Ofwat opens its fifth Innovation Funding round

Today, Ofwat opens its fifth Water Breakthrough Challenge innovation competition, with £40m up for grabs.

Ofwat encouraged water companies to partner with innovators from the corporate, charity, academic or civil society sectors on ideas to tackle the biggest challenges facing the sector, based around four strategic themes:

• Responding and adapting to climate change including achieving the sector ambitions of net zero carbon, zero waste and zero leakage.  

• Protecting and enhancing the environment and natural systems. 

• Delivering long-term operational resilience and understanding 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 the services customers and society need, expect and value both now and in the future. 

  
  

Up to £40 million will be awarded through two streams: 

• Catalyst – for partnerships seeking between £150,000 and £2m. This will close for entries on 6 January 2025.

• Transform – for partnerships seeking between £2m and £10m. First stage entries close on 30 September 2024 with the most promising entries then invited to enter a second stage in mid-November 2024. 

  
  

The winners of both streams will be announced in May 2025.

Since 2020, the Ofwat Innovation Fund has awarded more than £150m to 93 projects.