Current Projects

ARSINOE is financed by the European Commission with a total budget of 15 million euros and is coordinated by the University of Thessaly, Greece. It brings together 41 partners from 15 countries and intends to be a game-changer for shaping pathways to resilience by delivering regional innovation packages that build an ecosystem to develop and implement innovative climate change adaptation measures and solutions across Europe.

Acknowledging that climate change is complex and strongly connected to other global challenges, such as food security, water scarcity, biodiversity depletion and environmental degradation, it is insufficient to use traditional approaches to innovation that focus on one aspect of the problem.

Systems Innovation Approach (SIA) addresses the developing complexity, interdependencies and interconnectedness of contemporary societies and economies, covering the functions of the cross-sectoral system as a whole and the respective variety of stakeholders. The Climate Innovation Window (CIW) refers to the European Union’s innovations marketplace for climate adaptation technologies.

Towards this direction, in the next four years the ARSINOE project will develop a methodological framework for the combination of SIA with the CIW to create an ecosystem under a three-tier approach: (a) integration of multi-faceted technological, digital, business, governance and environmental aspects with social innovation for the development of adaptation pathways to climate change, so as to meet EU Green Deal targets for specific regions; (b) linkage with CIW to form innovation packages by matching innovators with end-users and regions; (c) fostering the ecosystem sustainability and growth with cross-fertilization and replication across scales, at European level and beyond, using appropriate business models and exploitation-outreach actions.

Nine widely diverse regions across Europe will demonstrate the ARSINOE three-tier approach as a proof-of-concept with regards to its applicability, replicability, potential and efficacy. These are: (i) Athens metropolitan area (EL), (ii) Mediterranean ports including Port of Piraeus (EL), Limassol (CY) and Valencia (ES), (iii) Main river in Germany (DE), (iv) transboundary Ochrid/Prespa lakes (MK, AL, EL), (v) Canary Islands (ES), (vi) transboundary Black Sea including Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey (RO, BG and TR), (vii) Southern Denmark (DK), (viii) Torbay and Devon county (UK) and (ix) the Mediterranean island Sardinia (IT).

For further information, please visit the ARSINOE project website.

The aim of this project is to develop a digital twin for water pipe systems to predict performance of the pipe network.

ICARIA aims to increase knowledge of the impacts of natural disasters on strategic infrastructures in different sectors such as water, energy and transport, and was launched in January 2023. This initiative also seeks to understand how these events could affect the life-cycle costs of these infrastructures in the coming decades and to ensure that investments are made in adaptation measures to cope with these changes.

Coordinator: Cetaqua and Aquatec

Funder: European Europe Horizon Europe

Find out more on the Cetaqua webpage. 

Adaptation to climate change is a key issue for the survival of ecosystems. The NATALIE project, funded by the European Commission's Horizon Europe programme, addresses existing and threatening climate risks and proposes the application of Nature-Based Solutions (NBSs) to help resolve them.

The 5-year project (starting on 1 September 2023 and ending in August 2028) brings together 42 partners from Europe, 8 demonstration sites and 5 replication sites to observe the effects of these solutions.

Led by: International Office for Water (OiEau, France)

Partners: 42 project partners across Europe, including the University of Exeter.

Funders: European Commission & UKRI

Find out more on the dedicated NATALIE webpage. 

RECONECT is developing a holistic ecosystem-based framework enabling cross-sectoral/transdisciplinary analyses and evaluation to advance the knowledge of NBS in the context of hydro-meteorological risk reduction focusing on floods, storm surges, landslides and droughts.

RECONECT aims to rapidly enhance the European reference framework on Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) for hydro-meteorological risk reduction by demonstrating, referencing, upscaling and exploiting large-scale NBS in rural and natural areas.

In an era of Europe’s natural capital being under increased cumulative pressure, RECONECT will stimulate a new culture of co-creation of ‘land use planning’ that links the reduction of hydro-meteorological risk with local and regional development objectives in a sustainable and financially viable way.

To do that, RECONECT draws upon a network of carefully selected Demonstrators and Collaborators that cover a wide and diverse range of local conditions, geographic characteristics, institutional/governance structures and social/cultural settings to successfully upscale NBS throughout Europe and Internationally.

To achieve these ambitious goals, the RECONECT consortium brings together an unprecedented transdisciplinary partnership of researchers, industrial partners (SMEs and large consultancies) and authorities/agencies at local and watershed/regional level fully dedicated to achieve the desired outcomes of the project.

For further information, please visit the RECONECT website.

ResilienTogether is a Defra initiative in the Pix Brook catchment. Its aim is to better monitor, respond and adapt to changing flood risks over the next six years.

The project will integrate a network of smart controls to monitor, control and report on catchment responses to rainfall, in real time, to manage flood frequency and impact, water and environmental quality, community resilience and wider engagement. It will also help develop an awareness and agreement of how understanding the catchment can benefit at risk communities.

The ResilienTogether project is made up of different organisations, including Hertfordshire County Council, The University of Exeter, Bedford Group of Draining Boards, Environment Agency, Anglian Water, Bedfordshire Rural Communities Charity, Friends of Norton Common, Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation, Affinity Water and North Herts Council.

