About the Fund

Ofwat, the Water Services Regulation Authority for England and Wales, has established a £600 million Innovation Fund over 10 years (2020-30) to grow the water sector’s capacity to innovate. The fund runs different types of competitions to award funding to innovation projects that deliver benefits to customers, society and the environment.

Delivering the fund

Led by Ofwat, the Innovation Fund is being delivered by Challenge Works (a Nesta enterprise), in partnership with Arup and Isle Utilities.

Innovation fund 2020-25: development and embedding

Launched in November 2020, the original £200 million Ofwat Innovation Fund delivered seven competitions between 2020-2025: the Innovation in Water Challenge, the Water Breakthrough Challenges 1-5, and the Water Discovery Challenge.

In this period, the fund has supported 109 projects involving almost 300 partners, including water companies, universities, environmental charities, local governments, civil society organisations and other utilities.

You can read about the initiatives we’ve funded to date on our Winners page. You can also read about previous rounds of our competitions on the Past Competitions page.

Innovation fund 2025-30: expansion and growth

Following an open consultation, Ofwat confirmed in January 2025 that the Fund would continue for another five years to 2030, with £400 million available to support projects that could transform the water sector to meet and solve the many challenges it faces.

This funding will be delivered through:

• Annual Water Breakthrough Challenges, focused on innovative ideas from consortia led by water companies
• At least two more Water Discovery Challenges, seeking groundbreaking ideas to revolutionise the water sector from companies outside the industry.
• Three new funding streams will support the implementation and scaling of successful innovations, solutions which require collaboration across the entire sector, and challenges across other sectors.
• In addition, a new Water Efficiency Fund will launch in April 2025, including the Water Efficiency Lab, which will run annual competitions to unlock progress on water efficient technology, processes and approaches.

These competitions will be focused on funding initiatives in line with the aims of the Fund, that deliver innovation aligned with the Water Innovation Strategy themes.

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