Newsletter January 2022

The Water JPI held its 19^th Governing Board meeting on 23-24 November 2021 with the objective to agree on a two-year action plan for 2022-2023 and on a funding model for future years. The online meeting also facilitated discussion around the Task Forces set up to support progress on the following activities: Alignment, Interactions with Horizon Europe and Research Infrastructures.

The meeting was an opportunity to update Governing Board members on ongoing activities. In particular, the development of the strategy for International Cooperation and the impact assessment of the Water JPI that are currently carried out as part of the IC4WATER CSA activities.

In Summer 2021, a panel of seven high level experts was recruited to assess the added value and the global impact (both scientific and societal) of the Water JPI activities and actions to the water community. The panel was in charge of reviewing the main documents and data describing the Water JPI aims and actions (SRIA, Implementation plan, maturity maps, narratives, survey results), carrying out interviews of key persons involved in Water JPI, providing an independent review of the performance of Water JPI to date and recommendations for improvement, and formulating lessons learned for future. The results of the impact assessment will be presented in the Global Impact Assessment report launch event in Spring 2022.

The strategy for International Cooperation has been built on the work achieved for these past years: proceedings of previous workshops on International cooperation, outputs from previous stages (e.g. Water JPI Vision 2030, SRIA 2025, Water JPI & FACCE-JPI common vision) and activities developed under the CSA IC4WATER (e.g. Private-Public-Partnership workshops or Regional Cooperation workshops). Moreover, the outcomes of the Cairo Water Week workshop organised in October 2021 with PRIMA and the Egyptian academy of Science allowed to bring new insights on Social Innovation and Water governance.

An internal workshop scheduled in February 2022 will gather Water JPI Governing Board members to discuss this proposed strategy for International cooperation. The final document will be presented at an event to be held in spring 2022. This event will gather, amongst other participants, representatives of the future Co-funded EU partnership Water4All, as the Water JPI’s international cooperation strategy report aims to feed Water4All’s internationalisation activities.

Successful 3^rd WATER JPI CONFERENCE on the topic “FROM RESEARCH TO PRACTICE: POLLUTANTS, PATHOGENS AND ANTIMICROBIAL RESISTANCES IN THE WATER CYCLE”

The third Water JPI Conference held on November 17th, 2021 in Mülheim a.d.R. was a successful step in the networking of international experts on the way to tackling pollution in the aquatic environment. The event was hosted by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.

Over 240 international participants (online and on-site) followed the 16 speakers from eleven countries and their presentations under the motto “From Research to Practice: pollutants, pathogens and antimicrobial resistances in the water cycle”.

The experts from research, practice and policy gave lectures on challenges, risks and solutions. The spectrum of the topics and the questions from the plenum made clear the width of aquatic problems that threaten to worsen in the course of climate change, industrialization and inadequate protective mechanisms. In two parallel sessions on the topics “Chemicals” and “Pathogens and AMR” the high technical quality of research and practice in dealing with the problems was expressed. They also showed the successful transfer processes between research and practice. This was also made clear by the poster session of the 18 R&D projects funded under the ERA-NET Cofund "AquaticPollutants", a collaboration between the Water JPI, JPI Oceans and JPIAMR.

The JUNIOR WATER JUMP Award was presented for the first time on the occasion of this conference - a competition that enables start-ups in the European water sector to present themselves and their ideas to a high-ranking jury. Two winning teams stood out from the group of finalists from a total of five represented nations. The winner of the award is Resistomap from Finland, the second winner is ColFerroX from Germany. RWW Rheinisch-Westfälische Wasserwerkgesellschaft, together with SKION Water, donated the first prize endowed with 13,000 euros. Isle Utilities awarded an attractive second prize with a business coaching session.

The day after the conference, two excursions were carried out in a small group. While the Emschergenossenschaft welcomed those interested in the sewage treatment at the wastewater treatment plant Dinslaken, the topic of drinking water treatment was presented at the waterworks of the RWW Rheinisch-Westfälische Wasserwerkgesellschaft in Mülheim. This is also an example of the transfer nature of the 3rd Water JPI Conference “From Research into Practice”.

The event contents, discussions and lectures are available as posters, videos and presentations on the conference website at waterjpi-conference-muelheim.com.

Information on other Water JPI activities and events are available on the following website: www.waterjpi.eu.