Led by: Central Bedfordshire Council

Funder: Defra Flood and Coastal Resilience Innovation Programme

For further information, please contact Principle Investigator Dr Peter Melville-Shreeve or visit the dedicated ResilienTogether webpage.

ULTIMATE aims to create economic value and increase sustainability by valorising resources within the water cycle.

ULTIMATE will act as a catalyst for “Water Smart Industrial Symbiosis” (WSIS) in which water/wastewater plays a key role both as a reusable resource but also as a vector for energy and materials to be extracted, treated, stored and reused within a dynamic socio-economic and business oriented industrial ecosystem. We adopt an evidence-based approach anchored on 9 large-scale demonstrations across Europe and SE Mediterranean relevant to the agro-food processing, beverages, heavy chemical/petrochemical and biotech industries.

We recover, refine and reuse wastewater (industrial and municipal) but also extract and exploit energy (combined water-energy management, treatment processes as energy producers, water-enabled heat transfer, storage and recovery) and materials (nutrient mining and reuse, extraction and reuse of high-added-value exploitable compounds) contained in industrial wastewater. We support the cases and ensure their replicability through smart tools to optimize and control, assess costs and benefits, minimize risks and help stakeholders identify, assess and explore alternative symbiotic pathways linked to emerging business opportunities, supported by tailored contracts and investment schemes.

ULTIMATE nurtures partnerships between business (incl. industrial and technological ecosystems), water service providers, regulators and policy makers and actively supports them through immersive Mixed Reality storytelling using technology and art to co-produce shared visions for a more circular, profitable, socially responsible and environmentally friendly industry, with water at its centre. The project mobilises a strong partnership of industrial complexes and symbiosis clusters, leading water companies and water service providers, specialised SMEs, research institutes and water-industry collaboration networks, and builds on an impressive portfolio of past and ongoing research and innovation, leveraging multiple European and global networks to ensure real impact.

For further information, please visit the ULTIMATE website.

The Water-Futures project aims to develop a theoretical basis for designing smart water systems, which can provide a framework for the allocation and development decisions on drinking water infrastructure systems.

The project objectives are as follows:

1. Transitioning of Urban Water Systems: To develop theory and application of robust and flexible decision support strategies to cope with deep uncertainty associated with urban water systems that evolve over time.
2. Water Monitoring & Evolvable Control: To develop new real-time distributed monitoring and evolving control methodologies for water systems in order to support the ability to learn from experience acquired from other parts of the system, and to interact with uncertain human decisions, considering both short-term and long-term planning goals.
3. Learning for Decision Making: To develop Explainable Machine Learning models in non-stationary environments for complex structured and networked data to seamlessly support human decision making for smart water systems by data-driven technologies.
4. Rationality & Eudaimonia: To develop a methodology that integrates economic, social, ethical and environmental considerations, with direct relevance to UN Agenda 2030 into an interdisciplinary decision-support framework that will allow agent-based societal welfare maximization in the short, medium and long-run, under deep uncertainty.
5. Integration & Validation: To design and implement an open-source toolbox that integrates the scientific outputs produced, and the demonstration of the different methodologies developed by the research team, in three urban water systems.

Coordinator: University of Cyprus

Funder: European Research Council

Find out more on the dedicated Water-Futures webpage. 

WATERLINE aims to create a European Digital Water Higher Education Institution (HEI) Alliance, based on the quadruple helix model of innovation, leading to the development of the Alliance’s research, educational and entrepreneurship capacities. This shall leverage the individual, institutional and regional resources required for a transformative structural and sustainable learning and innovation environment.

To achieve this, WATERLINE has five specific objectives:

1. Support consolidation of the Alliance by co-creating a common governance framework, and a Research & Innovation (R&I) capacity building plan
   
2. Co-create a portfolio of water components for Master level and transform emulative laboratories in partner Widening HEIs into assisted and virtual reality. These structural changes will lead to transformed and more competitive R&I HEIs
3. Strengthen WATERLINE researchers’ R&I capacity excellence by implementing activities, such as summer schools to enhance education and R&I skills, and proposal writing workshop
4. Build a European network of academics/researchers who, together with quadruple helix actors, will allow knowledge flow in water domains and extended reality technologies. This allows greater involvement of regional actors in the R&I process and enhances one of the major societal challenges: water-related education. Moreover, it will strengthen academic and business links through academia-to-business meetings and a hackathon to mainstream entrepreneurship mindsets.
5. WATERLINE will sustain the alliance by:

• Establishing ambassador networks

• Identifying the R&I funding landscape, thus increasing participation in HE and the mobilisation of resources in the water sphere, and;
• Creating synergies with EU initiatives, institutions, other projects and networks.

Coordinator: Malta College of Arts Science and Technology (MCAST)

Funder: European Union Horizon Europe

Find out more on the dedicated WATERLINE webpage. 

The WATERVERSE mission is to develop a Water Data Management Ecosystem (WDME) for making data management practices and resources in the water sector accessible, affordable, secure, fair, and easy to use, improving usability of data and the interoperability of data-intensive processes, thus lowering the entry barrier to data spaces, enhancing the resilience of water utilities and boosting the perceived value of data and therefore the market opportunities behind it. 

Coordinator: Centre for Research and Technology, Hellas (CERTH)

Funder: European Europe Horizon Europe

Find out more on the dedicated WATERVERSE webpage.