18 December 2012: The European Commission has announced that in 2013, €40 million will be invested to develop solutions to water challenges identified in the Strategic Implementation Plan (SIP), which was adopted by the European Innovation Partnership (EIP).

The SIP identifies five priority areas, namely: water reuse and recycling; water and wastewater treatment; water and energy; risk management of water related extreme events; and ecosystem services. The investments will target innovative actions that promise to deliver the highest impacts, and will also address cross-cutting areas such as governance, management models and monitoring, and financing.

Water EIP was established by the European Commission to identify, scale-up and deploy innovation solutions to water challenges, bringing together public and private entities to address these issues. [European Commission Press Release]