“As a member you will have immediate access to the ”best in class” platform in the European water sector. Make your organization visible. Grow your network. Make your opinion count!”
WssTP works with each members to ensure a tailored approach from which they can truly profit from their membership.
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Advises on drafting funding calls
WssTP is a formally endorsed European Technology Platform (ETP) in line with the ETP2020 Strategy of the European Commission and with the EC Directorate-General for RTD (DG RTD) being our formal anchor point. As such WssTP closely collaborates with the European Commission, providing information on the water-related research and innovation needs that the sector would like to see addressed in the successive Horizon2020 Work Programmes. The WssTP WGs play a key role in identifying these research and innovation ideas and serve as an incubator for project ideas. Around specific calls, WssTP also organises info days and brokerage events for its members to facilitate their networking and ensure their continued successful response to ongoing calls for project proposals. Our online services also allow our members to work together on project consortia and specific topics to feed into the discussions mainly at DG RTD in shaping future calls. -
Support to project consortia
WssTP actively supports its members’ successful involvement in publically funded project consortia by:
- organising brokerage events,
- providing Letters of Support for project proposals which are in line with the WssTP Vision and Strategic Research Agenda and involve at least one WssTP member
- Participating to members’ project consortia for communication, dissemination and networking purposes.
WssTP supports the projects in meeting their objectives by providing a range of dissemination planning and communications support tailored exclusively to the needs of each project’s consortium. In collaboration with the partners, WssTP aims to raise awareness of the projects, by sharing the projects’ results and maximising their visibility through WssTP network, website and social media platforms.
To learn more about WssTP projects involvement, download the Communication & Dissemination package we could offer.
WssTP proves its commitment to its members by ensuring that their projects realise their full potential and stand out from the crowd.
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Strategic policy work
WssTP is engaged in numerous activities to raise the visibility of water at an EU level and make sure that water-related concerns are taken into serious account, in particular when it concerns funding opportunities for water-related research and innovation, or barriers and bottlenecks for water-related innovations in various policy fields. WssTP has been one of the main supporters of the European Innovation Partnership on Water since its launch in 2012. Last year WssTP initiated an informal coalition of different key water-related umbrella organizations to facilitate the collaboration and coordination between the participating organizations at an EU level. This has resulted amongst others in the publication of a position paper with the Main priorities for water under the Juncker Commission 2014-2019. WssTP is also closely involved in raising the profile of water issues in the European Parliament, by being actively involved in the EP Water Group chaired by MEP Esther DE LANGE. -
Working Groups involvement
WssTP Working Groups are the beating heart of our platform where representatives of our various members collaborate to exchange information and produce long-term research and innovation agendas, roadmaps for action, and other types of publications. WssTP working groups also serve as incubators for project ideas for Horizon2020.
WssTP Working groups can either be initiated by members or as a strategic initiative by the WssTP Board of Directors. Quality and consistency of the working group’s structure and activities are overseen by the WssTP innovation Technology Advisory Board (WssTP iTAB).
WssTP WGs involve people from many different fields who are coming together to identify key areas and issues and discuss ways and means to address these topics in order to make the EU Water sector stronger. The members of the Working Groups work dedicatedly together and the outputs of their WGs will serve as input for the drafting of the future DG RTD calls.
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Extensive R&D&I expertise
Over the last 11 years, WssTP promotes research, development and innovation in the water sector by bringing together information from all the different facets of the water sector (supply, end users, R&D centers, system integrators, other technology platforms, EU entities – EU water associations). Thanks to an extensive network of technology, policy and science experts, WssTP contributes to the development and implementation of key policy dossiers of the water sector, by providing significant input on how to face major water challenges and reach the core objectives of the European water sector. WssTP WGs also come to play their part here, by bringing in ideas and solutions from the best in class representatives of each field. -
Broad network
Water is by its nature a broad, diverse, and transversal issue that plays a role in very many sectors, research fields, and policy areas. Overcoming the fragmentation of the water issue is one of the key tasks of our platform.
WssTP represents the whole value chain of water with a focus on RTD, innovation, and competitiveness. Currently we have 130 members representing multinational corporations, universities and research institutes, utilities (public and private), the supply chain and SMEs, and large industrial and agricultural water users. Representatives from all these members come together in the numerous WssTP activities and working groups. In this framework, WssTP is the ‘spokes-person’ for all these organizations when it comes to liaison with the European Commission, the European Parliament and other European stakeholder organizations.
WssTP closely collaborates with some ETPs for other industrial sectors such as the textile ETP, the Forestry ETP, ESTEP, Food4life, SMR ETP, and SUSCHEM, and sometimes sets up joined working groups to address water issues in these sectors. The WssTP Member States Mirror Group (MSMG) ensures alignment with the European national programmes and priorities, and through our strategic partnership with ERRIN, WssTP also reaches out to regions and regional actors, in particular SMEs.
WssTP’s initiative to sign memorandum of understandings with all the key European water-related umbrella organisations AE, ACQUEAU, EURAQUA, EUREAU, EWA, EWP, NetwercH20 resulted into an informal coalition called ‘EU Water Alliance’ whose main purpose is to achieve a better representation and visibility of water issues at the level of the European Union.
WssTP monthly newsletters bring the latest news and key information of the European water sector direct to the inbox of more than 13.000 contacts, including many EC officials, Members of The European Parliament, national politicians dealing with environmental issues, national and regional representation to the EU, and people from RTD, utilities and industry.
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Online tools
Building bridges among its members, WssTP has developed a number of online collaboration tools which allow its members to overcome factors of distance, lack of time and resources and work effectively together. As exclusive members services, these online tools are going to increase and facilitate the collaboration and networking among members. So far, WssTP has resulted in the implementation of an online project management tool (Projectplace) and an online EU water sector database (Observatory).ProjectPlace aims to facilitate and boost the functioning of the WGs by offering an online project management system with endless possibilities which will ensure and improve the internal communication and coordination.
Amongst its features we could highlight the following ones:
- Project timeline
- Communication with notifications
- Tasks management
- Online document management with version & history management
- Meetings schedule & Web conferencing
- Apps for mobile devices (Iphone/Android)
Besides ProjectPlace, WssTP is in the process of launching The Observatory only for WssTP’s network . This tool is a powerful online DB based on vectors whose main purpose is the enhancement of the information flow as well as the networking opportunities to build consortia.
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Scientific publications & reports
WssTP’s scientific reports aim to put forward clear recommendations for Research and Technology development and Innovation within the European water sector. With minimum of one new publication each year, WssTP has complemented its Water Vision and Strategic Research Agenda by many reports on specific challenges and technologies, describing the state of the art, technological challenges, the barriers to innovations, and making suggestions on how to address these. These reports have served amongst others as input for the definition of the research priorities under the Research Framework Programme (Horizon 2020). WssTP members have the privilege to be the first ones having direct and immediate access to WssTP scientific reports.
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