{"id":8546,"date":"2020-12-31T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-12-31T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.innovationnewsnetwork.com\/?p=8546"},"modified":"2021-01-19T12:20:17","modified_gmt":"2021-01-19T12:20:17","slug":"water-europe-on-achieving-a-water-smart-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.innovationnewsnetwork.com\/water-europe-on-achieving-a-water-smart-society\/8546\/","title":{"rendered":"Water Europe on achieving a water-smart society"},"content":{"rendered":"

Durk Krol, the Executive Director of European Technology Platform Water Europe, discusses the barriers to achieving a water-smart society and how Water Europe is developing the solutions.<\/h2>\n

Water Europe is the recognised voice and promoter of water-related research, development, and innovation in Europe. Indeed, the European Commission\u2019s DG Research<\/a> has recognised us as a European Technology Platform (ETP) for water.<\/p>\n

Our mission is to improve co-ordination and collaboration in the water sector and those sectors which utilise water in the EU and beyond, as well as to enhance the performance and competitiveness of the European water sector and water-using sectors and to contribute to solving water-related global challenges.<\/p>\n

Membership<\/h3>\n

When we first became a formal Association, we had 11 founding members. We have since evolved and now have around 220 members. A significant part of our strategy is to represent the whole water value chain. In line with that, we have organised our membership into two main categories: corporate members, and associate members; the difference between the two being that corporate members have an influence on our governance, whereas the associated members do not, although they can participate in activities.<\/p>\n

The corporate members are divided into five \u2018colleges\u2019:<\/p>\n