Spring – the water sector’s much anticipated innovation centre of excellence has launched online today (15 September) ahead of the full site going live in December.
The idea that began as part of the sector’s Water Innovation 2050 strategy, published last year, received £250,000 funding through Ofwat’s innovation fund, which was matched by UK Water Industry Research (UKWIR) members.
The idea behind Spring is to create a central point for water companies, academia, members of the supply chain and innovators to work on common solutions for shared industry challenges.
The site will launch in December with two distinct areas, the first will be the Ideation and Collaboration incubator to improve how ideas are created and how various stakeholders can be brought together and involved.
Secondly the Innovation Adoption area will be a space for launching ideas into the marketplace by connecting companies with possible solutions to challenges.
Spring will be a subsidiary of UKWIR with an independent brand and sustainable funding programme. It will, however, share resources and maintain strategic links with the research organisation.
In December a minimum viable product (MVP) will go live, with the team behind Spring encouraging ongoing stakeholder engagement to continue its evolution throughout next year.
The site will address the skills gap the sector faces while creating and supporting innovation champions and the open data ambitions.
Client programme director, Shaunna Berendsen, and consultant executive lead, Carly Perry, have worked with water companies, academia and the supply chain to understand what the initial version of Spring should look like. A high level of engagement will continue to develop the platform in a way that meets the needs of the industry.
Berendsen, who is on secondment from Anglian, explained the site will complement companies’ existing innovation strategies as a place to share ongoing trials and projects. It will be informed by themes in the national innovation strategy with conversations around these common threads.
“We’re incredibly grateful for all the time our stakeholders have given to help us shape Spring and we’re confident our full launch in December will start to really accelerate the innovation transformation the sector needs,” she said.
“It’s really crucial all our users and stakeholders keep talking to us to make sure Spring delivers on their expectations and help utility companies deliver better value and outcomes for their customers and stakeholders”.
Perry added: “It’s been a great effort to get Spring this far – but we’ve still got a little further to go. We’re really excited to share more over the next few months and get our users interacting with our services, sharing feedback and delivering value across the sector”.