The 4th time WssTP, a constantly growing community with its more than 140 members, held the annual conference on ‘The role of water in a circular economy’. The event this year grew into a real multi-stakeholder and multi-purpose event with a total attendance of more than 250 participants with a high representation (about 20 participants) from the European Commission from various Directorates-General, as Research and Innovation (DG RTD), Environment (DG ENV), International Cooperation and Development (DG DEVCO), Joint Research Centre (DG JRC), EASME. The participants list covered the entire water value chain really representing the variety of WssTP members and those who are keen to join this multi-disciplinary water community: from big water-consumers, multinational corporations and big business as Abengoa, Veolia, Suez Environment, regional and provincial government, a huge number of universities and research institutions all over the Europe, utilities and end-users,  an increasing participation of SMEs, as well as the presence of the other EU water stakeholder groups as EIP Water, SPIRE, WaterJPI, EurEau, EurAqua, NetwerkH2O, and others. Flanders is an active member of WssTP and have been also very well represented by the key water actors as Aquafin, De Watergroep, Ghent University, Inagro, Vito and Vlakwa.

The multi-purpose of the event was a real success! There were a variety of events and activities: WssTP working group meetings, presentation of ongoing EU-wide projects related to a circular economy and water, high level panel discussions on circular economy and water, speed-dating sessions in the search for project partners for your project idea extended to a social evening event with the highlight of the SME awards for the smartest water solutions, services or technologies. 

The event started with the WssTP working groups meetings (16 in total) followed by the session of the dissemination of the EU-wide water  projects related to a circular economy: as water reuse , demo-sites; business models reflected in DEMOWARE, addressing emerging pollutants in advanced wastewater treatment via resource efficient ceramic technologies and development of tool box for advice operators to choose the technologies in DEMEAU project, P-REX project addressing Phosphorus recovery and recycling issues with launched market place, and regional implementation scenarios for P recycling, SW4E smart water for Europe project (www.sw4eu.com) with addressing water challenges water supply networks and providing advanced ICT solutions and smart water grid approach with demo-sites for water quality, leakage management, energy optimization, ensuring customer satisfaction. TRUST project addressed sustainable water cycle, water demand management, water-energy nexus in urban areas and infrastructure asset management and proposed a new decision Support System to support multi-stakeholder discussions on sustainability of water cycle via using diagnostic tools for sustainability assessment. More than 40 cities have been involved and diagnosed by using this tool. Guides on the governance and policy briefs are available from the project website (www.Trust-l.net). ICT-water nexuses have been reflected in 15 EU-wide projects with 5 projects started this year, with the most strong WaterPiP among others as EFFINET, iWIDGET. Even though that the topic is highly related to smart city concept, unfortunately cities were not taking part in these projects, but water utilities and water users have been involved.  Therefore from the experience one should be underlined that city governments are encouraged to be more active in water-ICT thematic issue in order to ensure stable and sustainable growth of cities and quality of life of their citizens. While a good evolving example on involving citizens in environmental monitoring status and tools for citizens to generate new monitoring sites and data on climate related challenges have been presented from five regions around the Baltic sea on Baltic Flows project with the idea of the development of a citizens union initiative to involve citizens in water and climate –related challenges.

The main conference day – 25^th June was opened with the key note speech of Kurt Vandenberghe, Director Climate Action and Resource Efficiency, DG RTD followed by a series of the valuable panel sessions, presentations and discussions on the role of water in a circular economy, on ‘How can water contribute to the Juncker agenda for the defined priorities – Jobs, growth and investments, digital union, Resilient energy union and forward looking climate policy; sessions on Industry and water, water and agriculture, water and cities. 

Flanders should be proud of the activity and professionalism of Flemish representatives that provided an important contribution to the event. Presentations sharing Flanders experience have been given by Vlakwa managing director Dirk Van der Stede on the socio-economic importance of water and Inagro expert- researcher on Greenhouse Vegetables An Decombel. The other representatives were active in raising questions to the panel on smart cities and water linkages including water-energy nexuses as an upcoming challenge and a real need to include water in a smart cities concept and establish a better link of water and energy.

SME Awards were given to 4 winners of WssTP Water Innovation SMEs Awards 2015 are:

• Resolute Marine from Ireland
• Sansox Oy from Finland
• BWA from the Netherlands
• CARDPool from France   

See more at: http://www.waterinnovationeurope.eu/awards/wsstp-sme-awards/wsstp-water-innovation-smes-awards-winners-2015/

The winners of the SME awards from the previous year gave a feedback on their development and success during the last year.

The next day discussions were followed by the sessions on water in a circular economy with the key note presentation of the professor –emeritus Willy Verstraede from Gent University, followed by sessions on market opportunities for water outside Europe with presentations about the opportunities for water business and technology transfer via projects in China, India. The official part of the conference ended with the examples of the FP7/H2020 projects impact for jobs and growth sharing the experiences and achievements on Marie-Curie Co-fund on water technology, Value from urine project, Arreau action group projects and others.

At the end of the official conference, in the afternoon of day 3, WssTP Board meeting and a General Assembly took place. Dirk Van Der Stede, Vlakwa managing director,  has been re-elected to the WssTP managing Board for the next two years period.

More detailed information and presentations of the WIE2015 event is available on http://www.waterinnovationeurope.eu/