SWAN – the Smart Water Network Forum - has announced the call for abstracts for the SWAN 17th Annual Conference in Porto, Portugal on May 18-20, 2027.

This year's theme, “Connected Resilience: Transforming Complexity into Capability” unpacks why resilience can no longer be viewed through a single lens.

Utilities often face multiple converging pressures at once at once such as chronic deteriorating infrastructure, underinvestment, and workforce knowledge loss, as well as acute flash floods, critical grid failures, cyberattacks, and supply chain disruptions.

Progress in one domain (climate, infrastructure, operations, technology, organisation, and customer) can create new demands, trade-offs, or opportunities in another.

These pressures affect six interconnected resilience domains: climate, infrastructure, operations, technology, organisation, and customer. For example, introducing a new monitoring system often requires organisational culture change. A climate adaptation plan can hinge on proactive customer engagement. AI has the potential to vastly improve decision-making, but only when it is trusted and used appropriately.

This year SWAN is introducing a new Industrial Track in addition to our Water and Wastewater Tracks, masterclass proposals, and “Fail Fest.”

SWAN is inviting interested organisations to share their utility or cross-sectoral story that speaks to Connected Resilience, including how their organisation is breaking down silos between domains, or how a cross-cutting enabler helped turn complexity into capability.

Abstracts will be evaluated based on four criteria: innovativeness, relevance to the theme, clarity, and practicality. All submissions will be blindly reviewed by the SWAN Utility Advisory Group with selected abstracts earning the opportunity to share their insights with the global SWAN community in Porto.

Deadline to submit abstracts is 4 December 2026 – click here for further information.