A strategic agenda for Europe's water future: EIT approves EIT Water's seven-year plan
Europe's water, marine and maritime (WMM) sectors and ecosystems have a new innovation community. This week, the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) formally approved EIT Water's Strategic Agenda, the seven-year plan that will guide Europe's newest Knowledge and Innovation Community (KIC) through to 2033. This marks one of the most significant milestones in EIT Water's foundation year and a critical step towards the signing of the formal Partnership Agreement between EIT and EIT Water later this year.
This marks the formal recognition that EIT Water has the mandate, the high-impact strategy and the institutional backing of the European Union to deliver on one of the continent's most urgent challenges: transforming the resilience, sustainability and economic competitiveness of Europe's water, marine and maritime ecosystems.
Why this moment matters
EIT Water is the tenth KIC to be established under the EIT's Knowledge Triangle model, which connects education, research and business to accelerate innovation. But it is the first to take aholistic view of water, marine and maritime as one connected system, from source to sea, rather than as separate domains.
Europe faces a convergence of water challenges that no single institution, programme or policy framework has so far been able to solve at scale. Freshwater scarcity is intensifying as droughts become more frequent and prolonged. Ageing infrastructure loses almost a quarter of treated water to leakage before it reaches the end user. Marine and coastal ecosystems face mounting pressure from pollution, climate change and unsustainable use. The skills the water sector needs to transform itself are not being developed at anywhere near the pace required. And the investment needed to close Europe's water infrastructure gap remains fragmented and insufficient.
EIT Water's Strategic Agenda sets out how a connected innovation community, backed by EIT and the EU, will plot a course to overcome these challenges. Now is the time for coordinated action.
What the Strategic Agendacommits to
The Strategic Agenda organises EIT Water's work around five strategic objectives, spanning the full scope of the water, marine and maritime continuum:
- Future-proofing WMM skills and mindsets - developing the interdisciplinary, entrepreneurial and technical capabilities that the WMM sectors and ecosystems urgently need, through programmes that reach students, professionals and institutions across Europe and beyond.
- Accelerating the market deployment of WMM innovations - quickening the journey from promising research to deployed solution, by connecting innovators with the endusers, investors and industry partners who can take proven technologies to market.
- Ensuring healthy, clean, productive and sustainable waters - improving the ecological health, quality and productivity of Europe's freshwater, coastal and marine ecosystems by scaling proven innovations, from nature-based restoration to sustainable aquaculture.
- Advancing water efficiency, reuse, and circular WMM solutions - accelerating the development and uptake of low-water, advanced reuse, recovery and circular technologies and processes to enhance Europe's water security and resource efficiency.
- Building a water-resilient Europe through WMM-innovations - strengthening Europe's ability to withstand climate shocks, extreme events and emerging threats by developing and deploying adaptive, digitally enhanced solutions that protect communities, infrastructure and ecosystems
Three pillars, nine action programmes
The Strategic Agenda is delivered through three interconnected pillars, each with a portfolio of action programmes designed to address different entry points into the innovation system. With a fully integrated approach to the Regional Innovation Scheme (RIS), all nine programmes are designed to strengthen participation from across Europe, including less-represented innovation regions.
- The Education Pillar develops the human capital the sector needs: Workforce Amplifier builds the future talent pipeline through EIT-labelled Master's and Fellowshippathways, funded mobility and challenge-based learning. Skills Booster upgrades the current workforce through executive education, public innovator programmes, VET pathways, RIS talent development and society-facing learning
- The Innovation Pillar validates and deploys solutions with the end users who need them: Demonstrator takes proven innovations into operational environments with committed end users. Innovation Factory supports collaborative projects that translate research into deployable solutions.
- The Business Creation Pillar develops the ventures, investment flows and market connections that translate innovation into commercial reality: Wavemaker accelerates water-tech startups from idea to investment-ready across four stages: Discover, Build, Scale and Guide. Open Innovation drives challenge-led and hackathon-based approaches that bring fresh perspectives to sector problems. Fund Integrator connects Europe's water-tech ecosystem to the capital it needs. Market Connector gives innovative SMEs structured routes to utility and industry customers.
Across all three pillars, the programmes are designed to work together and be integrated. A student who develops skills through the Workforce Amplifier may go on to establish astartup supported through Wavemaker. A research breakthrough validated through Innovation may be commercialised through Business Creation. A utility that accesses innovations through the Demonstrator programme may become a long-termpartner in the Knowledge Triangle. In addition, the Think Tank will serve as a cross-cutting programme that generates the evidence, foresight and policy insight that informs each of the Pillar agendas and benefits the whole community.
Eight hubs, one community
One of the most distinctive features of EIT Water's model is its eight regional hubs, covering communities across the Nordic countries, Central and Baltic Europe, Central and Danube Europe, Western Europe, the Iberian Peninsula, the Mediterranean and Southern Europe, the Black Sea and Eastern Europe, and the UK and Ireland.
These hubs are the primary points of connection between EIT Water's programmes and the communities, industries, research institutions and ecosystems that make up Europe's water landscape. They ensure that EIT Water's impact is genuinely pan-European rather than concentrated in a handful of well-connected capitals, and that the specific water challenges facing each region, whether drought in the Mediterranean, coastal erosion in the Baltic or ageing infrastructure in Central Europe, are reflected in the innovation agenda.
The way ahead
The approval of the Strategic Agenda comes just a week ebefore EIT Water's formal launch event in Malaga on 15 October, where over 100 member organisations will come together for the first time as a community. That event will mark the transition from the 2026 start-up year to 2027 as the first full operational year for EIT Water, with programmes opening across all three pillars.
The Strategic Agenda sets the direction for the next seven years from 2027 to 2033. It is an ambitious document, and deliberately so, because the challenges it is designed to address demand ambition. But it is also a practical one, grounded in the five Strategic Objectives developed with EIT Water's community.
The approval of the Strategic Agenda is also a decisive step in the formal establishment of EIT Water as a Knowledge and Innovation Community. The next milestones will be the signing ofthe seven-year Partnership Agreement between EIT and EIT Water, expected following the EIT Governing Board meeting in November. The signing of the Partnership Agreement will formally confirm EIT Water's mandate, governance and funding framework for the years ahead. This will be followed by approval of the Business Plan 2027-2028 that articulates how EIT Water will deliver on its mission for the next two foundation years as a community and will culminate in the awarding of the EIT grant 2027-2028 to EIT Water.
From climate extremes and ageing infrastructure to coastal ecosystem decline, workforce shortages and the growing need to secure critical water systems against cyber and supply chain threats, Europe's water challenges have never been more urgent or more interconnected.
EIT Water, the EU-backed innovation community, now has the mandate, the structure and the strategy to address these challenges at scale.
The EIT Water community is now formally open for business.
To download and discover more on the EIT Water Strategic Agenda 2027-2033 please visit the EIT Water Website
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EIT Water is Europe's innovation community for water, marine and maritime sectors and ecosystems, backed by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), a body of the EU. Find out more at eitwater.eu