Report. WssTP Stakeholders Event May Strengthen collaboration in research and innovation for a water efficient Europe.

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1 WssTP Stakeholders Event Report May 2011 Brussels, Belgium Strengthen collaboration in research and innovation for a water efficient Europe

2 Water and wastewater services play a major economic role in Europe, directly providing more than 600,000 jobs for over 70,000 water services operators. Water services are delivered through more than 3.5 million km of drinking water networks, more than 2.2 million km of sewers and almost 70,000 wastewater treatment plants. Annual investments in the sector represent overall more than 33,000 million. The annual turnover for the sector is around 72,000 million. Our vision By 2030 the European water sector will be regarded as the global leader in the provision of sustainable water services.

3 Table of contents Executive Summary p. 2 Recommendations & Key figures p. 2 Setting the scene: p The EC activities towards water innovation 2. The activities of EU stakeholders Inputs from stakeholders p How to better coordinate water actors? 2. How to better innovate towards water efficiency? 3. How to better integrate research results? Wrap-up & Concluding remarks p. 8 Conclusions p. 8 Glossary p. 8 Contact, Annex & Credits p. 9 In short The 4 th Annual WssTP Stakeholder s Event was held on 17 th and 18 th May in Brussels, Belgium. Its aim was to discuss the concrete actions needed to identify the key drivers to boost the competitiveness and innovation potential of the water sector. The objective of this report is to summarise the contributions and expectations of the stakeholders from the water sector to the European Commission. The report will be a contribution from WssTP to the Common Strategic Framework (CSF) for EU Research and Innovation funding which will shape the future European Innovation Partnership (EIP) for a Water Efficient Europe. Key figures participants from 14 European countries - 6 different DGs from the European Commission represented during the morning session - 14 presentations, 5 sessions, 3 workshops, 1 wrap-up session - 1 report A look at the agenda Tuesday 17th May Networking Cocktail 18h - 21h Opening session, with Manuela Soares, European Commission, DG RTD, Director and Mike Farrimond, Chair of WssTP. Wednesday 18th May Setting the scene Setting the scene with speakers from 6 DGs of the European Commission: Panagiotis Balabanis, DG RTD Robert Schröder, DG Environment Rosario Bento Pais, DG Climate Antonios Barbas, DG Infso Henriette van Eijl, DG Enterprise María José Doval Tedín, DG Regional Policy Moderator: Paul Reiter, IWA Followed by a presentiation of the on-going EU initiatives for water led by different stakeholders. Enrique Playan, JPI WATER Xavier Chazelle, ACQUEAU Theo van den Hoven, WssTP Consultation of Stakeholders in 3 Workshops Workshop 1: Promote a coordinated research and Enabling Framework Workshop 2: What is ressource efficiency for water? Workshop 3: Interface Technology and Politics Wrap-up Closing Session Report of the conclusions to the European Commission. Luisa Prista, DG RTD Peter Gammeltoft, DG Environment Mike Farrimond, WssTP

4 Executive Summary The 4 th Annual WssTP Stakeholder s Event was held on 17 th and 18 th May in Brussels, Belgium. It aimed to discuss the concrete actions needed to identify the key drivers and actions necessary to boost the competitiveness and innovation potential of the water sector. The Water supply and sanitation Technology Platform (WssTP) has identified three key gaps to address the need to boost the European competitiveness of the water sector: 1. A better collaboration between EU water actors 2. A quicker innovation to bring more research to the market 3. A stronger integration of research results to speed up the innovation process The European Commission (EC) is currently in the process of establishing the future EU funding schemes and a Common Strategic Framework (CSF); implementing the objectives of the Innovation Union and shaping the European Innovation Partnership (EIP) for Water Efficient Europe. To ensure the creation of an efficient, coordinated and strong European water research area, the participants of the WssTP s stakeholder workshop provided key inputs on the important challenges related to coordination of EU policies for the water sector, innovation for improved water efficiency and integration of research results to boost the innovation cycle. The discussions underlined the strong commitment from the EC and from EU stakeholders to support more research activities and synergies within the water sector. The different debates however highlighted an insufficient coordination between the different DGs of the EC and the need to set up strong coordinated governance that will support boosting the competiveness of the European water sector. The participants of the WssTP called upon the EU to pursue and accelerate its efforts to implement strong policy and research initiatives to address water efficiency. Recommendations For better coordination The coordinating programme should be overarching, ambitious public private partnership with a target of 1 billion investments Strong policy oriented programme defining the role of each initiative based on a foresight vision for future and setting a common language The EIP should build on what is existing and try to fill the gaps instead of creating a new programme not related to any