‘THE PLAN WILL SIGNIFICANTLY BOOST THE SECTOR’S INNOVATIVE STRENGTH’

A sum of €342 million: what will happen with that, specifically?

The plan covers a 10-year period. The Dutch government is providing €135 million through the National Growth Fund (NGF). The remaining funds will be contributed by companies (€106 million) and decentralized governments and knowledge institutions (€101 million). The contributions will enable Dutch companies to accelerate the development of products, processes and services. This involves knowledge and expertise that solves Dutch water issues and can be sold worldwide in markets where similar water quantity and quality issues are involved. Those markets are virtually everywhere. For example, the World Economic Forum has named water scarcity one of the five greatest threats to global prosperity for eight consecutive years. The National Water Technology Growth Plan will substantially increase the water technology sector’s economic impact over the next ten years.

Where does the challenge lie?

There are three major barriers to properly exploiting the great economic opportunities. First, launching customers are hard to find in the domestic market, but reference projects are key to convincing international clients. Second, being relatively small, Dutch water technology companies have limited clout, despite having a strong knowledge position. Finally, our knowledge advantage in the Netherlands is only used to a limited extent because scaling up technology takes too long. The National Water Technology Growth Plan will help reduce these barriers to innovation and bring these breakthrough technologies to market. In doing so, the plan will significantly boost the sector’s innovative strength, growth and export volume.

What kind of activities are we talking about?

We divided the activities in the plan into four programmes and one work package. In the first programme, ‘Enabling Watertech’, consortia of water technology companies, public and private end-users and knowledge institutions work together to focus on knowledge development and technology development to develop the innovations of the future. The second programme, ‘Pilot & Testing’, focuses on scaling up and validating innovative water technology for further demonstration. The third programme, ‘Full-Scale Demonstration’, is a logical successor in which innovative water technology is demonstrated in practice for the first time. With these programmes, the consortia complete the reference projects necessary to conquer the international market. That is the focus of the last programme, ‘To Market’, which focuses on entrepreneurship and business development. These four programmes are supported by the ‘Accelerate and Maximize’ work package, which includes work on the societal aspects of innovative water technology.

The water sector is extremely broad; do you plan on doing everything?

While preparing the plan, we comprehensively analysed the water technology sector. We looked at the Netherlands’ knowledge and current market positions, the international market, and its expected growth. We selected five focus areas based on our analysis, namely:

1. Water Treatment 4.0, focused on effluent treatment for reuse and the removal of organic micropollutants and drug residues.

2. Alternative sources aimed at purifying brackish groundwater and surface water for drinking water and process water, and solving the concentrate problem.

3. Decentralization, focused on comprehensive off-the-grid solutions for drinking water and wastewater.

4. Digitalization, with an emphasis on digital twin for process control and asset management.

5. Circularity, focused on nutrient recovery and biobased feedstock production.

What is going to happen at WaterCampus Leeuwarden?

Within the growth plan, Wetsus leads on programme 1, ‘Enabling Watertech’, and Water Alliance leads on programme 4, ‘To Market’. I want to emphasize that the Water Technology Growth Plan brings the entire Dutch water technology sector together. We had an excellent preparation phase with KWR, Stowa, the water boards in the Eastern Netherlands, TKI Water Technology, the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management and the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy. I am energized by the thought that we can now work with the companies to implement the plans. From Knowledge to Skill to Revenue!