Science and Technology Leaders Forum

Science/Technology Leaders Forum

Leads:
Mark van Loosdrecht, Jurg Keller, Hong Li

Facilitator:
Jurg Keller

Time:
Thursday, 13^th October, 2016
Session 1: 10:30 – 12:00
Session 2: 13:30 – 15:00

A Shared Vision for International Water Research Collaboration and Impact

Globally water quality and quantity are challenged more and more by climate change, urbanization, population growth, life style changes, etc. Water professionals from different stakeholder groups and different regions/countries are contributing to the water sector in different ways. There are often issues and challenges researchers from universities and research institutes are not well aware of, within utilities, industries, cities and basins which could be solved by research ideas and solutions from universities and research institutes.

The Science and Technology Leaders Forum will bring together 100 of the top researchers and technology innovation leaders to discuss and identify shared research agendas and effective application pathways to accelerate innovation and create greater impact across the water sector. This innovation agenda will be informed with key messages from the service providers and utilities’ (Carlos Campos, France), cities’ (Rob Skinner, Australia), regulator’s (Trevor Bishop, UK) and basins’ (John Riddiford, Australia) Leaders Forums, to build on the needs identified by these key sectors/groups to achieve better solutions for sustainable water management into the future. Forum attendees will be fully engaged in the process of identifying top research priorities, developing the innovation agenda and characterizing effective collaboration and application avenues through panel discussions (Dean Amhaus, USA; Shaun Cox, Australia; Stephanie Rinck-Pfeiffer, Canada; Cora Uijterlinde, Netherlands; Xiaochang Wang, China) and small group discussions (facilitated by Ioannis Alexiou, UK; Per H Nielsen, Denmark; and Willy Verstraete, Belgium).

The outcome of the forum is to provide a shared innovation agenda which incorporates current and emerging applied research needs globally, highlights effective ways to engage science and technology leaders towards improved impact, and illustrates the value of close innovation partnerships between research institutions, industry funding agencies and utilities and technology providers. Furthermore, the role of IWA to help facilitate and stimulate/support such local and/or global collaborations and multi-disciplinary research initiatives will be discussed and key actions for the IWA Board, Management and Members will be identified.

Expected outputs:

• What are the pressing problems: the problems and challenges from industry, water (and wastewater) service providers, resource managers, regulators, are collected
• What needs to be done: the most pressing research needs based on the challenges from different stakeholder groups, are identified
• How to get things going and how to stimulate industries to take things up: global collaborations across stakeholder groups are discussed
• A report will be generated based on the Leaders Forum on most pressing research needs and recommendations on application pathways

Forum Agenda

Session One: 10:30 – 12:00, Thursday 13th October, Chair: Jurg Keller

10:30 – 10:33 Welcome by Helmut Kroiss

10:33 – 10:38 Introduction of the Forum (Glen Daigger, USA)

10:38 – 10:50 Global challenges and scene setting for research needs globally (Mark van Loosdrecht, Netherlands)

10:50 – 11:30 research needs from different stakeholders

• 10:50 – 11:00 Research needs in terms of service providers (Carlos Campos, SUEZ, France)
• 11:00 – 11:10 Research needs in terms of cities (Rob Skinner, Monash Sustainability Institute, Australia)
• 11:10 – 11:20 Research needs in terms of regulations and how regulations influence innovation (Trevor Bishop, Water, Land and Biodiversity Environment Agency, UK)
• 11:20 – 11:30 Research needs in terms of basins (John, Riddiford, John Riddiford & Associates, Australia)

11:30 – 12:00 Panel discussions aiming at summarizing the research needs and raise research agendas based on the needs

Session Two: 13:30 – 15:00, Thursday 13th October, Chair: Mark van Loosdrecht

Focus of session two: global collaborations on science and technology and moving forward with new ideas on IWA’s work and potentially new initiatives.

13:30 – 13:35 summary of session one and introduction for session two (Jurg Keller, Australia and Mark van Loosdrecht, Netherlands)

13:35 – 14:05 panel discussion on a critical analysis of what works / doesn’t work for water research collaboration and how we will need to adapt and change in the future.

Panelists: Shaun Cox (Water Research Australia); Dean Amhaus (The Water Council, USA); Stephanie Rinck-Pfeiffer (Global Water Research Coalition); Cora Uijterlinde (STOWA, Netherlands); Xiaochang Wang (Xi’an University of Architecture and Technology, China)

14:05 – 14:35 round table discussions on what we can do to make progress on research needs identified from session one. Moderators: Willy Verstraete, Ioannis Alexiou, Hong Li and Per H. Nielsen

14:35 – 14:55 report back and moving forward

14:55 – 15:00 Closing with thanks (Diane D’arras)

Confirmed Speakers and panelists are: