News – News & UpdatesWater Breakthrough Challenge
September 21, 2021
A new water innovation competition will open on 11 October 2021, with funding for innovative water sector initiatives which deliver benefits for customers, society and the environment. Through the second round of the Water Breakthrough Challenge (‘Breakthrough 2’), water companies, in partnership with other parties, will be able to win between £100,000 and £10 million through two streams of funding. We’ve listened to feedback from water companies, researchers, suppliers and other water sector experts, combining their insights with learnings from the first two competitions to design a new, simplified process for water companies in England and Wales (and their partners) to access the Fund.
Read on to find out what’s changed, and what’s stayed the same, and how you can set yourself up for success.
The water sector in England and Wales is facing unprecedented challenges. From responding and adapting to climate change; to protecting and restoring our water environments, there’s a need for water companies to seize the opportunities presented by new technologies, and to continue to capture and share new knowledge, solutions and approaches, within the sector and beyond.
The water sector has already made considerable progress – the industry’s first Water Innovation Strategy was published last year, setting out the sector’s vision up to 2050. Water companies have unveiled a ground-breaking plan to reach net zero by 2030, the world’s first sector-wide commitment of its kind. They’ve also announced the next steps for the sector’s innovation centre of excellence – Spring – to accelerate the sector’s transformation through innovation and collaboration.
Breakthrough 2 aims to turbocharge these existing efforts. Run by Ofwat in partnership with Nesta Challenges, Arup and Isle Utilities, Breakthrough 2 will be the third competition delivered through Ofwat’s £200 million Innovation Fund as part of the regulator’s goal of supporting an innovative and collaborative water sector which can meet the needs of customers, society and the environment over the coming years.
About the programme
In Breakthrough 2, water companies in England and Wales and their partners will be able to bid for funding through two streams:
• Up to £5 million is available through the Catalyst Stream.
Individual entries can bid for £100,000-£1 million.
Entries will open on 11 October 2021 and close on 8 December 2021.
• Up to £30 million is available through the Transform Stream.
Individual entries can bid for £1 million – £10 million.
Stage 1 entries will open on 11 October 2021 and close on 16 November 2021.
Stage 2 entries will open on 15 December 2021 and close on 8 February 2022.
Although we’re making a number of changes (outlined below) there’s a few components of Breakthrough 2 which will remain the same as our previous competitions:
• Eligibility: Both streams of Breakthrough 2 will be open to entries from water companies in England & Wales, however we are still encouraging entries from partnerships between water companies (including NAVs), and organisations in the water sector supply chain and beyond.
• Five themes: We’re still looking for solutions which align with one or more of Ofwat’s five strategic innovation themes
• Innovation enablers: Initiatives we support through Breakthrough 2 should demonstrate and strengthen the ‘innovation enablers’ identified by Ofwat as critical to growing the sector’s capacity to innovate.
• Entry ambition & timelines: Across the two streams, there’s still space for initiatives with a wide range of delivery timelines.
We heard… that participating in two competitions in parallel could be challenging for water companies.
What we’re doing… Breakthrough 2 will combine elements of the Innovation in Water Challenge and the first round of the Water Breakthrough Challenge into a unified and streamlined process. We’re working to align the entry and assessment processes of the two streams as much as possible while still ensuring the work required to enter is proportional to the risk and value of the entries being submitted:
We’ll be publishing more information about the entry processes for each stream (including entry forms) when we open on 11 October 2021, but expect that these will be broadly similar to Breakthrough 1.
We heard… that there were valuable, innovative projects which required funding between £250,000 and £1 million which couldn’t be entered in the first round of the competitions.
What we’re doing… In Breakthrough 2, we’ve closed the funding gap, with the Catalyst Stream inviting bids of between £100,000 and £1 million, and the Transform Stream inviting bids of between £1 million and £10 million.
We heard… that the current intellectual property rights (IPR) policy of requiring an appropriate licence to Background IPR to all participants in a project may be limiting the types of entries submitted – particularly where smaller technology providers are involved in an entry.
What we’re doing… After consulting with the sector, we are planning to test a relaxed IPR policy for part of the Catalyst Stream. Under this change, owners of background IPR will be able to charge a licence fee at a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory rate, where this is required to deliver the benefit of the foreground IPR.
This new policy will only apply to half of the funding available in the Catalyst stream (i.e up to £2.5 million will be provided to entries under this new policy) and entrants will need to indicate which IPR terms they would like their entry to be considered against at the time of entry. Entrants will also need to demonstrate in their entry forms how customers will benefit from the project being funded, regardless of the license fee.
With entries opening on 11 October 2021, our hope is that you now have all the information you need to consider what innovations you’d like to enter, and who you could be partnering with. You may wish to begin by:
• Reading the full programmed detail on both the Catalyst and Transform streams of the competition, as well as our FAQs
• Register for our webinar, scheduled for 1.30pm (BST) Wednesday 13 October 2021, where you’ll have an opportunity to ask questions about Breakthrough 2
• Reviewing our tips for entering the competitions
• Considering what partnerships you could form to tackle a common challenge, or explore a new opportunity (our ‘Find a Partner’ page has resources and tips for both water companies and prospective suppliers to build new connections, and our recently published Water Innovation Directory hosts pitch videos from innovative suppliers).
• Signing up to our newsletter, to make sure you receive future updates about Ofwat’s Innovation Fund.
