The European Innovation Partnership on Water (part of the European Commission’s 2020 Innovation Union Initiative) has published a new report looking at barriers and bottlenecks for innovation in the water sector.

The report has identified a number of barriers and bottlenecks which are currently hampering the further uptake of innovation across the European water sector.

EIP Water's main aim is to facilitate, support and speed up the development and deployment of innovative solutions to water challenges and create market and implementation opportunities for the innovations both inside and outside Europe.

The EIP says that Europe still needs to make a major effort to develop and implement technology solutions to ensure sustainable water use and re-use.

According to the report, although the development of innovative technologies and approaches is well analysed and forms part of EU and national Research and Innovation programs, progress in bringing the technologies to market is highly dependent on removing non-technological barriers in the European market.

The EIP are calling for tools to be put in place to support the European presence in international water-innovation markets – making a competitive and innovative home market  a pre-requisite for exports out of the EU.

Following a systematic review of the existing information on barrier and bottleneck areas, the Partnership has now drawn up a selected list of priorities and actions to remove or mitigate their impacts.

The EIP’s Strategic Implementation Plan (SIP) has identified current barriers to innovation in eight priority areas, namely:

Water reuse and recycling: technical barriers; limited capacity to formulate and institutionalize measures; lack of financial incentives; public perception; sub-optimal markets for recovered nutrients; lack of robust industrial processes using different qualities of water; absence of EU harmonised standards for reused water; social acceptance of recovered resources.

Water and wastewater treatment: lack of awareness of the economic value of water, lack of incentives for full-scale implementation and validation of innovative solutions; social acceptance of recovered resources; lack of knowledge with regard to the occurrence of emerging pollutants.

Water Energy Nexus: insufficient integration of European water and energy policies; inadequate economic incentives to adopt efficient water and energy technologies; lack of low energy technologies; variable supply of renewable energy sources.

Flood and Drought Management: lack of integration of scattered monitoring networks; uncertainty in meteorological forecasts for flood and drought risk assessment; lack of integration of different dimensions of risk; insufficient knowledge on the economic value of risk; lack of awareness and preparedness of populations to deal with risks; fragmentation of institutions and responsibilities.

Ecosystem Services: fragmentation of responsibilities and knowledge; limited addressing of water use planning and pricing policy to ecosystem needs; limited understanding of connections between healthy ecosystems and the attainment of social and economic goals; insufficient development and alignment of monitoring and reporting frameworks with the ecosystem approach.

Water governance: fragmentation of institutions and responsibilities; institutional barriers; low profile on the political agenda; lack of public awareness and private involvement.

Modelling and Decision Support Systems (MDSS): lack of holistic approach to water management and fragmented governance; lack of integration ecological, economic, social and institutional perspectives at the technical and methodological level; lack of leadership due to legal and institutional barriers; no long-term funding opportunities; limited development of durable solutions.

Financing for Innovation: insufficient overall financial flows into the sector (low pay-back of investments); weak profitability arising from inadequate cost recovery; high capital-intensity, with built-in risk aversion; resources for SMEs to respond to market opportunities, nor access to sources of funding; lack of combined funding models,.

Smart technologies: lack of knowledge of new technologies and its capabilities upon making investment decisions; risk-aversion by consumers and governance bodies; lack of launching customers; fragmented sector.

The EIP have highlighted a number of areas where  action should be prioritised, including lack of funding for SMEs and risk aversion in the water sector. The report says that while many SMEs are innovative and develop excellent products and services, they are often confronted with a lack of financial resources for further development, customization, demonstration and commercialization. Due to little or no access to funds, R&D programs or other financial resources, further development stops.

On the industry as a whole, the report points out that the water service sector, as well as industrial sectors have a high capital-intensity and deal with high risk aversion for innovative technologies, accompanied by a “low preparedness to act” as a launching customer for innovative processes or products.

Lack of demonstration sites, inconsistency and fragmentation of policies, regulations and the water authorities and water sector itself  and conservative procurement with a  preference for low/lowest cost are also identified as innovation bottlenecks.

The EIP has identified a number of actions which are needed to make further progress, including:

• development of fit-for-purpose financial instruments (e.g. revolving funds)
• the establishment of an EU-wide coherent regulatory landscape
• a structured EU coherent approach for Public-Public and Public-Private Partnerships which should also target international export markets
• improvement in  public and investor confidence by showcases and demonstration sites.

The action plans, together with a roadmap for implementation will be discussed at the forthcoming EIP Task Force meeting at the beginning of April.

For more information on the European Innovation Partnership on Water  visit: http://www.eip-water.eu/