Newsletter April 2021

In an unprecedented collaboration, the three Joint Programming Initiatives (JPIs) on Water, Oceans and Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) in collaboration with European Commission are pleased to announce eighteen research and innovation projects on risks posed to human health and the environment by pollutants and pathogens present in the water resources.

Furthermore a Scientific Networking and Transfer Project (in short Transfer Project) will be funded to strengthen the European Research Area (ERA) in the field of clean and healthy aquatic ecosystems, to fund research and development of methods for supporting knowledge transfer, scientific networking and public engagement as well as to support networking of the eighteen scientific projects of AquaticPollutants.

The eighteen projects were selected for funding in response to the Aquatic Pollutants joint call on risks posed to human health and the environment by pollutants and pathogens present in the water resources. In total the projects have 103 applicants involved and will be awarded with 20M€ in requested funding. The projects revolve around three themes:

1: Measuring – Environmental behaviour of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs), pathogens and antimicrobial resistant bacteria in aquatic ecosystems

2: Evaluating – Risk assessment and management of CECs, pathogens and antimicrobial resistant bacteria from aquatic ecosystems (inland, coastal and marine) to human health and environment

3: Taking Actions – Strategies to reduce CECs, pathogens and antimicrobial resistant bacteria in aquatic ecosystems (inland, coastal and marine)

The list of the selected projects is available here.

After an initial 184 pre-proposals involving 1065 partners were submitted in the first step, the second step closed in November 2020 with a total number of 53 full-proposals submitted including 301 partners. In both steps the proposals were assessed for eligibility by the Call Steering Committee and evaluated by a panel of scientific experts. The projects are about to start in September 2021.

For more information about the Aquatic Pollutants

JPI AMR: https://www.jpiamr.eu/11th-call/

JPI Oceans: http://jpi-oceans.eu/calls/proposals/aquaticpollutants-joint-transnational-call-2020

Water JPI: http://www.waterjpi.eu/implementation/supporting-projects/aquaticpollutants

Background

The occurrence of pathogens and emerging pollutants in water resources is one of the most serious risks in our environment and is considered a major factor particularly in the degradation of water quality. Anti-microbial resistant organisms and genes are now found widespread throughout the environment and pose a serious emerging threat for human health and well-being. Anti-microbial resistant bacteria enter the aquatic ecosystems through effluents from wastewater treatment plants, hospitals, pharmaceutical production and stock farming including aquaculture.

To reduce or, even better, avoid the input of pollutants and pathogens into the environment, a holistic catchment approach to better understand the ecological and human health effects is necessary. The whole water cycle, from sources through the river basins and eventually, for some of them, to the estuaries and oceans, has to be considered. This approach has to include soil and groundwater transport as well as potential atmospheric pathways that these pollutants may take. The effects on human health, the transport and transmission of harmful substances, in particular those generating anti-microbial resistance, from the freshwater and marine environment to organisms via the food chain also need to be taken into account.

Therefore, the Water JPI, JPI Oceans, JPI AMR and European Commission have jointly developed the ERANet Cofund AquaticPollutants to support and connect their research communities to address these challenges.

The project AquaticPollutantsTransNet has been selected by an independent scientific panel to be funded by participating agencies. It is a consortium of four partners (two French, one German and one Swedish). The project should start in spring of 2021 for a duration of approximatively four years.

The Aquatic Pollutants Transfer Project is a call launched in support of the three Joint Programming Initiatives (JPIs) on Water, Oceans and Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) to strengthen the European research area in the field of clean and healthy aquatic ecosystems by facilitating networking between researchers, knowledge hubs and the dissemination of scientific data into the public and administrative sectors.

The call Aquatic Pollutants Transfer Project opened in February 2020 with a budget of 1M€ gathered by 3 funding agencies involved: Sweden (SRC), Germany (BMBF) and France (ANR) and dedicated to fund proposals issued from the existing call Aquatic Pollutants.

For more information, visit the Transfer Project webpage.

