Water4All – Water Security for the lanet

Project description

Water4All is a 7-year project started on 2022 with a budget of €86 million funded by the EU’s Horizon Europe Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda. It brings together a wide and cohesive group of 81 partners from the whole water Research, Development, and Innovation (RDI) chain (e.g., Research and innovation funders, local authorities, research organisations), coming from 31 countries in the European Union and beyond.

About

Water is necessary to all human activities and to life in general. Because of this, it was made central to all components of the EU Green Deal and to several United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), starting with SDG6 (clean water and sanitation).

Water4All’s vision is to boost the systemic transformations and changes across the entire research-water innovation pipeline, fostering the matchmaking between problem owners and solution providers for ensuring water security for all in the long term. 

Objective

Reaching Water4All´s objectives require an inclusive and systemic approach, with a logical chain from problem analysis and the identification of knowledge gaps to the uptake of solutions and their concrete applications by the relevant stakeholders. The direct connection between stakeholders and problem owners with solution providers from the RD&I field is required to make decisive contributions towards the objectives of Water security, which consist in:

• addressing water issues to combat climate change;
• supporting the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals;
• increase the EU’s competitiveness and development;
• promoting long-term and widespread water security.

Output

Water4All proposes a portfolio of multi-national and cross-sectoral activities targeting a variety of actors and intending to generate the following outputs:

• strengthening the water R&I collaboration at the EU and international levels, notably through 6 Joint Transnational Calls;
• coordinating and leveraging the activities of the Water R&I community;
• supporting and promoting demonstration and access to the market of innovative solutions;
• producing, sharing, and better communicating water-related knowledge & data, from local to global scales;
• enhancing talent development of water R&I professionals;
• fostering capacity development and life-long training of water policymakers, stakeholders, and the civil society’;
• designing and implementing approaches for participatory development of innovation.

The topics for the calls will be drawn from the water challenges and identified in the Water4All Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda which have 7 research and innovation themes:

1. water for circular economy
2. water for ecosystems and biodiversity
3. sustainable water management
4. water and health
5. water infrastructure
6. international cooperation
7. water governance