existing initiatives To boost coordination and innovation, an emphasis should be put on competence building and capacity building. Public authorities should put more efforts to innovation Focus on programming and integration of existing on-going research to avoid duplication For faster innovation Enable large demonstrations of innovative approaches - Large-scale demonstrators to maximise research impact (demonstration and transferability) - Appropriate scale of water management options to maximise return on investment (centralised versus decentralized options for water services) Provide adequate European legislations and standards: - Water reuse - Nutrients recovery (agricultural disposal of biosolids and other practices) - Renewable energy (biogas, biofuels, heat exchange, etc.) - Water pricing Develop appropriate incentives and tender procedures - Incentives for carbon and energy neutral / positive Waste Water Treatment Plants - Incentives for energy efficiency and minimum environmental footprint of urban water systems - Development of Green Public Procurement for water infrastructures Options and developments should be assessed and benchmarked with normalised tools for environmental impacts such as Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA). This approach would avoid «shifting effects» such as bringing environmental impacts of one technology or initiative to another part of the environment For stronger integration Streamline the existing instrument and programmes Improve the transferability of academic research to industrial actors and end users Develop partnerships to overcome fragmentation and duplication Develop tools from social sciences to measure the impacts of research and to shorten the integration cycle Set a common language and rules across the different funding programmes Ease the process of integration by facilitating a single programme on water across the interface between science and policy 2

5 Introduction WssTP and its stakeholders want to participate actively in the on-going EU process to define the future funding schemes and the Common Strategic Framework; and to help to shape the objectives of the European Innovation Partnership for Water Efficient Europe. The participants of the WssTP stakeholders event provided key inputs on the important challenges related to coordination of EU policies for the water sector. They see the need for more innovation in the water sector in particular for water efficiency and the creation of an efficient, coordinated and strong European water research area. Robert Schroder, DG Environnement Panagiotis Balabanis, DG Research and Innovation Key Figures Water and wastewater infrastructure networks: > 3.5 Million Km water distribution pipes > 2.5 Million Km waste water sewers > 70,000 wastewater treatment plants Global market: 250 to 350 Billion (Bn) for municipal and industrial drinking water and waste water EU iinvestment: 10,5 Bn/year for water & wastewater equipment for industrial markets 33Bn invested in water infrastructures Private funding: 19% of total investment from 2 Bn/year to 6,1 Bn EU R&D: 200 M/year for public funding > 130 M/year for private funding Employment: direct jobs in Europe SMEs: employees, SMEs Expected 2% to 10% (Lead market: China, India, growth: and Middle East) Patents: Increased from 575 in 2000 to 957 in For desalination, they raised from 5 in 2000, to 51 in 2008 Setting the scence Since the beginning of 2010, the European Commission (EC) has put a clear emphasis on innovation, shifting towards strengthening research, development and market deployments of innovative systems and technologies. One of the major flagship initiatives announced by the European Union (EU) is the launch of European Innovation Partnership (EIP). The aim of the Partnership is to promote actions that can speed-up innovation in the water sector and remove barriers to innovation. The actions are intended to achieve the EU water policy objectives while reducing the EU water footprint, improving water security and promoting the worldwide leadership of the European water industry. As defined later by the EC, EIPs are a new way of bringing together public and private actors at EU, national and regional level to tackle the grand challenges Europe is facing. These challenges also represent opportunities for new business and the Partnerships will aim to give the EU a first-mover advantage in these markets. The Commission s proposal for the Innovation Union has identified Water Efficient Europe as one of the candidates for such an EIP. The EC is leading different actions to address the objectives of water efficiency. Each Directorate General (DG) is driving key actions to answer the needs of the Innovation Union by supporting more research funding on the sustainable use of water, but these actions are not coordinated 1. The EU activities for water Robert Schroder of DG Environment made the first presentation and explained how the EIP will be shaped. He detailed the preliminary structure of the EIP for Water Efficient Europe including its specific targets. The EIP should particularly aim at the management of the efficiency of the water cycle to achieve sufficient water of good quality by combining the supply and demand side. He further detailed targets and packages that will be addressed by the EIP. This presentation led to a discussion on what should be included considering the needs and the expectations from stakeholders. Key issues from the debate included the target to "reduce treatment requirement", and how to better integrate industries and involve pioneers and young entrepreneurs. The importance of involving industries was further underlined by Panagiotis Balabanis, DG RTD who recalled the close collaboration between DG RTD and WssTP since its creation. He highlighted the 3

