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LITSoN: Linking Innovation to Societal Needs
Phase 1: Proof of Concept Report
May 2017
The UK Water Partnership
https://mottmac.sharepoint.com/teams/pj-a331
The UK Water Partnership LITSoN: Linking Innovation to
Societal Needs
Phase 1: Proof of Concept Report
May 2017 Please contact us if you would like further details on LITSoN [email protected]
The UK Water Partnership
LITSoN: Linking Innovation to Societal Needs Phase 1: Proof of Concept Report
https://mottmac.sharepoint.com/teams/pj-a331
Issue and revision record
Revision Date Originator Checker Approver Description
A 09/05/17 J. Radford J. Rains T. Flood
T. Rachwal
First issue to LITSoN participants
Consultees
DEFRA Alison Maydom
Environment Agency Neil Weatherley
HydroNation Water Innovation Service Barry Greig
Natural England Alistair Burn
ESRC Claire Spooner
TWENTY65 Caroline Wadsworth
University of Birmingham Chris Rogers
University of Cambridge Richard Fenner
University of Exeter David Butler, Guangtao Fu
UKWIR Hans Jensen
UKWP Accelerator Project Henri Lambert
Water Innovation Network Nilam Patel, Steve Kaye
HR Wallingford Ian Callender
Isle Utilities Stuart Moss
Mott MacDonald Jon Rains
Affinity Water Patrick Campbell
Anglian Water Steve Kaye
Northumbrian Water Chris Jones
Scottish Water George Ponton
Southern Water Barry Cleasby
SES Water Jeremy Heath
Thames Water Paul Rutter, Eve Germain-Cripps
Yorkshire Water Jon Brigg
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LITSoN: Linking Innovation to Societal Needs Phase 1: Proof of Concept Report
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Contents
Executive summary 1
1 Introduction 2
1.1 Statement of need 2
1.2 Objectives 2
1.3 Benefits 2
1.4 Scope 3
1.5 Programme 3
2 Methodology 4
2.1 Survey development 4
2.2 Participants 5
3 Results 7
3.1 Response rate 7
3.2 Data quality 8
3.3 Innovation alignment 8
3.4 Economic growth 9
3.5 Market information 10
3.6 Capability development 11
3.7 Communication 12
4 Conclusions 13
5 Recommendations 14
5.1 Survey improvements 14
5.2 Next steps 14
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Executive summary
The UK Water Partnership (UKWP) is a public-private partnership that puts water first, with a
vision of “Safeguarding our water future through innovation”. In creating national partnerships
between the UK Governments, businesses and the research community it aims to stimulate a
step-change in action to tackle strategic water challenges and provide a platform to promote UK
water services globally.
The LITSoN project – Linking Innovation To Societal Needs – is intended to further those
objectives by providing an overview of innovation in the UK water sector and assessment of its
alignment with societal, sustainability needs. It will also identify corresponding global water
needs and potential export markets. Through this it will help strengthen the case for support
from the UK Governments for development and commercial exploitation of UK water
technology. This report describes a four-month initial proof of concept phase which focused on
the UK water utilities.
The UKWIR ‘Big Questions’ were selected as the statement of societal needs as they cover the
full hydrological cycle and were identified by the UK water utilities industry to focus research
efforts. Participants completed a brief survey providing an overview of their organisation’s
research and innovation programme. This included an assessment of impact on the societal
needs, the current stage of development (from fundamental research to commercial product),
timescales for progress and the business demand for commercialisation.
Over 100 organisations associated with research and innovation related to UK water utilities
were identified across Government, academia, non-profits and businesses and two thirds were
invited to participate in this pilot. Responses were received from 21 organisations, totalling over
350 projects, despite the pilot’s short duration. This included water utilities representing
approximately 50% of the regulated market, but had particularly low coverage of projects in
Academia and those funded by Research Councils.
Analysis of the data identified both areas of relative weakness, including the ‘Zero leakage’ and
‘Zero water poverty’ challenges, and potential opportunities for further collaboration and
efficiencies where multiple partners are working on similar projects. These align with significant
global market opportunities and could help focus efforts to assess export potential. The results
also provide market information on high priority projects and unmet needs to support SMEs and
future entrants, and highlight the success of the HydroNation Water Innovation Service in
identifying projects already in commercialisation. All of these benefits should be reviewed as a
more complete data set is collected for UK water utilities and other parts of the water industry.
