Periodic Reporting for period 2 - WIDEST (Water Innovation through Dissemination Exploitation of Smart Technologies)
Reporting period: 2016-02-01 to 2017-01-31
WIDEST project (Water Innovation through Dissemination Exploitation of Smart Technologies) is a Coordination and Support Action (CSA) funded by the EU research and innovation Programme Horizon 2020. WIDEST envisions a thriving and interconnected Information and Communication Technology (ICT) network for the whole Water Community. WIDEST’s main objective is to promote the dissemination and exploitation of the results of European Union funded activities in this area, along with all the relevant advances achieved in the sector.
ICTs have played a pivotal role in the lives of industrial, rural and urban water systems. Water is a critical resource for life, and for our economy. However, the aquatic environment faces many critical challenges; climate change, water scarcity, pollution and ecosystem degradation, population growth, increasing energy costs, water quality and the design and management of water infrastructure are some of the complex issues which are changing the sector. Due to the presently ineffective nature of water management systems worldwide, experts believe that technology and smart water technologies are the only real way to enable the huge reductions to the present capital and operational running costs. A smart water system is one in which technology manages the allocation, distribution and management of water resources, where advanced water treatment is present, where demand-side efficiency is enabled and where products improve water efficiency, energy efficiency and food production. Several barriers appear for the implementation of smart technologies such as: the fragmentation of the sector, slow adoption of new technologies, absence of SME development and no holistic vision being set out for the sector. To overcome this, WIDEST defines 5 objectives:
- O1 Run an ICT for Water Observatory (IWO) consisting of literature search and reviews of relevant academic references, projects initiatives, industrial publications, etc. where latest scientific & innovation advances could be reported.
- O2 Establish Common Dissemination Frameworks to support stakeholders identify and orient them to opportunities for applying new technologies, promote collaboration and sharing, and articulate values and best practices.
- O3 Organise events, including conferences, workshops, and special sessions to encourage interaction between stakeholders and the public, host panel discussions on central issues for the roadmap, provide opportunities for interviews, and finally, sharing all the media and conclusions obtained with the community.
- O4 Produce 3 topical roadmaps and 1 overall roadmap: “Semantic Interoperability and Ontologies”, “Smart City Connection”, “Smart Water Grids” and “Overall” roadmap.
- O5 Produce a Portfolio that will contain effective ICT for Water technologies of varying readiness over its broad value chain, and propose the methodology to build, update and execute this portfolio.
ICTs have played a pivotal role in the lives of industrial, rural and urban water systems. Water is a critical resource for life, and for our economy. However, the aquatic environment faces many critical challenges; climate change, water scarcity, pollution and ecosystem degradation, population growth, increasing energy costs, water quality and the design and management of water infrastructure are some of the complex issues which are changing the sector. Due to the presently ineffective nature of water management systems worldwide, experts believe that technology and smart water technologies are the only real way to enable the huge reductions to the present capital and operational running costs. A smart water system is one in which technology manages the allocation, distribution and management of water resources, where advanced water treatment is present, where demand-side efficiency is enabled and where products improve water efficiency, energy efficiency and food production. Several barriers appear for the implementation of smart technologies such as: the fragmentation of the sector, slow adoption of new technologies, absence of SME development and no holistic vision being set out for the sector. To overcome this, WIDEST defines 5 objectives:
- O1 Run an ICT for Water Observatory (IWO) consisting of literature search and reviews of relevant academic references, projects initiatives, industrial publications, etc. where latest scientific & innovation advances could be reported.
- O2 Establish Common Dissemination Frameworks to support stakeholders identify and orient them to opportunities for applying new technologies, promote collaboration and sharing, and articulate values and best practices.
- O3 Organise events, including conferences, workshops, and special sessions to encourage interaction between stakeholders and the public, host panel discussions on central issues for the roadmap, provide opportunities for interviews, and finally, sharing all the media and conclusions obtained with the community.
- O4 Produce 3 topical roadmaps and 1 overall roadmap: “Semantic Interoperability and Ontologies”, “Smart City Connection”, “Smart Water Grids” and “Overall” roadmap.
- O5 Produce a Portfolio that will contain effective ICT for Water technologies of varying readiness over its broad value chain, and propose the methodology to build, update and execute this portfolio.
WIDEST activities have been devoted to run the ICT for Water Observatory, collect and analyse information, publish the 4 Roadmaps, populate the Portfolio, and finally, organise and attend events, along with stablishing dissemination frameworks.
To run the ICT for Water Observatory (IWO), relevant sources of information and IWO operation was defined, together with a specific methodology for gathering and reporting activities. Iterations collecting literature and technology trends relevant to the field of ICT for Water have been run, while classification was powered with natural language processing and machine learning.
The Topical Roadmaps are focused on three concrete issues: “Semantic Interoperability and Ontologies”, “Smart City Connection” and “Smart Water Grids”. Making use of outputs coming from the IWO and Portfolio, and making use of Topical Roadmap oriented literature research, the state of the art of each Topical Roadmap was defined, major challenges and issues were identified and analysed, interactions with stakeholders to discuss relevant issues were done, and finally, the roadmaps were build and published in the project website. Above them, an Overall Roadmap was published, detecting gaps, restrictions and bottlenecks on regulations and Smart Technologies according to water business processes.
A Portfolio of effective ICT for Water management technologies has been built, including a methodology to build, update and execute it. The stakeholders feedback, allowed for a definition of an exploitation plan strategy. Finally, the Portfolio structure was populated, and published in the IWO.
