26
The News N° 25 - February 2015
FRom one conTinenT To anoTHeR
EUROPE - REGIONAL
IOWater
is involved in raising awareness of
issues on the transfer of research results by
coordinating or participating in many
Science-Policy Interface (SPI) demons-
tration projects:
IWRM-net, IWRM-net SCP,
Water Diss,Water RtoM...
IOWater also facilitates the European
Water Community (EWC) virtual plat-
form.
A dedicated CIS-SPI action was conducted as
part of the WFD Common Implementation
Strategy (CIS) and coordinatedbyONEMAand
the DG Environment between 2010 and
2012.
As part of this activity, IOWater is field
testing the recommended SPI methods,
taking into account the needs of water
managers in an Irishpilot basin.
This pilot basin is located in the Eastern River
Basin District (ERBD). Three sites around
Dublin were pre-identified as having
challenges related to the implementation of
the WFD and Flood Directive, especially for
assessing Natural Water Retention Measures
with an ecosystem approach.
The ”Communityof Practitioners”met inOcto-
ber 2014 in Ireland.
The testing of themethod for scientific know-
ledge transfer took place between October
andDecember toprepare a final report on the
implementation of the recommendations in
January 2015.
More information:
4
Sciences-Policy Interface (SPI)
From theory to practice...
In the EuropeanUnion, public procurement is
an important booster for companies that inno-
vate in theareas ofwater and climate change.
Since the publication of the new Directive
2014/25/EU on procurement by entities ope-
rating in the sectorsofwater, energy, transport
andpostal services, ”innovationpartnerships”
are future solutions for the promotion of
Research, Development and Innovation
(R&DI).
The International Office for Water is
coordinating the EuropeanWater PIPP
(Public InnovationProcurement Policies)
Project and actively participates in the
EuropeanWater Innovation Policy (EIP
Water).
The
Water PIPP
project aims to explore new
methods for awarding public procurement in
Europe, focusing on innovation in the field of
water, and test the identified best practices to
overcome barriers to the commercialization of
R&DI.
According to this objective, the
Water PIPP
project achieved an assessment and develo-
ped a preliminary strategy to promote public
procurement, focusing on innovation, and
transfer the best practices observed.
With these preliminary results, some recom-
mendationswill be submitted to theEuropean
Commission.
Five thematic working groups,
involving
cities, public operators, regions, industrialists,
water authorities, were gathered to share
their experiences and validate the recom-
mendations issued after the assessment was
completed.
The next step of the project is to contribute to
pilot public procurements in order to test the
newmethods, identified and validated in the
previous phases.
All project activities will be promoted by the
development of a collaborative platform to
impulse meetings between buyers, providers
of innovative solutions and stakeholders.
The
Water PIPP
project will propose virtual
training sessions on public procurement
applied to innovation.
More information:
4
Water PiPP
Facilitating innovation in public procurement
Project duration:
3 years (2014-2016)
Donor:
EuropeanCommission
Coordinateur :
International Office forWater
Partners:
Central Agency for Public Procu-
rement of the Lombardy Region (ARCA),
Universityof Zaragoza, ICLEI, theRegionof
Puglia, VTT, Deltares, The EuropeanHouse
- Ambrosetti, WssTP, Aqua Publica Euro-
pea, KTN and theCity of Rotterdam.
Yearly EIPWater Conference
Barcelona - 6November 2014
Preparatorymeeting for SPI activities
Plovdiv - November 2013
© IOWater - C.Runel
DGEnvironment