This proof of concept has successfully collected a significant amount of data through a rapid
survey. Benefits have been identified in terms of innovation alignment, market information,
capability development and economic growth. Further work is now required to provide a
comprehensive review of UK water utilities innovation, extend the pilot to include the wider
water industry and scope a pilot at global scale to meet the full objectives of the LITSoN project.
Specific next steps are to:
● Review findings with UK water utilities’ R&D and Innovation Managers
● Engage with UKWP member Sainsbury’s on extending LITSoN for water use in agri-food
● Support Innovate UK in their review and development of mechanisms to stimulate innovation
across the UK water industry to support the UK Industrial Strategy.
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1 Introduction
1.1 Statement of need
The UK water sector is recognised as having a strong academic base, with world-class research
capability (eg ranked third globally on academic papers published1). However, it only captures
an estimated 3% of the global market for water technology2 with relatively few world-class
companies outside of consultancy services3. The industry is highly fragmented, with a lack of
alignment between research and market opportunities, resulting in a low success rate in
commercialising fundamental research into marketable products4.
1.2 Objectives
The LITSoN project – Linking Innovation to Societal Needs – is an initiative of the UK Water
Partnership’s (UKWP) Development & Implementation (D&I) Group. It builds upon previous
work undertaken by the Water Sector Innovation Leadership Group in 20135 to provide an
overview of innovation in the UK water sector and help improve alignment to societal needs.
The LITSoN Project Scoping Brief6 defines the following key objectives:
● To understand how all innovation activity in the UK (from research to exploitation) aligns with
the needs of the UK water industry.
● To understand key global needs in water, how they align with those in the UK and potentially
what markets exist.
● To take to UK government, the case for government providing support for the development
and commercial exploitation of UK water technology to meet UK and global needs.
Furthermore, the intention is to develop a replicable process that can be regularly updated to
provide information on UK water sector innovation.
1.3 Benefits
The anticipated benefits of the LITSoN project include:
● Innovation alignment – helping ensure that research and innovation projects meet societal
needs of the water sector (eg sustainability drivers for utilities, industrial water users and
Agri-Food businesses). Greater alignment will create a stronger ‘pull’ for commercialisation
of innovations, as well as identifying opportunities for collaboration and efficiencies.
● Market information – identifying promising new innovations that meet businesses’ needs,
as well as areas of opportunity where there are innovation gaps with strong unmet demand.
● Capability development – sharing innovation best practices across the UK water industry to
increase the proportion of ideas that are successfully commercialised. Supporting the case
for increased Government support of UK water innovation.
1 Innovate UK (2016) Catapult Candidate Evidence - Water
2 UKWRIP (2014) HTECHO Tapping the Potential: A Fresh Vision for UK Water Technology. Available online
3 Frost & Sullivan (2016) Global Water and Wastewater Market Outlook as referenced by Innovate UK (2016) Catapult Candidate Evidence - Water
4 UKWRIP (2014) HTechO Tapping the Potential: A Fresh Vision for UK Water Technology. Available online
5 Severn Trent Water, Anglian Water and MWH (2013) Insight Model Demonstration: LITSoN
6 UKWP (2016) Scoping Brief – Outline of Phase 1 of the LITSON Project
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● Economic growth – increasing opportunities for SMEs to serve the UK water market with
innovative technologies and targeting industry and Government support to maximise growth.
Identifying ‘hot spots’ in UK water innovation and associated global market opportunities.
1.4 Scope
Phase 1 serves as a proof of concept for the first objective of LITSoN:
● To understand how all innovation activity in the UK (from research to exploitation) aligns with
the needs of the UK water industry.
It includes development of the methodology and assessing the resulting stakeholder benefits. It
is not intended to collect a comprehensive or complete data set, but sufficient to rapidly test the
LITSoN concept and share the results with participants and UKWP members. This initial proof
of concept has focused on UK water utilities, as a subset of the wider water industry (accounting
for 50% of non-tidal surface water and groundwater abstractions7), as detailed in Table 1 below:
Table 1: LITSoN Scope
Phase 1 is about… Phase 2 is about…
Innovations relevant to water utilities Wider water sector users eg agri-food and industrial
Societal needs of the UK water sector Needs of global water markets
Innovation activity taking place in the UK Global innovation activity and how the UK compares
Gaps between UK water innovation and needs Assessing market potential for those innovations
Collecting sufficient data for a proof of concept Producing a comprehensive and complete data set
1.5 Programme
The proof of concept ran from December 2016 to April 2017, with data collected on UK water
research and innovation activities during an initial one month window, subsequently extended to
include additional submissions.
