Cranfield University sets up scholarships to develop water leaders

Cranfield University and the International Water Association (IWA) have set up 15 new postgraduate scholarships to develop the water scientists and engineers of the future.

Director of water at Cranfield University, Professor Paul Jeffrey, said: “These scholarships will help develop the next generation of leaders that we desperately need in the water industry both in the UK and around the world."

Executive Director of the IIWA, Professor Kalanithy Vairavamoorthy, said: “IWA believes that innovators and institutions can develop nimble and affordable ways to leapfrog the legacy of clunky, costly, centralised, top-down policies and infrastructure that burden much of the world. We believe that the Cranfield scholarships will create a new generation of water and sanitation practitioners that will shape the new-normal."

According to Cranfield, the World Health Organisation has estimated that 4.2 billion live without access to safely managed sanitation, with some 297,000 children under five dying each year from diarrhoea because of unsafe drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene.