Newsletter 05 June 2018

The Water JPI held its 16^th Management Board meeting in Stockholm with the main objective to progress on decisions taken by Governing Board members during their meeting in Cyprus on 9 May 2018, in particular next steps for the renewal of our Advisory Boards, and remaining issues related with the sustainability of the initiative. Other items addressed included the follow-up of on-going activities, the development of the new website and the organisation of various events. In particular, Management Board members exchanged on the state of preparation of the Water JPI workshop for the development of Mobility and Infrastructures platforms to be held in June in Rome, and the JPI event organised in Vienna on 20^th September 2018, which is oriented towards the promotion of the JPI experience, presenting main outcomes and demonstrating the JPI impacts.Moreover, this meeting provided the occasion for sharing and validating the updated version of the Water JPI Privacy Policy, in line with the new European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Water JPI partners, researchers, stakeholders and, in general, the whole Water JPI community, were informed about the transposition of the new Regulation. For any further information, please consult the Water JPI Privacy Policy available online.

The 2^nd  Water JPI Conference on “Emerging Pollutants in Freshwater Ecosystems” was held in Helsinki on 6-7 June 2018. Emerging Pollutants in Freshwater Ecosystems is a very topical theme: the provision of safe water for drinking purposes is threatened by the improper disposal of chemicals, animal and human waste, pesticides, emerging pollutants. On this occasion about 200 experts were gathered from 25 countries to share visions, inputs and outcomes of their research and knowledge on the nature of emerging contaminants and their behavior, on new approaches for managing the corresponding risks and solutions for treating and restoring environments. Regarding the political perspective, the contribution of the Finnish Minister of the Environment, Energy and Housing, Mr. Kimmo Tilikainen, who opened the Conference, was significant.  He emphasised that the most important role of Policy Makers is that of choosing properly the objectives to pursue, in order to have a common and sustainable vision. Later on, the Head of the Eco-Innovation Unit of the EC, Mr. Pavel Misiga, stressed two aspects in line with the Water JPI challenges: the importance of complying with the actual European Regulatory Framework, which is periodically under revision, and the importance of aligning policies with “Research and Innovation” results. To this purpose, the foreseen revision of the Water Framework Directive will be a good opportunity to support a broader dialogue between Policy Makers and Researchers.      

In advance of the Water JPI Conference  the seven projects funded under Water JPI Call Pilot 2013, had their final evaluation meeting on 4 June,.  All seven project presented their  final results and outcomes of the projects to the Call Follow-up Group, which included interactive sessions led by Chair Steven Eisenreich from Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Based on the discussions and outcomes, the Pilot Call with approximately 9 M€ funds, demonstrated major value for money. In summary, all seven  projects, ensure major connectivity with partners and in some cases other projects, exchanging knowledge,  achieved the planned objectives and a number had even broadened and exceeded their original goals. In particular the scientific outputs of the projects is considered to have a very high impact with regard  this research topic and is undoubtedly very timely.

On June 5th, a special Policy Brief workshop was held for the projects. The aim of this workshop was to produce a draft joint policy brief  related to the  contaminants of emerging concern, that the projects had prepared during the spring. The main aim of this paper is to present the most important key messages derived from the projects, to a tragetted audience namely the decision- and policymakers. The workshop, included two outstanding keynotes by Prof. Annemarie van Wezel (Utrecht University/KWR Watercycle Research) and Prof. Norbert Kreuzinger (TU Wien), both discussing what they see as critical to ensure the scientific message is  brought across in a language allowing the outcomes to have maximum influence  on those who make major environmental decisions on behalf of citizens but based on sound and robust science.  So how do you finalise  the main messages for an influential policy brief. As a fruit of their achieved results, the projects worked out 15 key results/messages, which were presented to the public audience at  the Water JPI Conference on  June 6th. The projects concluded, for example, that a harmonized policy strategy that would consider the entire water cycle, including also water reuse, is urgently needed and that several new efficient methods to tackle the obvious problems that contaminants of the emerging concern cause, are urgently needed and novel methods have been  found, from their research. The Policy Brief will be published officially later in the autumn 2018 by Water JPI.

The Water JPI launched a Photo Competition and the Research and Innovation Community was invited to take part by submitting photographs illustrating the Water JPI Strategic Research & Innovation Agenda thematic areas. Photos were submitted from different countries such as Finland, France, Italy, Ghana, Turkey, Ireland, Tunisia and Portugal. Among all the photos submitted, the Water JPI jury selected 21 pictures and published them on the Instagram profile where the community was able to vote. After a selection made by the jury, taking into account criteria such as the visual impact, the originality and the message delivery capability, the top three photos were announced during the Conference. The first place has been awarded to the photo Water reuse, Illuminating the road to sustainability by Alessandro Vivaldi (Italy), the second one to the photo Solar water disinfection in a Ugandan Primary school by Kevin McGuigan (Ireland). The third place was decided by the vote of the attendees at the Conference to the photo The other side of the Tiber by Franco Iozzoli (Italy).

First place:  Water reuse, Illuminating the road to sustainability by Alessandro Vivaldi (Italy)

Second Place: Solar water disinfection in a Ugandan Primary school by Kevin Mcguigan (Ireland)

Third place: The other side of the Tiber by Franco Iozzoli (Italy)

All selected photos are presented on a video available on Water JPI website. According to the terms and conditions of the competition, the photos submitted will be used for future Water JPI communication and dissemination activities with the ad-hoc credits. Many thanks to the researchers who took part in the initiative and submitted photos.