Is the UK water industry
prepared to tackle the
challenges of the future?
Mott MacDonald's Ghalia Albarazi, Cristina Negut and Andrew Shimmin explain how
the Linking Innovation to Societal Needs project is helping to develop route maps to
address some of the industry's 'Big Questions'
The Knowledge
18 | AUGUST 2019 | WWT | www.wwtonline.co.uk
I
n 2017, the UK Water Partnership
commissioned Mott MacDonald to
undertake the Linking Innovation
to Societal Needs (LITSoN) pro-
ject. UKWP's vision is 'safeguard-
ing our future through innovation',
creating national partnerships between
the UK Government, business and the
research community.
LITSoN is intended to accelerate
innovation and improve collaboration
to tackle water challenges and also to
provide a platform to promote UK water
services globally.
The LITSoN project sought to provide
an overview of research and innovation
activity in the UK water sector and an
assessment of its alignment with soci-
etal needs. The aim was to identify op-
portunities through sharing information
that could help strengthen collabora-
tion, focus e‰ orts and target funding.
As water companies' investment is
largely tied to the short-term AMP cycle,
the industry tends to follow the same
pattern of priorities that could lead to a
low rate of commercialisation. LITSoN
is also being used to help develop route
maps for addressing some of the water
industry's 'Big Questions', aligning
research and development e‰ orts to the
needs of society.
How did we do it?
The 'Big Questions' were identiŽ ed by
UKWIR, in partnership with others, to
Andrew Shimmin, Cristina Negut and Ghalia Albarazi at work on the LITSoN project
