The ability of Europe’s communities to respond to increasing water stress by taking advantage of water reuse opportunities is restricted by low public confidence in solutions, inconsistent approaches to evaluating costs and benefits of reuse schemes, and poor coordination of the professionals and organisations who design, implement and manage them. The DEMOWARE initiative will rectify these shortcomings by executing a highly collaborative programme of demonstration and exploitation, using nine existing and one greenfield site to stimulate innovation and improve cohesion within the evolving European water reuse sector. The project is guided by SME & industry priorities and has two central ambitions; to enhance the availability and reliability of innovative water reuse solutions, and to create a unified professional identity for the European Water Reuse sector. By deepening the evidence base around treatment processes and reuse scheme operation (WP1), process monitoring and performance control (WP2), and risk management and environmental benefit analysis (WP3) DEMOWARE will improve both operator and public confidence in reuse schemes. It will also advance the quality and usefulness of business models and pricing strategies (WP4) and generate culturally and regulatory regime specific guidance on appropriate governance and stakeholder collaboration processes (WP5). Project outcomes will guide the development of a live in-development water reuse scheme in the Vendée (WP6). Dissemination (WP7) and exploitation (WP8) activities, including the establishment of a European Water Reuse Association, ensure that DEMOWARE will shape market opportunities for European solution providers and provide an environment for the validation and benchmarking of technologies and tools. Ultimately the DEMOWARE outcomes will increase Europe’s ability to profit from the resource security and economic benefits of water reuse schemes without compromising human health and environmental integrity.

Water Public Innovation Procurement Policies (WaterPiPP) is about exploring new public innovation procurement methodologies and testing it in water sector in the context where European innovation potential in the water sector is blocked by a number of bottlenecks and barriers. Public procurement represents around 19% of the EU’s GDP, an important lead market for innovators in particular in the water and climate change sectors. Innovation procurement of products and services can (i) be used to deliver societal objectives requiring new solutions that are not available on the market or are too expensive (ii) solve problems related to the commercialization of innovative solution (iii) improve quality and efficiency of public services with a better value for money. The complementarity of the consortium partners (public organisations, procurers, knowledge institutes and facilitators) supported by a Liaison Committee (composed of the key actors of the procurement innovation chain), shows high potential of bringing together the Demand and the Supply sides in order to create a critical mass for innovative solutions. Methods and tools accompanying by awareness rising for Innovation Oriented Public Procurement for the water sector will be delivered. Thanks to workshops and the creation of the Water Innovation Procurers Forum (WIPF), WaterPiPP partners will guide and support local and regional authorities, water utilities, innovation and procurement agencies in the preparation of pilot collaborative innovation tests. WaterPiPP will last three years : the first phase will gather information to produce knowledge on IOPP transferability to the water sector, the second will focus on pilot cases where different IOPP (PCP/PPI) will be tested at least by 5 procurers.

INGRID introduces and demonstrates the usage of safe, high-density solid-state hydrogen storage systems as an effective energy vector to balance the grid also by powering off-grid applications, thus enabling a smart balance between variable green energy sources supply and the grid demand. To reach its ambitions objective, the INGRID project will focus on: • The usage of new hydrogen solid-state storage technology ,as safe and high-density energy storage systems, to be integrated in a closed loop coupled with water electrolyzers and fuel cell systems to achieve a high efficiency regenerative loop. • Decentralized power generation and energy distribution architectures (interconnecting infrastructure, dispensing technology, transmission system) based on effective rapid and safe hydrogen-based energy storage/deliver solutions capable to accept and manage any RES fluctuation and variability; • Advanced ICT solutions for intelligent Simulation and Energy Management System (EMS) able to correctly simulate, manage, monitor, dispatch energy in compliance with the power request of the grid, allowing a correct balance between variable energy supply and demand and simulate . • Perform limited demonstrative scaled-down test case for assessing the storage system’ high balancing capabilities in presence of high variable electricity demand consisting in a small pilot version of a green urban mobility system integrating conventional public transport designed to be self-sustainable.

The “New Tools for Innovation Monitoring” (NETIM) project aims to capitalize on the experiences carried out by Innovation Agencies around the world concerning the most effective and simple methods for collecting, elaborating and rendering data related to the implementation processes of innovation policies and measures. For this purpose, a Twinning Advanced mechanism will be set up among the three partner agencies in order to allow them to jointly evaluate existing approaches to policy monitoring (both developed by the partners themselves and from other agencies and bodies worldwide), select the most convincing solutions and design/adapt a new monitoring tool. The selection process will be guided by a pragmatic approach, with the goal of individuating those solutions to policy monitoring that have been proven to be simple, effective and cost-efficient. On this base, a new monitoring tool will be assembled, by designing: • a suitable list of indicators • an interpretation grid for the selected indicators • an efficient data collection system • a multi-level data analysis and reporting tool (for policy makers, for beneficiaries, for larger audience). The final project output will be a Design Options Paper that will guide other agencies and bodies to the practical implementation of the NETIM monitoring tool in their regional context.

The present proposal regards the design of new models of intervention aimed at supporting bottom-up innovations and competiveness in SMEs founded by the young through the growth of entrepreneurial/managerial skills of young innovators, the improvement of networking opportunities for start-uppers and the development of grassroots innovations. Often, fledgling businesses are at risk of failure, and the enthusiasm of young entrepreneurs can fade out if not supported by significant business skill developments and proper partnerships. Where traditional approaches of empowering innovation in start-up businesses do not seem to work, public policies should be capable of applying less conventional methods of interventions: to drive new business models within the sharing and collaborative economy and by recognizing a central role to young innovators as part of active business communities. The objective of the project is therefore to develop a ready-to-implement policy for regional and national agencies working on innovation programmes focused on establishing a positive eco-system for start-ups created and developed by young entrepreneurs, as well as for young innovators to develop applied skills by collaborating with companies.