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The European Commission expects to agree "substantial" funding within days for a proposed programme to speed up innovation in drinking and waste water management.
The money for the proposed European innovation partnership (EIP) on water would be diverted from existing European Union (EU) sources such as structural and cohesion funds, rather than being new money. EU countries must agree the switch.
Water industry and innovation organisations have in the past criticised the lack of new cash and a claimed poor focus on commercialising research.
However, the commission insisted that an important aim was to make the EU a global leader in water management, to boost EU employment and economies. “Can we create opportunities for the many thousands of companies operating in this sector?,” asked Alan Seatter, the deputy director general of the environment directorate DG Env, at a recent EIP consultation in Brussels.
The commission hopes to launch the proposed EIP in April and, in November, a strategic implementation plan setting priorities for three work packages – on urban, rural and industrial water – and for horizontal themes.
Organisations would be able to bid for EIP money in July under the EU’s seventh framework research programme, with a switch in 2014 to the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme, said Louisa Prista, head of environmental technologies in the commission’s research and innovation directorate.
By Vic Wyman
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