7 DEFRA (2017) Water Abstraction statistics, England 2000 to 2015. Available online
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2 Methodology
2.1 Survey development
For the purposes of this pilot, the UKWIR ‘Big Questions’ were selected as the statement of
societal needs for the UK water utilities industry. These 11 questions, listed below, cover the full
range of the hydrological cycle as well as cross-cutting areas, can be readily mapped to the
three pillars of sustainability, and have already been identified by the UK water utilities industry
“To focus research efforts… to provide a world class, sustainable service to their customers”8:
1. How do we halve our abstractions by 2050?
2. How will we achieve zero leakage in a sustainable way by 2050?
3. How do we achieve zero interruptions to water supplies by 2050?
4. How do we achieve 100% compliance with drinking water standards (at point of use) by
2050?
5. How will we deliver an environmentally sustainable wastewater service that meets
customer and regulator expectations by 2050?
6. How do we achieve zero uncontrolled discharges from sewers by 2050?
7. How do we achieve zero customers in water poverty by 2030?
8. How do we ensure that the regulatory framework incentivises efficient delivery of the right
outcomes for customers and the environment?
9. How do we become carbon neutral by 2050?
10. How do we turn all wastes we receive and generate into products by 2030?
11. What is the true cost of maintaining assets and how do we get this better reflected in the
regulatory decision making process?
A standard framework was also required to assess an innovation’s level of development – the
“innovation pipeline”, taking a project from fundamental scientific research to a fully
commercialised product. Previous work on LITSoN was developed further into a four-stage
process model that incorporates innovation management best practice, as seen in Figure 1
below.
Figure 1: LITSoN Innovation Pipeline
To ensure consistency between different organisations completing the LITSoN survey, guidance
was provided mapping each of these stages to the more detailed breakdown used in Innovate
UK Technology Roadmaps9 and the EU Horizon 2020 Technology Readiness Levels10, as seen
in Figure 2 below.
8 UKWIR (2016) Our Research Big Questions. Available online
9 Innovate UK (n.d.) Technology Roadmaps. Available online
10 European Commission (2014) Horizon 2020 Work Programme 2014-2015. Annex G. Technology readiness levels (TRL). Available online
Fundamental Research
Applied Research Development Commercialisation
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Figure 2: Mapping between development stages used by LITSoN, Innovate UK and EU Horizon 2020
Previous surveys of UK water innovation developed for LITSoN were reviewed and the decision
taken to greatly reduce the number of questions – from over 100 per project in some cases.
Although this could potentially reduce data quality, it was considered important to achieve a
meaningful response level from the industry. For each innovation project participants were
asked to:
● Provide a brief description of objectives and activities
● Assess its current stage of development (from the four shown in Figure 1)
● Estimate when it will progress to the next stage
● Assess the business demand for commercialisation (on a scale of 1-5); and
● Rate its potential impact, once commercialised, against each of the UKWIR big questions
This was considered an appropriate compromise between data quality and quantity (in terms of
the response rate, linked to time taken to complete the survey), with each question contributing
to the objectives of LITSoN. A small number of additional questions were included at
organisational (rather than project) level, including key innovation networks, programmes and
partners, and the total annual budget for all reported projects which they lead. Response bands
were included for the latter ranging from <£100k/yr to >£1M/yr, to reduce potential commercial
sensitivities and clarify that only an approximate estimate was required.
Participants were encouraged to openly share their data through a ‘share and share alike’
policy, whereby those who agreed to share their data (plus UKWP members) would receive all
the shared data for their own analysis, whereas others will only receive a publicly-accessible
summary of the analysed data.
The use of specialist survey software was considered, however for this initial pilot it would have
been cost-prohibitive, with the small scale not justifying the additional complexity. As no
commercially sensitive data was collected, and participants were encouraged to openly share
their responses, an ISO 27001-compliant system was not considered necessary and the survey
was developed in Microsoft Excel and distributed via email. A brief guidance video was also
recorded to explain how to complete the spreadsheet and distributed with the survey.
2.2 Participants
Survey participants were classified into four categories using the Frascati Manual11, a well-
established and internationally accepted reference for collecting statistics on research and
development. Over 100 organisations funding, supporting or undertaking research and
11 OECD (2015) Frascati Manual 2015: Guidelines for Collecting and Reporting Data on Research and Experimental Development –
Figure 3.1 Decision tree for allocating institutional units to the main sectors in this manual p.91 Available online
Innovate UK
Technology Roadmap UKWP LITSoN model
EU Horizon 2020
Technology Readiness Levels
Problem identified TRL1: Basic research. Principles postulated and observed but no experimental proof available
Principles understood TRL2: Technology formulation. Concept and application have been formulated.