AquaticPollutantsTransNet – a transfer project to support funded research in scientific communication, the uptake of research results and to increase their impact

Protecting all our water resources from pollutant inputs and the spread of pathogens is essential for a healthy environment, ecosystems, and our life! “Strengthen the European Research Area (ERA) in the field of clean and healthy aquatic ecosystems and to leverage untapped potential in the collaboration between the freshwater, marine and health research areas.” – That is the goal within the ERA-NET Cofund AquaticPollutants where the Joint Programming Initiatives (JPIs) on Water, Oceans and Antimicrobial Resistance  (AMR) are working closely together.

To support the achievement of this goal is in the focus of the upcoming transfer project AquaticPollutantsTransNet. The Transfer Project is part of the AquaticPollutants projects’ family and accompany its research and innovation projects. The envisaged project start is May 2021 and the AquaticPollutantsTransNet team consists of partners from France (BRGM - French Geological Survey, ACTeon environment), Germany (DECHEMA – Society for Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, ISOE – Institute for Socio-Ecological Research (subcontractor)) and Sweden (IVL - IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute). DECHEMA acts as co-ordinator of this four-year project.

AquaticPollutantsTransNet aims to:

• improve stakeholders’ & citizens’ perception through active involvement in the reduction of aquatic pollutants in the water cycle,
• ring aquatic pollutants to the public’s attention and improve social impact awareness and understanding of the advantages in their reduction,
• realise the above by using innovative tools and by implementing engagement activities around the AquaticPollutants projects to foster societal embedding.

To support knowledge transfer, scientific networking, and public engagement on aquatic pollutants,the key objectives are:

• identification of key stakeholders and their knowledge gaps,
• development of innovative approaches for enhanced knowledge transfer and exchange,
• create synergies amongst the AquaticPollutants projects and strengthen stakeholder collaboration,
• foster the knowledge transfer from the research projects to stakeholders and its uptake,
• implementation of multiple dissemination and exploitation routes with thematic (non-scientific) groups, political fora, scientific networks and citizens.

The transfer project consists of two interacting phases:

• Phase one aims (a) to identify key stakeholders and knowledge demands relevant to aquatic pollutants (CEC, AMR and pathogens) and (b) to develop innovative methods/strategies/tools to improve the transfer of scientific knowledge on aquatic pollutants to policy makers, the public, the health, agricultural and industrial sectors.
• The aim of phase two is (a) to create added value by cooperation among the AquaticPollutants projects, (b) to strengthen collaboration with stakeholders and (c) implement innovative methods and channels for strategic transfer exploitation and uptake of results by communication to reach the relevant identified stakeholder groups.

Thus, AquaticPollutantsTransNet will follow a tailored dissemination, exploitation and knowledge transfer strategy with multiple dissemination and exploitation routes integrating standardisation, thematic expert groups, political fora, scientific networks and the public.

Once the project has started, we will keep you updated on our website and communication channels. The entire AquaticPollutantsTransNet team looks forward to cooperate and interact with you as funded projects, stakeholders, interested parties or individuals!

Contact: Thomas Track, Head of Water Management, DECHEMA e.V., Frankfurt/Main, Germany thomas.track@dechema.de

The AquaticPolllutantsTransNet partners will receive funding for this project from their national funding organisations ANR, BMBF and SRC within the AquaticPollutants 2020 Joint Transnational Call within the ERA-NET Cofund AquaticPollutants of the Joint Programming Initiatives (JPIs) on Water, Oceans and Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR).

”Exploring opportunities for the scaling-up of the JPI activities for water challenges in Europe and beyond”, a workshop organized online on the 28^th of January.

This workshop was elaborated by the IC4Water consortium based upon the key lessons and recommendations from previous Water JPI workshops on International Cooperation and on Public-Private Partnership.