6 EU initiatives that were being established at different levels and that are supporting improved collaboration to strengthen research and innovation i.e. the Task-Force on Science Policy Interface, and the Joint Programming Initiative. He also recalled the importance of water in Framework Programmes (FP) 6 and 7 which had invested 400 Million on water research in last 15 years. These activities to support more funding for water research were also detailed by Antonios Barbas, DG Infso. He particularly presented the call for ICT for Efficient Water Resources Management. He detailed some EU funded projects and advocated the creation of open R&D" to better include end-users needs in research. This interest and involvement from DG Infso showed a converging approach for water technologies between the three DGs Environment, RTD and Infso. Rosario Bento-Pais, DG Climate Action Antonios Barbas, DG Infso Rosario Bento-Pais of DG Climate defined what was water efficiency regarding the key challenge of climate change. After setting the scene showing that water efficiency is related to both mitigation and adaptation, she presented three initiatives to address the challenges of water efficiency. The two last presentations from the European Commission drove the debates on implementation as led by DG Regional Policy and the setting the EU standards to reach water efficiency as led by DG Enterprise and Industry. The key target of DG Regio is to support sustainable growth, to reach water efficiency based on the sustainable use of water. Maria-Jose Doval-Tendin of DG Regio, explained that DG Regio funded the implementation of water efficiency through 22 billion (Bn) funding in ( 14Bn wastewater, 8Bn water supply, 7Bn natural risk prevention). Some more projects for water have been financed through the 86Bn fund for innovation that covered all sectors. The DG has been carrying out the development of Green Public Procurement on water and environmental infrastructures. Henriette van Eijl of DG Enterprise and Industry asked what were the barriers and what could be the strategies to encourage a sustainable use of water and to boost industries and enterprises to innovate in the water sector, The presentation stimulated discussions on creating incentives and setting stronger legislation as the water sector. The participants debated with the EU representatives on collaboration, governance and topics in the future EIP. Paricipants emphasized the need to build on existing efforts. 2. The activities of EU stakeholders Today, there are many initiatives at the EU level to address the needs of water research and innovation. One of the gaps identified by WssTP is that many of these funds and initiatives are not coordinated. The key challenge for the EU would be to promote a greater coordination between allocated funds, institutions, actors to improve water efficiency and the European societal grand challenges. The Joint Programming Initiative (JPI) on Water focuses on aligning national governments research agendas. Enrique Playan, the coordinator of the JPI Water, underlined the successful efforts of the JPI in getting the national support, delivering a vision, preparing a SRA and promoting more coordination between Member States. He also presented on how the JPI Water is addressing water efficiency in his research agendas and key priorities. The EUREKA Cluster for water, ACQUEAU, was created to boost water innovation. Xavier Chazelle, Chair of ACQUEAU, reminded the audience of the links with WssTP at the strategic level and how the launch of ACQUEAU calls originated in the work of WssTP. He underlined that ACQUEAU is addressing key technological challenges for water innovation and wants to involve more SMEs. ACQUEAU is based on a strong involvement from industries and targets the funding of innovative projects that could bring technological breakthroughs at the European level. WssTP presented an integrated vision of the activities of WssTP, ACQUEAU and JPI Water. Theo van den Hoven further developed the five major programmes of WssTP to address water efficiency at the European level and concluded that the proposed large demonstration sites for innovative technologies was necessary to boost investment in applied research, implementation and diffusion into the market. The three initiatives presented their synergies and complementarities to support a better coordination at the EU level. They underlined the need for stronger efforts in funding applied research and participants approved the initiative of the demonstration sites identified by WssTP. 24