TRL6: Prototype system tested in intended environment close to expected performance
TRL7: Demonstration system operating in operational environment at pre-commercial scale
Limited scale production TRL8: First of a kind commercial system. Manufacturing issues solved
Mass scale exploitation TRL9: Full commercial application, technology available for consumers
Realistic demonstration
Proof of concept
System prototype
Fundamental research
Development
Commercialisation
TRL3: Applied research. First laboratory tests completed; proof of concept
TRL4: Small scale prototype built in a laboratory environment ("ugly" prototype)
TRL5: Large scale prototype tested in intended environment
Applied research
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innovation related to UK water utilities were identified, including the groups shown in Figure 3
below.
Figure 3: Survey participants categorised using the Frascati Manual
* Water and Sewerage Companies/ Water Only Companies
A prioritised list was selected of 64 organisations to include in this pilot phase and contact was
established through personal connections of UKWP members, principally the D&I and R&I
Groups. The focus was on targeting stakeholders with a research and innovation portfolio who
would be able to provide relative weightings across multiple projects. In many cases (eg
HydroNation Water Innovation Service, Anglian Water’s Water Innovation Network) those
portfolios comprise multiple innovative products and technologies offered by different SMEs.
SMEs were also encouraged to participate by publishing a request for data on the websites of
British Water and the Pipelines Industries Guild to test the response rate and potential scoring
bias from organisations who may be promoting a particular innovation.
A high-level review of the results by Isle Utilities has provided a sense-check in the following
three areas:
● The completeness of the dataset
● If it is representative of UK water utilities innovation (including the content of TAG); and
● Whether the conclusions drawn are reasonable.
This feedback has been incorporated into the discussion of the results that follows.
Government
• Departments
• Research Councils
Academia
• Consortia
• Research Centres
• Universities
Non-profit
• Industry bodies
• Trade associations
Business
• WaSCs/WOCs*
• Consultants
• Contractors
• SMEs
• Technology Transfer Offices
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3 Results
3.1 Response rate
The majority of organisations contacted agreed to take part in LITSoN and in total 21 responses
were received, totalling over 350 research and innovation projects. The participants in this proof
of concept are listed in Figure 4 below.
Figure 4: Survey participants in LITSoN proof of concept
The number of projects shared by each group of participants (with Business subdivided into the
utilities and ‘other’) is shown in Figure 5 below:
Figure 5: Projects shared in LITSoN pilot, by participant group
The ‘Government’ group is skewed by HydroNation WIS which contributed over 100 projects,
the majority products in commercialisation that had applied for support from their programme. A
particularly strong response was also received from the utilities, representing approximately
50% of the regulated market12. The response from academia, however, was particularly weak,
12 On the basis of 2015-16 Totex – see eg http://www.ofwat.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Service-delivery-report.pdf
Government
• DEFRA
• Environment Agency
• ESRC
• HydroNation Water Innovation Service
• Natural England
Academia
• TWENTY65
• U. Birmingham
• U. Cambridge
• U. Exeter
Non-profit
• UKWIR
• Water Innovation Network
Business
• Affinity Water
• Anglian Water
• Northumbrian Water
• Scottish Water
• SES Water
• Southern Water
• Thames Water
• Yorkshire Water
• HR Wallingford
• Mott MacDonald
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
Government Academia Non-Profit Business -WaSC/WOC
Business - Other
Num
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of pro
jects
Commercialisation Development Applied Research Fundamental Research
4 4 2 8 2Responses
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contributing just 25 projects, a small proportion of the UK’s world class research base in the
water sector. In comparison, entering the search term ‘water’ into the RCUK Research Gateway
which covers the seven Research Councils and Innovate UK, returns almost 2000 current
projects13. Future phases of LITSoN should consider how best to make use of the Research
Gateway in collecting data from Academia and the Research Councils, while still providing an
assessment of each project’s potential impact on societal needs.
3.2 Data quality
Review of the responses received demonstrates a varying level of detail in the descriptions and
granularity in the level of reporting. Some participants have summarised their innovation
programmes into 8-12 areas, reducing the value of the data for subsequent analysis as
individual projects cannot be identified and potential synergies and collaborations are less
apparent. This is partly to be expected as the survey was intentionally left open-ended at proof
of concept stage to maximise the response rate and understand what level of detail participants
were willing to provide.