The workshop aimed at exploring how to enhance the participation of the private sector in Water JPI’s activities as well as the role of the initiative in expertise and knowledge transfer actions – especially as regards of the Sustainable Development Goal #6, SDG6. It gathered 45 people including representatives from international organisations such as the European Commission, World Bank, OECD, as well as international initiatives (India-EU Water Partnership), international expertise organisation (GIZ India), from national competitiveness clusters (e.g. Netherlands Water Partnership; France Water Team, Cleveland Water Alliance), from the Private sector (Data for Good).

The workshop discussions showed that tackling water challenges requires the active participation of different types of partners (private sector, policy, public sector and civil society). Under the umbrella of the Water JPI, a permanent dialogue with the representatives from the private sector is key to identify their needs and RDI interests, and adequately consider them in the implementation of future activities. In addition, several participants from private or public sectors expressed their willingness to collaborate with the Water JPI.

The proceedings are now online.

Water JPI Advisory Boards meeting - 24 March 2021

The 24^th of March 2021, Water JPI Advisory Boards - composed of a Scientific and Technological Board (STB) and a Stakeholders Advisory Group (SAG) - met to discuss in interactive sessions (i) the candidate Horizon Europe’s co-funded Partnership dedicated to water security challenges, Water4All, and (ii) Water JPI’s activities on International cooperation.

While the Water JPI STB is composed of individuals nominated for their expertise, our SAG gathers stakeholders’ institutions/organisations. On the 24^th march, the SAG welcomed two new members:

• ERRIN, the European Regions Research and Innovation Network represented by its director
• IHE Delft, the Institute for Water Education represented by its rector

The interactive session about the Water4All Partnership aimed at discussing its monitoring and key performance indicators (KPIs), which is a requirement from the European Commission with the aim of tracking the success of the project. The monitoring template has the overarching structure decomposed in General Objectives, Specific Objectives and Operational Objectives. Identifying relevant qualitative and quantitative KPIs related to this structure is crucial to allow Water4All to deliver concrete results throughout the annual implementation plans over the next seven years. The acting Coordinator of Water4All, Olivier Bouc, moderated the session. The discussion was very fruitful and amongst the points brought by the Advisory Boards, they identified specific outputs that Water4All should deliver such as, the involvement of stakeholders in the co-design of solutions, and the showcase of innovation solutions with high-level of technology readiness (TRL). Equally, the Advisory Boards zoomed on the outputs that could enable a link with policy by influencing for example the use of PFA or chemicals (biomonitoring). As for the quantitative KPIs, the talent growth and capacity-building, the usual figures of call for proposals (number of proposals, number of participants, legal status of coordinators, legal status of participating organizations, national funding allocated, etc.) were proposed. For the qualitative KPIs, the Advisory Boards focused on the impact onto the policies across the subthemes. They recommended that a more efficient communication and dissemination should be delivered to showcase the outputs. More generally, the members of the Advisory Boards proposed to come back to the Water JPI Secretariat with further ideas regarding the overarching structure and KPIs of Water4All.

The interactive session about International cooperation was moderated by Miguel Angel Gilarranz, Water JPI vice-Chair. The recommendations done by the participants to the two last workshops were presented in the introduction: from the Danube Region workshop, it came out that a “Working Group on Transboundary rivers” should be developed under the umbrella of the Water JPI (workshop proceedings are available here).  From the latest workshop on Public-Private Partnerships and scaling up of Water JPI activities, held in January 2021, several recommendations came out, one of which was the launch of a working group on water governance (workshop proceedings are available here). Consequently, the aim of this interactive session was to delineate the objectives / themes / members to create a group dealing with transboundary cooperation. This group should gather experts in transboundary river basin management, relevant stakeholders and end-users. Members of this group would include for example Hydropower companies, Dam owners, Governmental water management bodies, Representatives from agriculture, water supply organisations, transport, fishery, and NGOs.

Our Advisory Boards recommended that the Water JPI should link with existing initiatives and projects to avoid duplication and working in silos. The Water JPI could be the platform to bridge the gap and link these initiatives and projects. A funding model for this working group should be foreseen, such as for instance, membership fees that will also strengthen the acceptability of the outputs by the different partners participating in this group.