7 Inputs from stakeholders Based on these discussions, participants were invited to join workshops to debate the three gaps identified by WssTP: coordination, innovation and integration. Each workshop was facilitated by a member of WssTP and moderated by a representative of the European Commission. 1. How to better coordinate water actors? In its Position Paper on future FP8 and on the Green Paper, WssTP advocated launching a Water Programme under the future research programmes of the European Commission. Such a successful programme would ensure that commonality and alignment of strategic goals between the different funding mechanisms promoted by the Commission. Such a fund would allow: 1. A better transfer from research to technology development and from demonstration to applied research and to the market. 2. A greater involvement of end-users in research and innovation projects which is a key for the water sector today 3. A more efficient framework and rules of application for water stakeholders under a coordinated programme that will set up format and rules adapted to the specificities of the water sector. Partricipants believe that it is important to integrate a better understanding of social, economic, climatic, environmental, political, legal and regulatory concerns into the decision processes used to select global and site-specific water solutions. The main challenges are to identify, understand and break the major barriers impeding the deployment of integrated water solutions at the local, regional, national or transnational level, namely: efficient and transparent governance structures. The EIP is an opportunity for improved coordination if based on existing initiatives and on filling existing gaps. During the workshop on Promote a coordinated research and Enabling Framework, participants discussed who should be coordinated? It was agreed that the number of European initiatives on water is confusing e.g. JPI, EIP, LIFE, WssTP... If coordination is the aim to avoid fragmentation and duplication, the question is then: who could be such a coordinator? In this sense, participants agreed that the programme should be overarching and ambitious with public private partnership and a target of 1 Bn investments. If the EIP appears to be the new funding scheme and programme at the European level, its approach and organisation currently lacks of clarity and one important message from stakeholders is that the EIP should build on what is existing, and try to fill the gaps in a coordinated fashion instead of creating a new programme not related to any existing initiatives. Participants acknowledged that technology platforms and research agendas have been very successful. They are the upper layer on top taking the innovation to market. An important point is if the EU wants to promote coordination to boost research, then politicians have to play an important role. Companies want to drive forward with innovations and researchers have a clear view of where their research is targeted but an overarching strategy and objectives are needed. Each group has its role to play and coordination should come from a strong EU will at the highest level. Map and role of existing initiatives JPI Water and ACQUEAU are about bringing together funders. WssTP brings together stakeholders for providing advice to EU. The work and results from ERANET should also be further integrated. To establish a Common Strategic Framework, the EU should strengthen coordination by defining the role and priorities of each group, and scope of funding mechanisms. Participants also suggested that DGs within the EU should work together towards common objectives for the water sector. How to better coordinate water stakeholders? Participants recognised that coordination among water stakeholders could be enhanced by establishing a great challenge for water, such as water efficiency. What are the barriers to implement cross-cutting research? Stakeholders have different needs, including the wider political, economic and social needs. How to identify the demands of the end users such as specific industries or hospitals? How to set up a relevant foresight perspective? What is the vision for 2050? Lack of a foresight vision for future is a barrier Lack of common language is a barrier Venture capital is limited in Europe compared to US and Asia. A climate of innovation needs to be developed to bring new ideas quicker to the market. How to boost the value chain of European research? How could research and innovation be boosted from local to European scale to avoid replication? How to find synergies and foster a long term view and instrument? To boost coordination and innovation, an emphasis should be put on competence and capacity building. Public authorities should to put more effort into innovation. It is difficult at the local level to avoid duplication and the major challenge is programming and integration of existing on-going research and coordination alone is not sufficient to avoid duplication of research and to enable innovation. The major challenge is to find the right mechanism to enable stakeholders to boost original innovation and ideas and to get them to market. In this frame, DG enterprise could be the right coordinating entity. A key barrier to boost the value chain of research and innovation is the lack of synergies at the national policies level and coordination 5

