UKWIR seeks partner to promote diversity alongside its 2022/23 research programme

UKWIR is seeking an expert provider to help accelerate water sector progress towards a diverse and inclusive culture, alongside partners for its wider 2022/23 research programme.

UKWIR explained: “Water companies provide essential services in every community but are not always representative of the communities they serve.” It is seeking a research-led partner with experience in enhancing diversity, equality and inclusion, to deliver the following over the coming 12 months:

• review data already available and identify gaps;

• undertake analysis to understand the root causes of under-representation and barriers to addressing them;

• review best-practice among partner water companies in the UK and Ireland and across the world;

• develop a set of targets and ambitions that should be adopted; and

• produce a guidance document with positive, practical actions that can be taken by all water companies to reach those targets.

In terms of its wider programme, UKWIR announced the following 13 projects, which fall under five of its Big Questions and three broad topics.

Projects under the Wastewater Big Question will help improve the accuracy of sewer modelling, maximise sewer capacity and explore further options for partial treatment of storm discharges.

• WW1245 Understanding the long-term costs and wider benefits of surface water removal and SuDS

• WW1246 Treatment options for storm overflows

• WW1247 Quantifying, managing and communicating the differences in storm overflow spill data

between EDM outputs and hydraulic model predictions

• SW1215 Modelling sewer inlet capacity restrictions

• SW1216 Learning and recommendations from customer behaviour change campaigns

Projects under the Zero Leakage and Zero Interruptions Big Questions will help companies find and fix leaks quicker, protect the resilience of new water mains and better identify assets at risk of interrupting supplies.

• L1211 Assessing the levels of leakage on new polyethylene networks

• L1212 Update on non-acoustic leak detection and location

• WM1229 Identifying the root causes of failures that lead to interruptions

Projects under the Carbon and Zero Waste Big Questions will seek to better understand emissions from wastewater operations, maximise the potential for carbon sequestration and support the transition away from fossil fuels.

• CL1193 Air pollutant emission across wastewater operations

• CL1194 Biosolids to land – carbon emissions and carbon capture

• CL1196 Integrating and producing hydrogen

Expressions of interest for all projects are welcomed until 8 April.