Boosting research impact in a race to zero carbon and green transition in the water sector

From drought and fire to flood and famine, the impacts of climate change are being felt across the globe. In 2021, weather and climate-related disasters totalled an estimated USD 329 billion in economic losses, the third costliest in history. Governments and industries around the world are responding with an array of new objectives, commitments and strategies in the race to net-zero carbon. But water is not yet included as a central part of decarbonization strategies and roadmaps to success. The water sector needs to adopt innovative solutions to address these challenges, but being innovative is challenging on its own, and rising to this challenge demands a paradigm shift, which can be done by multinationals, utilities, municipalities and small companies. The water sector can also be risk-averse, resulting in slow uptake of innovative technologies. Common barriers to innovation include poor selection of technology, lacking clear understanding of the value a technology brings, no executive sponsorship, lack of processes on how to innovate or rejection by the utility of the new and unknown. Additionally, insufficient capital is the most common barrier for technology developers to enter the market and widespread uptake of their innovations. In fact, according to recent statistics, 38% of technology start-ups that failed during 2018 and 2022 across all sectors included insufficient funds among their reasons for failure.

In this seminar, Evina Katsou and Blanca Antiza will present a few strategies that Isle Utilities (Isle), a global and independent technology and innovation business consultancy, has developed to accelerate the market uptake of innovative solutions - specifically climate change mitigation technologies - in the global water industry and adjacent sectors.

Speakers

Evina Katsou

Dr Evina Katsou is Professor and Course Director of the Water Engineering MSc at Brunel University London. She has extensive teaching experience and leads the Water and Environmental Engineering group with 16 postdoctoral researchers and PhD students.

Dr Katsou has authored 108 publications , has 12 book chapters, has made 100 presentations in International Conferences, has been the editor in 2 books, and has made 23 invited talks in conferences, Universities and Research centres. Over the last eight years, Prof Katsou has developed in Brunel University a new research line, on the deployment of data analytics methods and mechanistic models to identify and reconstruct complex relationships between observed and latent process variables in wastewater/water treatment plants. Her research is leading to measurement, control and mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions of treatment processes, and is being adopted to set strategies and plans for developing the AI-Based Water Engineering Solutions.

Her research also focuses on the development and implementation of frameworks for sustainability and circularity measurement and assessment. Evina has participated in 40 research projects, being the coordinator and PI for 27 projects (research & industrial), focusing on wastewater treatment, resource recovery and on the development and implementation of methodologies and customized tools to support decision making in the water industry. Examples of these projects include SMART-Plant H2020; DEEP-Purple H2020; HYDROUSA H2020; C-FOOT-CTRL H2020; INTCATCH H2020; BL2F H2020; i-WAYS H2020; WATERMINING H2020, RESILEX Horizon Europe (HE), SYMBIOREM HE, BIORECER HE, CRONUS HE, EARLY WATER MSCA, BLOW HE, OFWAT-Triple Carbon Reduction, OFWAT-CECCU. Evina (co-)leads the Action Group Intelligent and Smart Systems of the ICT4Water Cluster, two working groups in Cost Actions, the Circular Economy VLT of the Water Europe, an IWA Specialist Group, and she is member of the drafting team of the new ISO standards on Circular Economy (ISO59020). 

Blanca Antizar

Blanca Antizar, Ph.D. is the Director of Consultancy at Isle and Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor in Environmental Security and Resilience at University College of London with over twenty years of experience in the development of water and wastewater treatment projects globally. Prior to joining Isle, Blanca held various academic roles for 15 years in research-led universities including The University of Edinburgh and University College London.

Focussed on innovation and growth and providing direction and support to the business in Europe and Latin America, Blanca is Project Director for the World Bank Utility of the Future Program and World Bank New IBNET Project and leads Isle’s European Union funded project portfolio that includes eight projects. Her interests are centred in the development and implementation of new technologies in the context of water security (including quality and quantity) and resource recovery. Blanca has authored 100+ publications including journal articles and book chapters related to her expertise. She is Member of the International Water Association, Co-Chair of the Water Europe ‘Water Security’ and ‘Resource Recovery’ working groups, member of the School of Engineering Industry Advisory Board at the University of Glasgow and member of the Editorial Board of ‘Environmental Technology & Innovation’ (Elsevier) and ‘Sustainability – Sustainable Water Management’ (mdpi) peer reviewed journals. Her contributions have resulted in many awards, including the ‘Woman of the Year’ iAgua award to her in April 2022. The iAgua Awards are the most prestigious awards in the water sector in Spain and Latin America.

Blanca holds a Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.