Water & Wastewater Treatment Magazine
Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/1144867
www.wwtonline.co.uk | WWT | AUGUST 2019 | 19 focus research efforts. They were there- fore selected as a relevant statement of societal needs in the context of water, and hence a useful way of classifying innovation as they cover the full hydro- logical cycle. For the LITSoN consultation, 75 organisations submitted informa- tion on their research and innovation projects, totalling over 1,200 projects from WaSCs/WOCs, academia, SMEs and other institutions. This project was kindly funded by Anglian Water, Welsh Water, Northumbrian Water, Scottish Water, SES Water, Severn Trent, Thames Water and United Utilities. The respondents were asked to provide information on their innovation projects, including the maturity of their innovations, the amount of investment and the perceived business demand for commercialisation. The participants were also asked to score their research/ innovation on how well they believed it aligned with the 11 Big Questions (an additional Big Question has been intro- duced since the LITSoN analysis was undertaken). Part of the survey also allowed participants to indicate what drivers influenced their work. The surveys that were submitted were used to synthesise a snapshot in time of the innovation activity land- scape in the UK water industry in 2018. The data was used to assess whether UK water innovation is well aligned with societal needs (as represented by the Big Questions). The focus was purely on innovation and not necessarily on other business investment. The data was analysed against several questions formulated around the apparent inno- vation status of the UK water industry. The survey allowed participants to assess their innovation and its relative alignment against each of the Big Ques- tions. The responses were analysed, and the results can be seen in the chart above. It indicates only the relative effort in innovation and research at a snapshot in time. It does not capture the industry's overall effort to tackle these Big Questions in their day-to-day work but may be able to assess the potential in the industry. This analysis shows that all the Big Questions are receiving varying levels of focused attention from UK water innovation. The results were weighted according to the relative alignment in addressing each of the Big Questions. The water industry is currently projecting a lower level of impact from research and innovation in tackling the 'zero water poverty' and 'turn all waste into products' questions, which may therefore suggest areas that should receive relative increased focus. Societal needs We wanted to investigate the innovation landscape of each Big Question to study the development of innovation projects from fundamental research through to commercialisation. This would allow us to identify gaps in innovation and highlight potential collaboration op- portunities. Pipelines follow the 'funnel' innova- tion profile (i.e. fewer projects making it through to each stage). Although the pipelines are a snapshot in time, the future innovation landscape can be inferred as projects should gradually develop through the pipeline stages. At each stage, some projects meet companies' evaluation criteria to pass to the next stage, while some will not. We defined a 'healthy' pipeline as one with sufficient projects in each stage of development to suggest that at least some would progress to the next stage, ensuring ongoing innovation against that Big Question. Our analysis showed that the in- novation pipelines for all of the Big Questions show good coverage of all the innovation stages – i.e. a 'healthy' pipe- line. However, for some questions, such as 'how do we achieve 100 per cent compliance with drinking water stand- Alignment of innovation (1 = no real alignment. 5 = aligns very well in achieving Big Question)