Potential barriers to more detailed reporting are confidentiality and the increased effort required
– particularly given the short deadline necessary during the pilot phase. Future phases should
encourage participants to report at a more detailed project level, perhaps through providing a
suitable example from the proof of concept as a reference for comparison. It may be useful to
add one extra question, to provide further detail on the level of effort associated with each
project. As one participant noted, the projects “range from single PhDs to multi-million, multi-
institution projects”. This could be the project budget, if that data is available and not
commercially sensitive, or perhaps an estimate of the number of full time equivalent staff
working on it. Additional resource and programme allowance should also be included to review
responses and encourage participants to make any necessary revisions or add additional detail
as required.
The average ratings given by participants to all projects in their research programmes against
all of the societal needs vary from 0.3 - 2.8 (on a scale of 0-5). In scaling-up the LITSoN survey
further consideration should be given to whether self-reported scores should be normalised in
some way across all participants.
3.3 Innovation alignment
The impact of each project on the 11 identified societal needs was scored on a scale of 1-5 in
the LITSoN survey. These cumulative scores for each societal need are presented in Figure 6
below.
13 RCUK (2017) Gateway to Research. Available online
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Figure 6: Relative strength of innovation pipeline for each societal need
This highlights a relative weakness in addressing the ‘Zero water poverty’ challenge, which has
independently been identified by UKWIR as a Big Question that requires additional focus14 -
corroborating the findings of the LITSoN pilot.
Potential opportunities have been identified to delivery efficiencies through closer collaboration
and knowledge sharing amongst multiple organisations working in the following areas:
● Smart infrastructure – 14 organisations working on 53 projects
● Aerial and satellite leakage detection – 6 organisations working on 6 projects
● Metaldehyde and treatment byproducts – 8 organisations working on 14 projects
● Energy recovery – 5 organisations working on 12 projects
3.4 Economic growth
The following potential innovation ‘hotspots’ have been identified from clusters of projects
reported in the LITSoN proof of concept:
● Resource and energy recovery ($23 billion by 2017)
● Smart networks and sensors ($16-23 billion by 2020)
14 Hans Jensen (2017) pers. comm.
0
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5 - Very high 4 - High 3 - Moderate 2 - Marginal 1 - Limited
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● Burst prevention and repair ($3-5 billion by 2017)
● Non-potable resources
● Water treatment processes
● Wastewater treatment processes
These hotspots broadly align with Isle Utilities’ understanding of ongoing innovation projects in
UK water utilities. Many of these are also highlighted amongst the ten examples of major global
market opportunities identified in the ‘HTechO’ Report15, with the market size indicated in
parentheses above. This initial list should be reviewed as part of future work to collect a more
comprehensive dataset, but could provide the basis for identifying areas of particular strength of
the UK water industry, to support a ‘SWOT’-style assessment of export potential in the global
market.
The LITSoN survey did not collect information on the provenance of innovations, and
specifically whether they involve UK companies. Future work should consider whether this is
best captured in the initial survey (acknowledging the additional reporting burden for
participants), or in subsequent engagement with specific projects highlighted as having strong
export potential.
3.5 Market information
The reported innovation projects have been segmented into four categories according to their
maximum score against any societal need and the level of business demand, as shown in
Figure 7 below:
Figure 7: Innovation projects categorised by impact on societal needs and business demand
This information could be used to help manage and prioritise individual innovation programmes.
It could also provide useful market information, particularly on ‘Unmet needs’ where there is
15 UKWRIP (2014) HTechO Tapping the Potential: A Fresh Vision for UK Water Technology. Available online
0
1
2
3
4
5
Impact on s
ocie
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max s
core
)
Business demand
Commercialisation Development Applied Research Fundamental Research Will not progress
0 1 2 3 4
Unmet needs
High priorities
Low priorities
Blue-sky ideas
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high business demand for commercialised solutions, but current projects have performed
poorly.
3.6 Capability development
Review of the projects submitted by the HydroNation Water Innovation Service (WIS)
demonstrates that over 60% of these are in commercialisation, compared to less than 20% for
all projects submitted by other participants. This is highlighted in Figure 8 below, which
compares the number of projects submitted by HydroNation WIS and all other participants,
coloured by development stage. Projects are included for each societal need where they are
rated as having ‘high’ or ‘very high’ impact.
The relatively high proportion of projects identified that are already in commercialisation reflects
the remit of the HydroNation WIS to identify innovative companies, particularly SMEs, and
support them in commercialising their products16. A potential Innovate UK Water Catapult could
provide similar support to SMEs across the UK water industry.
