Future Water calls for Innovation Fund changes

The Future Water Association has called for major changes to Ofwat’s Innovation Fund. It commented: “The water sector does not operate in isolation from other sectors and the innovation fund should drive collaboration across the water sector and between the water sector and other industries, leading to a more ‘systems thinking’ approach.”

Specifically, Future Water would like to see among the following changes:

• remove IP as a requirement: “the discussions linked to it are never going to be resolved satisfactorily and it is hindering involvement of many companies”;

• output the results through a "single mechanism" – “let’s not trial, trial and trial”; • bring the new competition and the catalyst stream together; • have a face-to-face judging process (it can be online if necessary); • recognise the time, money, and resource requirements of bidding – “streamlining the process of bidding is essential”; • give greater recognition to equality, diversity and inclusion across the competition; and

• allow for failure – an important part of innovation.