September 15, 2023
The Ofwat Innovation Fund was launched by Ofwat to ensure that the water sector better meets the needs of, and creates long-term value for, customers, society and the environment. For the past three years, we have been seeking out and supporting highly innovative and collaborative projects through a series of competitions, and have now awarded over £105 million to 77 initiatives – with a further £40 million available in our latest competition, Water Breakthrough Challenge 4.
As we look to the future of the Fund, we spoke to some completed projects, surveyed lead entrants and partners, and reviewed monitoring reports to better understand how we’re progressing towards our goals, and where we may need to redouble our efforts. Read on for an overview of what we’ve heard so far.
As mentioned above, the Fund has now awarded funding to 77 initiatives. When asked about the impact of the Fund on their project, 40% of our respondents from completed projects said they would not have been able to complete their project without the Fund’s support. In addition to this, 60% of respondents felt that they would not be able to find funding elsewhere for their project.
The Fund’s open competitions and acceptance of risk have allowed water companies to pursue truly novel approaches, that otherwise might have been overlooked in favour of more incremental innovations.
“Without the Fund, we probably would still be scrambling around trying to do little research projects here and there… rather than bringing us all together to work as one to get those outcomes in a quicker, more concise way, which is what the Fund allowed us to do.”
Importantly, we heard that three projects had already seen the solutions adopted or progressed further following the completion of the project, with the remainder all expecting to see this take place in the future.
We’ve seen more than 700 organisations involved in over 400 entries to our competitions, with 100% of water companies in England or Wales taking part – either by partnering on or leading an entry to one or more competitions. In doing so, they’ve worked with a diverse range of organisations, including academic research institutions, technology and solution providers, charities, government and industry bodies.
Projects explained that the Fund had facilitated the development of new partnerships, by providing opportunities to pool expertise, knowledge and resources on shared challenges. They reported that these partnerships had given them access to the skills and expertise they need to accelerate the development and implementation of their innovations, while sharing resources and knowledge and reducing costs.
When asked about the impact of the Fund for their organisations, 40% felt that:
Specifically, projects highlighted how the role of innovation has evolved from an isolated function, to playing a central role in the daily operations and strategic planning of the organisation.
“If your question is whether the Fund has helped, then the answer is a resounding yes… I think the Fund is a massive contributor to the culture and the commitment of innovation.”
We’ve also seen water companies embrace the need to share insights and learnings from their projects. Respondents told us they’d observed a shift away from a reliance on consultants, to water companies themselves playing a more active role:
“I think increasingly we’re seeing a lot more direct company involvement in some of this dissemination activity. So it’s less focused on the consultant, it’s more focused on what the companies have learnt. I think that is beneficial. I also feel it’s kind of like the industry talking to the industry, which is not a bad thing.”
Projects employed a number of strategies to disseminate knowledge and insights from their projects – from leading workshops, to speaking at conferences, publishing case studies, or in some cases even launching project-specific brands and websites. However, there was a clear appetite for the Fund to play a more active role in disseminating knowledge being generated by projects.
This interim evaluation showed some promising signs of progress towards the Fund’s objectives, with the water sector embracing the opportunity to pursue new, collaborative innovations. We’ve also seen water companies begin to take a more leading role in sharing knowledge generated by their projects.
However, we know that the key to the Fund achieving lasting, real-world impact will be the roll-out and adoption of successful innovations across the sector – as well as the widespread sharing of knowledge of when, how and why solutions haven’t worked. This will be a key priority for the Fund over the coming months.
Finally, although promising, we know that this interim evaluation was based on a limited sample of completed projects. We also know that many of the projects we fund are long-term, with benefits not expected to be realised for quite some time. We will continue to speak to Fund stakeholders to evaluate our progress and share what we’ve learned – watch this space.