8 between member states (the source of building the EU). There are enough funding opportunities but to boost innovation takes time, to deliver through the value chain from development to implementation and market diffusion. 2. How to better innovate towards water efficiency? Europe is facing the question of sustainable growth at a time of global challenges such as increasing energy prices, carbon constraints due to global warming, lost of biodiversity and greater competition for resources and markets. In this context, improving resource efficiency within and across all sectors of our society is not only recognised as necessary to reduce the environmental footprint of our societies, and to preserve our fragile environment and its ecosystems services, but also as an opportunity to create a new European economy with strong global competitive advantage by In the coming months the EU will launch a Blueprint for Safeguarding Europe s Water and a Resource Efficiency initiative some parts of which will be tremendously challenging to the water sector. The scope of water efficiency The task of the workshop participants was to define the expression resource efficiency for the water sector. The participants established that water is a crucial resource for the human societies and ecosystems, and that water efficiency is about balancing the quantity of the water for all users and usages (health, industry, agriculture, nature). Ensuring water efficiency could therefore relate to all activities related to a sustainable use of water i.e. saving, reuse, leakage reduction, water allocation, good agricultural practices etc. In this regard, it was discussed as well as quantity (balancing demand versus supply, tackling flood issue), the challenge is also to manage quality: safeguarding the quality of the water bodies to protect the ecosystems, but also defining the most appropriate water quality for each type of usage. On the later aspect, adequate and harmonized regulations at the European level are required to ensure and facilitate best practices. The participants agreed also that the concept of water efficiency should not only target the sustainability of water resources but should also look at the overall sustainability of the water sector, minimizing the resource usage of water systems, particularly, reduction of the energy and carbon footprint of the water industry. Beyond technical challenges, commercial opportunities were also discussed such as energy recovery in municipal water systems (static head, heat pumps, chemical energy of wastewater etc), as well as the option to recover other resources from wastewater such as phosphorous, nitrogen and biopolymers. These issues need to be considered within the broad Water / Food / Energy Nexus to resolve existing conflicts (such as water and land allocation) and to foster potential synergies and opportunities. The participants stated that water efficiency should also relate to other resources such as ecosystems (preserving the biodiversity and ecosystem services), and the local urban climate (contributing to the reduction of the heat urban island phenomenon that affects the life quality in cities). Finally, it was agreed that the efficiency of the water sector should also encompass the social, behavioral and economical implications, of water consumption, and aim at minimizing the environmental footprint while maximizing the societal and economical benefits. Building upon the 5 Eco-innovation programmes Participants then discussed the 5 key programmes identified by WssTP for Eco-innovation (see below) and confirmed their overall relevance. The 5 WssTP programmes for eco-innovation 1. Protect water bodies: Adapt water systems to the environment 2. Build a sustainable city for water and for tomorrow 3. Design innovation processes to resources efficiency 4. Develop renewable energy from water 5. ICT for better services to citizens The discussions led to the conclusions that the programmes should be slightly reworded in order cover all possible aspects and an additional emphasis should be put on agricultural challenges. They suggested the six following programmes. 1. Build and maintain natural sustainable ecosystem 2. Build a sustainable city for water 3. Cross-sector eco-innovation (urban, industry, agricultural, nature) 4. Develop renewable energy from water 5. ICT for better services to citizens 6. Build a sustainable agriculture for water and other resources The targets for EIP The participants discussed potential targets for a European Innovation Program Water Efficient Europe and agreed that the EU should set the following targets: Reduce water scarcity Increase efficient use of available water Reduce treatment requirement "Close the loop" Enable innovation in water sector Europe as global market leader in water technology Solve Water / Energy / Food nexus Recommendations for implementation The participants agreed on recommendations to facilitate the EIP Water Efficient Europe and to foster Eco-innovation within the water sector. (Cf. Recommendations p. 2) Finally, participants concluded that resource efficiency for the water sector covers water as crucial resource, but also the overall sustainability and resource usage of water systems, highlighting potential conflicts but also synergies and opportunities within the water, food, and energy nexus. The water sector could and can contribute to the green economy and the decarbonisation of societies, while increasing ecosystem services, biodiversity and urban comfort. The water sector represents huge potential and opportunities of innovation and market growth. Innovation efforts should be supported by appropriate legislation, standards and incentives. To reinforce the need for coordination of the European policies on water related issues, participants proposed the creation of a dedicated DG Water, following the example of the newly created DG Climate. 2 6

