WaterWise hub

About Project

Water is too precious to waste — yet pollution, overuse, and poor management are making it dangerously scarce, posing serious risks to both human populations and natural ecosystems. Traditional water infrastructure often struggles to keep up with these evolving challenges, failing to manage water in a sustainable way. To secure our future, we must rethink the way our water systems operate, and adopt a circular approach, where every drop is reused, restored, and regenerated, at a domestic, and city-wide level.

The WaterWise Hub is strategically focused on Europe’s Widening countries —Greece, Romania, Serbia, North Macedonia, Albania, Moldova, and Ukraine—regions that face unique challenges and opportunities in water management. These countries are some of the most water-stressed areas in Europe, experiencing significant environmental pressures, infrastructural constraints, and limited resources. For example, in Greece, only a small percentage of treated wastewater is reused for agricultural irrigation, and the reuse of wastewater sludge remains minimal, while almost all Widening Countries still face barriers to the adoption of water solutions, including regulatory hurdles, funding limitations, and technical gaps.

WaterWise Hub emphasizes closed-loop systems, optimal resource use, and reduced waste, aligning with EU policies and RIS3 strategies. Built on a quadruple helix model of innovation, it works at the nexus of technology acceleration, entrepreneurial support, and R&I, boosting water innovation regionally and beyond.

Our partners co-create an R&I Strategy, Action and Investment Plan, FundFinder Portal, Strategic & Tactical Decisions Toolbox, Operational Decisions Toolbox, and more. Together, we develop Water Tech Challenges, launch an Innovation Accelerator, produce LLL Training Courses, share a Knowledge Hub, and deploy a Mentoring Scheme. This bottom-up approach involves collaboration with key actors and stakeholders across the region.

The project is empowered by a strong partnership that brings together actors from government, R&I-driven universities and research centres,funding bodies, business, water utilities, SME associations and civil society to create services tailored for post-project sustainability and real-world impact.

The Project

Partners

ETHNICON METSOVION POLYTECHNION (NTUA),
PRASINO TAMEIO (GREEN FUND),
SINDESMOS EPICHIRISEON ET VIOMICHANION (SEV),
ENOSI DIMOTIKON EPICHEIRISEON YDREFSIS-APOCHETEFSIS (E.D.E.Y.A.),
EPISTIMI EPIKOINONIA (SciCo),
MANTIS BUSINESS INNOVATION IDIOTIKIKEFALAIOUCHIKI ETAREIA (Mantis),
TETHYS CONSULTING MONOPROSOPI I.K.E (TETHYS),
UNIVERSITATEA TEHNICA DE CONSTRUCTII BUCURESTI (UTCB),
INSTITUTUL NATIONAL DE CERCETARE DEZVOLTARE PENTRU ECOLOGIE INDUSTRIALA (ECOIND INCD),
SECRETARIATUL GENERAL AL GUVERNULUI (SGG DDD),
Asociatia Romanian Tech Startups (Asociatia Romana pentru Antreprenoriat in Tehnologie) (ROTSA),
FUNDATIA COMUNITARA BUCURESTI (FCB),
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT GROUP SRL (BDG),
UNIVERSITATEA TEHNICA A MOLDOVEI (TUM),
THE NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF WATER AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING (NUWEE),
FACULTY OF CIVIL ENGINEERING (UB-FCE),
BUILD GREEN GROUP (BGG),
PRIVATE SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTION, INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH IN ENVIRONMENT, CIVIL ENGINEERING AND ENERGY, SKOPJE (IECE),
KWR WATER BV (KWR)

Results

– Cross-border Collaboration in R&I

WaterWise Hub focuses on developing a cross-border R&I strategy across Greece, Romania nd selected Western Balkans and Eastern Partnership countries (MD, SB, AL, NM, and UA), aligned with EU policies. The programme will map water policies, and develop multi-stakeholder think tank to provide policy advice and capacity building. Moreover, WaterWise Hub will scout for water innovation technologies, including AI, decentralized systems, and circular economy models, and explore potential applications across all participant countries.

– Accelerating Water Innovation

WaterWise Hub drives water innovation by supporting startups, SMEs, and researchers. The programme will:

Develop two joint pilot projects, in collaboration with leading water institutes.
Support startups and SMEs by providing funding, technical support and guidance for up to 20 pilot projects through Open Calls, the Innovation Accelerator, and a Residency Programme.
Champion innovation through Tech Challenge hackathons, competitions, and networking events.

– Knowledge Transfer, Training, and Mentoring

WaterWise Hub boosts skills and innovation in circular water management. The programme will develop training courses, summer schools, workshops, and mentoring opportunities for young researchers, water professionals and decision-makers. Meanwile, the WaterWise Knowledge Hub will expand the database of Water Europe Marketplace, sharing training materials, best practices, and networking tools, to support and bring together stakeholders across Europe.