale, and therefore serve as the last brick in the puzzle, so to say.
How does Water4All envision to contribute to the alignment of water research and innovation agendas across Europe?
Simply by the fact that all countries and all stakeholders have been invited to take part in the partnership, and many of them are on board, and that the partnership is designed such that there is a continuous and ongoing discussion among the partners on needs and priorities in the European water sector and beyond.
