Leakage and Bursts
The Spring Accelerator 5 programme has officially launched. The theme of “Leakage and Bursts” will be the next topic area for this call for innovation.
The Spring Accelerator 5 programme has officially launched, with the theme of “Leakage and Bursts” as the next topic area for this Call for Innovation.
The Spring Accelerator seeks specific, implementable innovations for water companies to trial, progress, and adopt as a collaborative group; facilitating joint working and breaking down barriers.
After thorough discussions with water companies across the UK and Ireland regarding their current innovation priorities, the next Spring Accelerator (SA5) will focus on the topic area of “Leakage and Bursts.” This area addresses an ambition within Theme 6 of the Water Innovation Strategy 2050: ‘Taking a whole-life approach to responsible consumption and production.’ For more insights into this theme, you can find the WIS2050 document here.
Ambition Surgeries are our problem-definition and challenge-setting mechanism. We invite participants from water companies, researchers, suppliers, regulators, innovators, and all interested individuals to join Spring at our SA5 Ambition Surgery on 5th November 2024. This series of two webinars is free and open access. You will gain a deeper understanding of SA5 and the “Leakage and Bursts” challenge, as well as help Spring shape our upcoming Call for Innovation.
While our morning session will provide a foundational understanding of the context behind our ambition, the afternoon session will offer a deep dive into lessons learned from past efforts and explore future possibilities on the topic of “Leakage and Bursts.” Ensure you get the complete picture and contribute to the formation of the Call for Innovation by joining us for both sessions.
The next Call for Innovation on the topic of “Leakage and Bursts” will be released shortly.
Overview of Spring Accelerator Programmes to Date
Spring Accelerator 1 How can a reduction in operational emissions from water and wastewater treatment be achieved?
Spring Accelerator 2 How can we monitor the condition of electro-mechanical assets for water treatment and distribution in a changing environment?
Spring Accelerator 3 How can we enhance and integrate our catchment monitoring capabilities to better protect source water health and the environment?
Spring Accelerator 4 topic area: Emerging Contaminants
Spring Accelerator 5 topic area: Leakage and Bursts
Find out more about the Accelerator and how to apply.
The Spring Accelerator is an end-to-end innovation challenge process that has been created to identify innovative solutions that help address a significant need in the UK water sector, reduce the duplication of innovation efforts, and provide a path to faster adoption.
Each Accelerator programme launches a specific Call for Innovation which has been designed to address a specific Ambition inside one of the seven Water Innovation Strategy 2050 themes. Spring Accelerator 5 addresses theme 6 of the Water Innovation Strategy 2050: ‘Taking a whole-life approach to responsible consumption and production’ – and is looking for specific, implementable solutions in the “Leakage and Bursts” topic area.
Learn more about the Accelerator here.
The Accelerator is open to all innovators who have an idea or solution that addresses the challenge statement. Applicants may be individuals, businesses or a partnership between the two.
You can submit more than one entry to the Challenge.
Innovators can be UK-based or international.
Priority will be given to solutions not previously trialled in the UK and Ireland.
More detailed information, including the application questions and scoring criteria, will be announced shortly.
The goal of the Spring Accelerator is to speed up the process of finding, progressing, and adopting solutions to a given water industry challenge. This means that those who successfully navigate the accelerator process will go on to progress their solution with one or more water utilities. This could take the form of mentoring, a collaborative trial to test the solution in context, or anything in between.
Following Water Company engagement, Spring’s Knowledge Transfer service will provide easily shared project outputs, creating sector-wide project legacy and making it easier for teams to communicate the intricacies of their project to a wider audience.
At this time, financial support is not offered as part of the Spring Accelerator process. Project/trial delivery is at the discretion of the water companies involved.
Submissions to the Accelerator first undergo a review from Spring’s industry experts who will provide an initial assessment of the application.
Submissions will then be shared with subject matter experts who have been selected by each of the participating water companies. The subject matter experts will provide a second review of submissions and vote on the ones that they would like to be brought forward to the Innovation Exchange. Feedback is aggregated and sent to all applicants.
Applicants who are invited to the Innovation Exchange will have the opportunity to pitch their solutions to key water company stakeholders. These events go a lot deeper than a pitch, however; experts and decision-makers from interested water companies will join applicants in a round-table-like moment to start building a business case for mobilising the solution. Successful Exchange events end with commitment from multiple water companies to progress a solution.
More detailed information, including the application questions and scoring criteria, will be announced shortly.
