The first round of the £40m Water Breakthrough Challenge has opened for entries, inviting innovations that can drive far-reaching and long-lasting benefits to customers, society and the environment
The £40m Water Breakthrough Challenge opened for entries on 6 May. It aims to spark ambitious innovation in the sector by providing funding for initiatives led by water companies, working in partnership with other organisations, that go beyond “business as usual” and deliver lasting, tangible benefits for customers, society and the environment.
The challenge is the second competition funded through the Ofwat Innovation Fund and is being run by Ofwat, the water services regulation authority for England and Wales, and Nesta Challenges, supported by Arup.
Individual entries can bid for between £1m and £10m, though smaller value bids from small water companies, including new entrant water companies, will be considered.
Areas for innovation
The challenge is looking to fund a wide range of entries that will showcase a diverse mix of innovative ways of working, guided by five strategic themes:
- Responding and adapting to climate change, including how to meet the sector’s ambition of net zero emissions.
- Restoring and improving the ecological status of our water environments, protecting current and future customers from the impacts of extreme weather and pollution.
- Understanding long-term operational resilience and infrastructure risks to customers and the environment, finding solutions to mitigate these in sustainable and efficient ways.
- Testing new ways of conducting core activities to deliver wider public value.
- Exploring the opportunities associated with open data, stimulating innovation and collaboration; for example, encouraging new business models and service offerings that benefit customers, including those in vulnerable circumstances.
The challenge has identified a number of “innovation enablers” that will support the sector’s capacity to innovate. The fund will look to support initiatives that demonstrate and further strengthen these enablers, including:
- Collaboration: Building and strengthening collaboration and partnerships across companies, the supply chain and outside the water sector.
- Openness: To sharing data, insights and ideas within the water sector and between water and other sectors.
- Adaptability: Openness to trying out new ways of working.
- Managing innovation risk: Including through greater use of experimentation.
- Scalability and deployability: Improving the ease of scaling proven innovations within the sector.
- Long-term perspective: Taking both a longer-term and broader perspective on value creation.
The challenge is open to projects with delivery timelines of less than a year to multi-year periods that continue beyond 2025.
Entrants will be expected to demonstrate an open risk appetite – but one that is supported by strong risk management and an ability to recognise and respond to issues as they arise. Organisations will be asked to complete a risk register, which will demonstrate how risk is being adopted, considered and managed.
Entries should also demonstrate how they are thinking about benefits, including how learning and insights generated during delivery can be shared in a way that provides value more widely across the sector.
Organisations will be expected to include clear and meaningful delivery milestones, which take into account dependencies, risks and opportunities to extract benefits. This could include plans for:
- Monitoring progress and learning.
- Scope changes to enable the intended impact of the entry to be realised, or to wind up the entry if it becomes clear that the intended impact cannot be realised.
- Efficiently and effectively managing spend, including proposals for payment milestones if entrants think they are appropriate.
Ofwat, Nesta and Arup will monitor the progress of successful entries, proportionate to the size and risk of entries.
John Russell, senior director at Ofwat, said: “Our innovation competitions are now in full swing and we are beginning to see a wave of innovation across the sector.
“Within the Breakthrough Challenge, we are looking forward to seeing continued collaboration outside of the sector from a wide range of industries, and even more cutting-edge projects that tackle the greatest challenges facing our sector, and society as a whole.”
Chris Gorst, director of challenges at Nesta Challenges, said: “A new approach is needed, including new ways of working and greater collaboration, but we have already seen the sector can rise to the challenge and deliver groundbreaking initiatives that change the status quo.
“We are very excited to see the trailblazing projects that the water companies, and their partners, put forward for the latest competition.”
The window for entries closes on 3 June. After a first assessment period, selected entrants will be invited to submit more details from 28 June, with the winners announced in September 2021.
BIM Today
0843 504 4560
