Ofwat’s £40m innovation round to kick off in May

The main round of the Ofwat innovation funding competition will kick off on 6 May for partnerships between water companies and other organisations to win up to £10 million to develop and implement ideas.

The collaborative contest has a total fund of £40 million, which will be divided between successful entrants.

The Water Breakthrough Challenge was designed to tackle common challenges in water and wastewater including achieving net zero, protecting and enhancing ecosystems, cutting leakage, and exploring how open data can deliver value.

The £200 million innovation fund was launched as part of PR19 with the first round of the Innovation in Water Challenge beginning in January. The £2 million challenge was intended to be a platform to involve smaller partners from the supply chain, R&D and innovation groups to participate.

John Russell, senior director at Ofwat said the first round of the Innovation in Water received dozens of entries. “We now want to build on this momentum by encouraging and developing new partnerships and even bigger innovative projects that could make a real and lasting difference to the environment, society and people’s lives – now and well into the future.”

Successful entrants in this round will be awarded between £1 million and £10 million with smaller value bids also considered.

This main round is designed to encourage water companies to invest in and explore initiatives they would otherwise be unable to, such as trialling technologies, models or practices from other sectors. Entries must be submitted by a water company in England or Wales, but partnerships can be formed with academic institutes, start-ups or small businesses.

The competition is run by the regulator together with Nesta Challenges and Arup.

Chris Gorst, director of challenges at Nesta added the challenge aims to stimulate the sector to go beyond business as usual through seeking out, testing and scaling up novel solutions as well as developing new partnerships.