Figure 8: Comparison of high impact projects submitted by HydroNation WIS and other participants
16 HydroNation (2017) HydroNation Water Innovation Service. Available online
0
10
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50
60
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HydroNation WIS - High/Very High Impact
Commercialisation Development Applied Research Fundamental Research
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3.7 Communication
The outcomes of this proof of concept will be shared on the UKWP website to raise awareness
about LITSoN and encourage participation in future phases of work. All participants of the
survey who openly shared their data will additionally receive a copy of all responses shared as
part of the proof of concept.
Please contact us if you would like further details on the findings and the LITSoN project:
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4 Conclusions
This LITSoN proof of concept successfully developed a useable model and in just one month
collected data on over 350 projects from 20 partners spanning the full range of organisations
involved in research and innovation in the UK water utilities industry. This included water and
sewerage, and water-only companies representing approximately 50% of the regulated market.
Although this does not provide a complete picture of UK water utility innovation, it validates the
approach and format of the survey and suggests that, given more time, it could be extended to
collect a comprehensive data set. Recommendations have been made on how to improve the
survey and particularly increase the coverage of projects in Academia, those funded by the
Research Councils, and innovation from SMEs, however collecting information from a large
number of small companies remains a challenge.
The proposal for LITSoN identified four potential areas of benefit. This proof of concept has
demonstrated the following benefits in each of those areas:
● Innovation alignment
– Identified ‘Zero water poverty’ and ‘Zero leakage’ as areas of relative weakness in the
current innovation programme.
– Examples of potential opportunities for further knowledge sharing and collaboration in:
Smart infrastructure, Aerial and satellite leakage detection, Metaldehyde and treatment
byproducts, and Energy recovery
● Market information
– Innovation programmes can be segmented to identify high priority projects and unmet
needs. This should be tested further on a more complete data set in future phases of
LITSoN.
● Capability development
– The HydroNation Water Innovation Service has identified a high proportion of projects in
commercialisation. A Water Catapult / Catalyst / Demonstrator supported by Innovate UK
could provide a similar focal point in supporting SMEs across the UK water industry
● Economic growth
– Potential innovation ‘hotspots’ have been identified from clusters of projects. These align
well with previously identified global water market opportunities and could be used to
focus efforts to assess export potential.
All of these benefits should be reviewed and tested as a more complete data set is collected for
UK water utilities and other parts of the wider water industry.
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5 Recommendations
5.1 Survey improvements
Several potential improvements to LITSoN were identified during the proof of concept phase,
including feedback from participants, summarised here:
● Encourage reporting at a more detailed project level, perhaps through providing a suitable
example as a reference for comparison.
● Additional resource and programme allowance should be included to review responses and
encourage participants to make any necessary revisions or add additional detail as required.
● Further detail on the level of effort associated with each project would be useful. This could
be the project budget, if that data is available and not commercially sensitive.
● Consider how best to use RCUK’s Research Gateway to collect data from Academia and the
Research Councils, while still assessing each project’s impact on societal needs.
● Further engage with membership-based organisations such as British Water, Future Water
Association and Water Industry Forum to collect data from SMEs.
● Self-reported scores could be normalised for optimism bias across all participants.
● Improved guidance is required on reporting innovation projects of interest that an
organisation is not directly involved in.
● An additional upper band for total innovation budgets over £1M may provide greater
granularity
● Consider whether to request information on the involvement of UK companies in all projects,
to support assessment of export potential, or through subsequent engagement.
5.2 Next steps
This proof of concept has demonstrated that it is possible to collect a significant amount of data
on innovation projects through a relatively ‘light-touch’ online survey. The results demonstrate
potential benefits in terms of innovation alignment, market information, capability development,
and economic growth.
To deliver the LITSoN objectives further work is required to upscale this pilot to provide a
comprehensive review of UK water utilities innovation, extend it to include the wider water
industry and scope a similar pilot at a global scale. The following next steps have been
identified:
● Present findings to R&D and Innovation Managers of UK water utilities, review specific
opportunities for collaboration and efficiency, and encourage further responses to achieve
>80% coverage of water utilities.
● Use findings of LITSoN pilot to inform selection of focus areas for UKWP Accelerator Project.
● Engage with UKWP member Sainsbury’s on extending LITSoN for water use in agrifood, as
part of their leadership in this area.
● Support Innovate UK in their review and development of mechanisms to stimulate innovation
across the UK water industry, as part of the broader Industrial Strategy.
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