9 3. How to better integrate research results? Streamlining education and the training process is essential in order to break the public and political acceptance barrier (update water managers and stakeholders in general about best-practices and latest progresses). In this regards, WssTP believes there are needs for a better communication between all stakeholders particularly Politics and Science to boost innovation, integration of results and stronger competitiveness. The participants discussed the major challenges by addressing specific questions. For each question, they identified gaps and possible solutions. 1. How to shorten the development cycle in the water field? Participants identified the barriers that slow down the process of bringing research to applied research, new products and new services, including: The length of research project should be adapted to each type of organisation. The tradition of a 3 years project is usually too short for implementation and dissemination but is too long for industry-driven projects The lack of sharing knowledge between industries and with other stakeholders which bring duplication and slow down the innovation process at the EU level EU funding is still carrying out too many pure research oriented projects and should support more applied research projects The water sector is dominated by utility driven research, and more emphasis should be placed on innovations brought by the supply chain. More efforts should be put on services oriented research There is a lack of integration of social sciences research in water research which should further undertake research aiming at improving citizens quality of life. All these elements contributed to a slower development cycle and participants identified several solutions to shorten the development cycle: Reconsider funding format (length, type = more applied) More focus on integration of results Develop tools from social sciences and measure impacts of research towards citizens Water vital good that needs public and policy driven initiative Participants underlined that the EIP could further address those gaps to support the creation of common ground, a partnership that will avoid the duplication of research. This partnership should also develop more applied research to bring more funding for implementation of research including testing opportunities and the dissemination of results. 2. How to cope with the known conservatism in the water sector? What about future designs of water infrastructures? Participants discussed what kind of services and research could break the conservatism of the water sector to bring more innovation. They identified the following gaps: Lack of links between research and implementation to show that public money can be invested into implementation Risk management of investments (SMEs in particular) Non uniformity of the EU market with different standards for water technologies and applications Local good = Member states agenda They suggested that the EU should create a dedicated funding to address the gap between research and implementation at the local scale that should develop more focused projects, involve end-users to boost innovation at local scale, to offer financial incentives to local authorities to boost innovation and separate funding for dissemination of results. These combined criteria would encourage creative ideas from different types of stakeholders. It was also suggested that the monitoring of projects should be improved with funding based on continuity and excellence and continued funding based on delivery of competitive innovations and practical results. 3. What about the concept of large-scale sites for improved demonstration and faster innovation? Participants agreed that today, there is no fund to support bringing existing solutions to the market in order to enhance European competiveness. The demonstration sites programme should particularly address the gap of coordination and funding along the research cycle through the process of development, demonstration and implementation. For each stage, integration of knowledge and technology transfer is not yet appropriately addressed; the EU should focus on this gap. They suggested that the EU separates the different funding steps to allow funded projects to bring their research through the different stages of research from lab research, prototype, pilot, larger scale. For each stage, the EU should clearly define requirements with specific attention to dissemination adapted to the maturity of the research with a clear guideline to reach market implementation and hence direct contribution to the wealth of citizens. When defining and selecting the demonstration sites, the EU should involve different types of stakeholders: SMEs, industries, academics, local municipalities etc which will need risk management techniques for success. One last criterion should be the focus of demonstration sites to provide market driven solutions but also, to consider social inputs that is not restricted to economic criteria such as growth, profitability. 4. How to facilitate the participation of water end-users in research projects? Participants considered that there is not enough awareness and involvement of citizens in research programmes which may partly explain the difficulty to integrate the end-users of the water sector. Participants recalled that in the Netherlands, there is a great involvement of citizens which encourages a greater involvement from end-users... In this regards, participants considered that several types of criteria could be developed to further involve end-users including development of awareness campaigns towards utilities and water users. 7

