Water Innovation Europe 2020 – Water & Agrifood Working Group

Bioazul participates at the Water Innovation Europe 2020

The digital edition of Water Innovation Europe 2020 took place from 22 to 26 of June. This virtual event was dedicated to ‘A Water-Smart Society for a post-COVID19 Green Deal‘ and over 500 participants joined across the whole week for 5 daily plenary sessions and the 16 Working Group meetings.

The event started each day with panel sessions addressing the most pressing water-related challenges and opportunities. The sessions discussed the following topics:

• A Water-Smart Society for a successful Post COVID19 Recovery Plan.
• A Water-Smart Industry for a Green Deal.
• A Water-Smart Society to provide healthy food for EU citizens.
• A Water-Smart Society for protecting aquatic biodiversity and habitats.
• A Water-Smart Society for excellent quality of water.

Antonia Lorenzo (Bioazul), together with Alfieri Pollice (IRSA-CNR) organised on the 22^nd of June the second virtual meeting of 2020 of the Water & Agrifood Working Group attended by 39 participants. The scope of this working group focuses on good practices and innovative solutions to improve sustainable exploitation and stewardship of water sources by involving the water sector, the food industry and the agricultural sector in finding synergies that boost cooperation and exchange of knowledge between these relevant sectors.

Furthermore, the Working Group seeks to pave the way for the implementation of appropriate solutions by improving the framework conditions (e.g. better regulations, funding, water quality and quantity, social and economic aspects, etc.).

The specific objectives for the current period are:

• Increase interaction and exchange of knowledge between members
• Enhance cooperation among members in R&D&i projects and commercial & business projects
• Identification of problems/needs of the agri-food sector in the water field. This will include the development of a survey on water-related problems/needs/peculiarities specifically focused on agri-food. Based on the results of this survey we may define priorities for further work.
• Dissemination of WG activities to promote visibility of “water in agri-food”.

The last period, the working group has continued working on the “know your cluster” activities, including presentations of members in the project meetings (AMIGO CLIMATE, FEUGA, BIOAZUL, Vlakwa/VITO, AQUAQ, CWP among others).

They also have increased the interaction with other Working Groups, the Vision Leadership Teams and external initiatives to find synergies with the Water & Agrifood WG. Several meetings have taken place to strengthen the relation between all these groups.

Furthermore, the working group worked in the co-organization of a workshop. The WG co-organised with SUWANU EUROPE project and the EIT Food a workshop during the EIP Water event that took place in Zaragoza (Spain) the 11th of December 2019.

The expected actions for the following months are mainly focused on the preparation of a white paper on a relevant topic for the WG activities (i.e. Safety of food and sustainability, new regulation for water reuse) and the strengthen of links with other WG, Vision Leadership Teams and external initiatives to find synergies with the Water &Agrifood WG.