CoP's cross-fertilisation report

“The transition to a circular water economy requires the active engagement from relevant stakeholders. This engagement can be organised through Communities of Practice (CoPs) in which circular water solutions are discussed in their institutional context. These communities extend beyond the exchange of information to actual consultations, making it possible to co-design the technologies and fit the innovations to the local needs and settings.
In NextGen, stakeholders are involved through CoPs meetings at the demo cases. The CoPs aim at creating an engagement environment around the demonstrated circular water innovations in which stakeholders across the water value chain interact and collaborate. At the ten NextGen demo sites, stakeholders regularly meet in CoP workshops to: (a.) set a common vision; (b.) identify opportunities for further closing the water, energy and materials cycle; (c.) reflect on the economic and environmental benefits; (d.) address governance barriers; and (e.) discuss upscaling of the demonstrated technologies. As part of D3.1, a guideline and roadmap was prepared to support the CoP meetings at their early stages: In total, during the NextGen project time, 37 CoP meetings have been organised. In 2020- 2021, due to Covid-19 restrictions, most facilitators opted for online meetings and some of the CoP#2 and #3 meetings were merged.
Around 300 people participated in the CoP meetings, with a wide representation of the different stakeholder groups: water industry experts (15%), technology providers (9%), research organisations (21%), end users (22%), representatives of other sectors, such as agriculture, industry, energy (11%) and policy / governance actors (22%).”

(Citation: Frijns, J.A.G., Bouziotas, D. – NextGen – CoP”s cross-fertilisation report – D3.5 (2023))