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The News N° 24
FRom one conTinenT To anoTHeR
The
IWRM-Net
Project had allowed funding
11 research projects for a total budget of
€
8 million: the latest projects are being com-
pleted and an event, that will take place
during the first quarter of 2014 with funding
by the French Ministry of the Environment,
will allow an evaluation to be done.
The Water RtoM and WaterDiss
projects
experimented methods to transfer research
results to field practitioners: Water RtoM,
focusing on the analysis of LIFE and INTERREG
projects, and WaterDiss on projects funded by
the DG Research and Innovation of the Euro-
pean Commission.
Tools were developed to facilitate access to
information on research results, to support
researchers to better identify the needs and
inversely to help water managers to have
access to new knowledge.
The new WaterPiPP project - Water
Public Innovation Procurement Policies
(2014-2016), focuses on public procure-
ment procedures related to innovation
in the water sector
(PCP - Pre-Commercial
Procurement / IOPP - Innovation Oriented
Public Procurement).
WaterPiPP is part of the nine initiatives funded
by the European Commission under the
”innovation site” call, to which 130 projects
were submitted in March 2013.
The 11 WaterPiPP project partners (IOWater
(FR), ARCA (IT), UNIZAR (SP), ICLEI (DE), Puglia
(IT), VTT (FI), Deltares (NL), TEHA (IT), WssTP
(BE), APE (BE)) propose to test new public pro-
curement procedures related to innovation on
five initial pilot sites, which will be expanded
to other sites.
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WaterPiPP
Facilitating innovation transfer in the water sector
With the implementation of the Programs of
Measures, the Water Framework Directive has
entered a new critical implementation phase
for the achievement of Good Water Status.
The Environment Directorate-General
(ENV.DG) of the European Commission
wish to improve the sharing of best
practices among the Member States.
It signed a service contract with
IOWater,
associated with 10 European partners, for a
14-month project (September 2013 - October
2014) to identify the best
”Natural Water
Retention Measures (NWRM)”.
At the kick-off meeting held in Brussels on
3 and 4 October 2013, the European Commis-
sion reaffirmed the goals of the project:
l
Support the working group of the CIS
(Common Implementation Strategy) on
the Programs of Measures,
l
Draft a technical guide,
l
Identify best practices to help managers
select measures suited to their context,
l
Develop a structured set of definitions of
terms used through a collaborative tool,
l
Establish four regional exchange networks
(West, North, Mediterranean and Danube)
operating with a forum and Workshops,
l
Develop joint actions with existing net-
works such as
INBO (International Net-
work of Basin Organizations),
l
Establish an information system including
a catalogue of NWRM measures im-
plemented locally with a reference frame
to transfer it to WISE at the end of the
project.
The partners organized the work so as to
cover four sectors (agriculture, forestry, urban
and natural areas) and three subject matters
(governance, technical/biophysical implemen-
tation, and socio-economy).
With a team of more than forty experts,
this project will enable, through a colla-
borative approach, to mobilize existing
knowledge, to structure and organize it
and to return it to the end users of the
services of the European Commission
and Member States.
The project was presented in the fall of 2013
to the various CIS groups as well as to the
EUROPE-INBO 2013 Conference in Plovdiv,
Bulgaria.
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RESEARCH& INNOVATION
Natural water retention measures
Towards an integrated information system in 2014