The most important communication channels are the project website (http://www.widest.eu) the Twitter account (https://twitter.com/widest_eu) the LinkedIn group (https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8350127) and the newsletters. WIDEST has participated in 42 international events, including special sessions in International Conferences, open events, and demo workshops, while strong links with the ICT4Water cluster, the EIP Water Action Group Ctrl+SWAN, the SWAN Forum, the WssTP WGs have been set, extending and enhancing the impact of the project in terms of dissemination. Dissemination actions have included a wide variety of topics, but have been specially focused on disseminating outcomes of ICT for Water related EU funded projects.
To run the ICT for Water Observatory (IWO), relevant sources of information and IWO operation was defined, together with a specific methodology for gathering and reporting activities. Iterations collecting literature and technology trends relevant to the field of ICT for Water have been run, while classification was powered with natural language processing and machine learning.
The Topical Roadmaps are focused on three concrete issues: “Semantic Interoperability and Ontologies”, “Smart City Connection” and “Smart Water Grids”. Making use of outputs coming from the IWO and Portfolio, and making use of Topical Roadmap oriented literature research, the state of the art of each Topical Roadmap was defined, major challenges and issues were identified and analysed, interactions with stakeholders to discuss relevant issues were done, and finally, the roadmaps were build and published in the project website. Above them, an Overall Roadmap was published, detecting gaps, restrictions and bottlenecks on regulations and Smart Technologies according to water business processes.
A Portfolio of effective ICT for Water management technologies has been built, including a methodology to build, update and execute it. The stakeholders feedback, allowed for a definition of an exploitation plan strategy. Finally, the Portfolio structure was populated, and published in the IWO.
The most important communication channels are the project website (http://www.widest.eu) the Twitter account (https://twitter.com/widest_eu) the LinkedIn group (https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8350127) and the newsletters. WIDEST has participated in 42 international events, including special sessions in International Conferences, open events, and demo workshops, while strong links with the ICT4Water cluster, the EIP Water Action Group Ctrl+SWAN, the SWAN Forum, the WssTP WGs have been set, extending and enhancing the impact of the project in terms of dissemination. Dissemination actions have included a wide variety of topics, but have been specially focused on disseminating outcomes of ICT for Water related EU funded projects.
WIDEST has contributed to progress beyond the state of the art with the three Topical Roadmaps and Overall Roadmap, which fed the community with a new vision of ICTs applied to the Water sector. The specialised Observatory (IWO) including literature, technology trends and a product Portfolio is available to public at large, thus fostering a better use of ICTs applied to Water, from citizen to water managers, including policy makers, academic, and the wide spectrum of the Water sector stakeholders.
Several impacts have been achieved in terms of dissemination, including (i) the uploading of two MOOCs that can be accessed through WIDEST webpage (http://www.widest.eu/index.php/project/moocs) with about 125 participants; (ii) 6 organised Workshops, and 6 organised Open Events; 3 publications; and more than 40 other dissemination activities.
In order to foster a more integrated community extending across disciplines, countries, organizations and sectors, WIDEST has linked with the existing EIP Water Action Group CTRL+SWAN - Cloud Technologies & ReaL time monitoring + Smart Water Network (AG126). In a similar way, WIDEST has been deeply involved in all activities run under the ICT4Water cluster, in which two WIDEST project members are part of the steering committee.
Apart from the previous social impacts, WIDEST project website analytics revealed more than 7.000 visits from 117 different countries, and hundreds of downloads (obtained using Google Analytics). The blog entry (http://www.iwa-network.org/blog2/the-impact-of-ict-in-the-water-sector) has been shared twice with +50,000 subscribers as part of the World Water Congress in Brisbane’s newsletter. The Twitter account counted with 234 engagements, after a total amount of 1010 twits. Moreover, a total number of more than 3466 literature reviews, 188 commercial developments and technology trends, 82 products, and 18 projects are included in the IWO.
To conclude, extraordinary impact results have been obtained during WIDEST project, but much more is to come during the years after the project, thanks to the publication of the Roadmaps and the public availability of valuable resources in the IWO.
Several impacts have been achieved in terms of dissemination, including (i) the uploading of two MOOCs that can be accessed through WIDEST webpage (http://www.widest.eu/index.php/project/moocs) with about 125 participants; (ii) 6 organised Workshops, and 6 organised Open Events; 3 publications; and more than 40 other dissemination activities.
In order to foster a more integrated community extending across disciplines, countries, organizations and sectors, WIDEST has linked with the existing EIP Water Action Group CTRL+SWAN - Cloud Technologies & ReaL time monitoring + Smart Water Network (AG126). In a similar way, WIDEST has been deeply involved in all activities run under the ICT4Water cluster, in which two WIDEST project members are part of the steering committee.
Apart from the previous social impacts, WIDEST project website analytics revealed more than 7.000 visits from 117 different countries, and hundreds of downloads (obtained using Google Analytics). The blog entry (http://www.iwa-network.org/blog2/the-impact-of-ict-in-the-water-sector) has been shared twice with +50,000 subscribers as part of the World Water Congress in Brisbane’s newsletter. The Twitter account counted with 234 engagements, after a total amount of 1010 twits. Moreover, a total number of more than 3466 literature reviews, 188 commercial developments and technology trends, 82 products, and 18 projects are included in the IWO.
To conclude, extraordinary impact results have been obtained during WIDEST project, but much more is to come during the years after the project, thanks to the publication of the Roadmaps and the public availability of valuable resources in the IWO.