10 5. What would be your suggestions to improve the integration of RTD results and transfer of knowledge to be taken into account when designing the next Common Strategic Framework? Participants considered that the major barriers of the Framework Programme were the duplication of projects, the discontinuity of funding, and the numerous funding tools that were adding layers of complexity and the fragmentation in disseminating research results. As mentioned in their previous discussions, the EU should separate funding for dissemination but should go further by setting up a standard in disseminating research results as well as centralising RTD results to better transfer of knowledge. Wrap-up & Concluding remarks Each workshop asked to one participant to report on their discussions. The main conclusions were presented to Luisa Prista from DG RTD and Peter Gammeltoft from DG Environnement. - To improve the coordination within the European water sector, the EU should clearly understand, identify, and break the major barriers when selecting grand challenges related to water solutions. Cross- cutting issues impeding the deployment of integrated water solutions called for the integration of the local, regional, national or transnational level. It suggests an efficient and transparent governance structure. Strong political will is needed to improve coordination through the establishment a Common Strategic Framework focusing on water (EIP for instance). The EU should build on existing solutions, set coordination by defining the priorities of each existing group, the role and scope of funding mechanisms, address the lack of synergies at the national policies level and coordination between member states. Participants also suggested that DGs within the EU should strengthen their collaboration and work together. The major challenge would be to find the right mechanism to enable coordinators to support new funds for entrepreneurs with original innovation and ideas - To boost innovation within the European water sector, the EU should set ambitious and specific targets in addressing Water Efficient Europe and focus on more applied research and market implementation. The water sector can contribute to green economy and decarbonisation of societies, while increasing ecosystem services, biodiversity and urban comfort. The water sector represents huge potential and opportunities of innovation for market growth. Innovation efforts should be supported by appropriate legislation, standards and incentives. To strengthen coordination in the sector, a DG Water may be necessary or as a minimum the launch of a well resourced EIP for Water Efficient Europe. - To strengthen integration of technology transfer and best practices, the EU should further support activities dedicated to dissemination. They should develop a fund for these activities recognizing the specific need and approach of knowledge transfer. A stronger emphasis on integration of research results through setting specific standards and skills could contribute to accelerating the process of innovation and avoid duplication. This will contribute to build a better collaboration and partnership between EU water stakeholders as well as bringing more awareness to the EU citizens on the added-value of the research in their everyday life. After receiving the inputs from participants, Luisa Prista underlined that the WssTP stakeholders event was very timely and that the inputs will feed the on-going process of defining the future CSF and research programmes. She took the opportunity to present the approach of the next calls and the work that was still to be done under the FP7. Peter Gammeltoft underlined the importance of the collaboration with DG Environnement in addressing the need of funding for water stakeholders. He pointed out that the future water funds will need more efforts and negotiations will be intense in the coming months. He underlined that the on-going discussions for the EIP could support the EU policy of the Blueprint for Safeguarding Europe s Water. The endorsement of member states and stakeholders of the water sector will be decisive to bring the partnership forward. Both Louisa and Peter acknowledged the role of WssTP and the importance of such event to get inputs from stakeholders, to discuss key challenges and to design of the next EU funding in particular for water research and innovation. The participants of the WssTP called the EU to pursue and accelerating its efforts towards a strong policy-eu initiative to tackle water efficiency. Glossary ACQUEAU CSF DG EC EIP ERANET ETP EU FP ICT JPI SMEs WssTP ACQUEAU is the first EUREKA cluster on water Common Strategic Framework Directorate General European Commission European Innovation Partnership ERANET scheme is to step up the cooperation and coordination of research activities carried out at national or regional level in the Member States and Associated States European Technology Platform European Union Framework Programme Information & Communication Technologies Joint Programming Initiative Small and Medium Enterprises Water supply and sanitation Technology Platform 2 6

11 Contact: WssTP The European Water Platform Annex: Download the list of participants, agenda and presentation Credits: Edition and creation: Céline Hervé-Bazin, BIGLO / July celine.herve-bazin@biglo.fr Photos: Céline Hervé-Bazin, Dan, Carlos Porto. Printed by Enschede on paper respecting the environment, certification FSC.

12 WssTP The European Water Platform Innovation comes from a common vision built upon collaboration