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Open judge nominations: Your candidates for the Breakthrough 3 judging panels

NewsNews – News & UpdatesWater Breakthrough Challenge

Open judge nominations: Your candidates for the Breakthrough 3 judging panels

August 19, 2022

In August 2022 we opened for exceptional candidates to form our judging panels for the upcoming competitions.

The third round of the £38 million Water Breakthrough Challenge (‘Breakthrough 3’) launches in October 2022. We see this as a real opportunity for the water sector to showcase the breadth and ambition of innovation that the competitions can enable and shape the Fund’s future.

Over the coming months, we will be forming two expert panels for Breakthrough 3 (one for each of the competition streams, Catalyst and Transform). Each panel will be formed by 6-8 panel members. These expert panels will judge the entries and make recommendations to Ofwat for which entries should be successful in receiving funding.

We aim to form diverse panels whose members will bring a wide range of perspectives, with a good balance of water sector and non-water sector voices. Our panels are an integral part of the winner selection process and we will continue to draw on their expertise to select the entrants most likely to deliver long term impact for the sector.

Please help us identify key candidates who would be suitable for our third round of the Water Breakthrough Challenge.

nominate your judge candidate here

We seek expertise and experience in two or more of the following areas:

Experience in leadership, operations and/or innovation in the water sector in England and Wales

  • Experience in leadership, operations and/or innovation in the  international water sector and/or transferable sectors (e.g., energy, construction, cities and transport, farming and agriculture, digital, manufacturing)
  • Experience in transformational innovation programmes or change in the international water sector and/or transferable sectors (e.g., energy, construction, cities and transport, farming and agriculture, digital, manufacturing)
  • Consumer representation expertise
  • Experience of the opportunities associated with open data stimulating innovation and collaboration, for example, encouraging new business models and service offerings that benefit customers, including those in vulnerable circumstances.
  • Expertise in one or more of the Fund’s four strategic innovation themes:
  1. Responding and adapting to climate change including achieving the sector ambitions of net zero carbon, zero waste and zero leakage
  2. Protecting and enhancing the environment and natural systems, to protect current and future customers from the impacts of extreme weather and pollution
  3. Delivering long-term operational resilience and understanding infrastructure risks to customers and the environment, finding solutions to mitigate these in sustainable and efficient ways
  4. Testing new ways of conducting core activities to deliver the services customers and society need, expect and value both now and in the future

nominate your judge candidate here

Please note, nominations are not binding, and do not guarantee a candidate a place on a judging panel.

Nominations are non-specific to a competition or stream, and the delivery team will make recommendations on which candidate would be best suited for which panel.

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