Water4All at Ecomondo 2025: Alignment as a Strategic Lever for Europe’s Water Resilience
Water4All participated in Ecomondo 2025 (4 November, Rimini-Italy) in a session dedicated to innovative European and Mediterranean approaches to water management. The event confirmed Ecomondo as a key platform for showcasing European initiatives and impacts in the water sector. During the session, ISPRA, as a Water4All partner, illustrated how the Partnership’s five Pillars support the European Water Resilience Strategy (EWRS) by translating research and innovation into concrete, policy-relevant actions. Water4All contributes to all three EWRS strategic pillars: restoring and protecting the water cycle through projects on hydro-climatic extremes and aquatic ecosystems; fostering a water-smart and circular economy via innovation, digitalisation and support to SMEs; and ensuring clean and accessible water by addressing emerging contaminants such as PFAS, improving monitoring and promoting sustainable treatment technologies. A cross-cutting priority is the promotion of FAIR water data, laying the foundations for a European Water Data Ecosystem. All actions supporting the EWRS are described in detail in the Water4All Position Paper.
Alignment: Turning Knowledge into Impact for Water Resilience
A key added value of Water4All lies in its alignment activities, developed under Pillar A and led by ISPRA in collaboration with the Università Politecnica delle Marche (UNIVPM) and presented during the event.
Within Water4All, alignment is defined as a strategic and systemic approach to coordinating and integrating regional, national and international R&I agendas, while also harmonising administrative processes such as implementation, monitoring and evaluation. Crucially, alignment goes beyond funding coordination: it aims to bridge the gap between research results and real-world application, ensuring that innovative solutions developed by academia are effectively taken up by practitioners, utilities and policymakers. Through pilot actions in Italy, Spain, France and Portugal, Water4All is mapping national and regional water-related programmes and comparing them with its Strategic Agenda to identify gaps, overlaps and opportunities for stronger coordination.
This process was enriched by a Workshop on Alignment with National and Local Water-Related Programmes, in January 2025, which brought together funding agencies, researchers, basin authorities, water utilities and representatives of the European Commission from the four pilot countries. The outcomes, published in Deliverable D1.10 (Progressing towards the alignment aims and objectives), provide valuable insights into national funding structures and shared needs across Europe.
Learning from the Past, Shaping the Future
Alignment also means capitalising on existing knowledge. Water4All is conducting a Systematic Literature Review of 84 final project reports funded under the Water JPI, Joint Programming Initiative on Water Challenges for a Changing World (2013–2021), the key foundation for Water4All, assessing how research streams were implemented, their coherence with SRIA priorities and their interconnectedness. Early results show a strong focus on sustainable water resources, pollution and hydro-climatic events.
In parallel, an impact assessment of more than 100 EU-funded projects, covering both Water JPI and the first Water4All calls, is underway, explicitly framed within the EWRS. Projects are mapped against the Strategy’s challenges and flagship actions and assessed using an extended Readiness Level Framework (Technological, Societal, Organisational and Legal/regulatory). While most projects reached laboratory or early pilot validation (TRL≥4), there is a strategic need to move beyond simple dissemination toward active co-creation and Living Labs to enhance societal impact (SRL). Furthermore, while internal coordination is strong, future efforts must prioritize formal replication plans and bridge the gap between providing policy recommendations (ORL) and achieving direct regulatory adoption within EU standards (LRL).
Looking Ahead
From 2026 to 2029, Water4All will expand its alignment approach to more countries and stakeholders, strengthening links between research, policy and markets to support the European Water Resilience Strategy and enhance Europe’s leadership in water resilience.
