EU-Wide Advantages & Opportunities for the Topic “Strengthening the resilience of water systems and water sector to climate and global socio-economic change impacts”

1. Single Market Access (450+ million consumers)

• Unlocks a unified demand for water-resilience solutions across 27 Member States, enabling rapid commercial uptake of tools for forecasting, allocation and infrastructure management.

• Harmonised public-procurement rules (Directives 2014/24/EU & 2014/25/EU) simplify the sale of smart sensors, nature-based retention solutions and digital water services to utilities and municipalities EU-wide.

• Sector coupling (WEFE nexus) opens parallel markets in agriculture, energy, tourism and industry, multiplying revenue streams for successful demonstrators.

2. Cross-Border Collaboration & Knowledge Exchange

• Grant explicitly requires demonstrations in diverse European regions, favouring multi-country consortia that pool hydrological data, best practices and complementary expertise (e.g. Mediterranean drought management + Nordic flood control).

• Facilitates creation of transboundary river-basin pilot sites (Danube, Rhine, Douro, Sava, etc.), directly addressing shared water risks that no single Member State can solve alone.

• Participation of the Joint Research Centre (JRC), Copernicus service operators and Destination Earth initiatives guarantees access to cutting-edge EU datasets and modelling capacity.

3. Alignment with Flagship EU Policies

• Directly serves the European Green Deal, EU Climate Adaptation Strategy, Nature Restoration Regulation and forthcoming European Water Resilience Strategy.

• Contributes to the Digital Europe Programme via integration with Destination Earth digital twins and Copernicus data layers.

• Supports Biodiversity Strategy 2030 and Farm-to-Fork by safeguarding ecological flows and enabling water-efficient agriculture.

4. Regulatory Harmonisation & Standard Setting

• Research outputs can feed into the Common Implementation Strategy (CIS) of the Water Framework Directive, accelerating EU-wide adoption of new efficiency indicators and allocation rules.

• Early engagement with standards bodies (CEN/CENELEC, ISO/TC 224) positions consortia to influence European standards for smart water metering, remote sensing and nature-based solutions, easing later market entry.

5. Access to Europe’s Innovation Ecosystem

• Leverages 3,400+ Horizon Europe beneficiaries, 300+ EIT Climate-KIC & Water-KIC partners, and 200+ Water4All partnership members for rapid dissemination and exploitation.

• Facilitates recruitment of top talent through cross-border secondments, Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions and Erasmus+ mobility.

6. Funding Synergies & Blending Opportunities

• Results can be up-scaled with:

• EU Mission “Adaptation to Climate Change” demonstration regions (up to €360 m).

• LIFE programme for large-scale nature-based retention investments.

• Connecting Europe Facility (CEF2) for trans-European water infrastructure, including data backbones.

• ERDF & Cohesion Funds for regional deployment in convergence regions.

• InvestEU and EIB “Water Sector” windows for blended finance and guarantees.

• Alignment avoids double-funding while maximising cumulative impact.

7. Scale & Impact Potential

• Pan-European pilots generate statistically robust evidence across varied climates (Atlantic, Continental, Mediterranean, Boreal), proving generalisability and supporting EU-wide policy uptake.

• Common open-source toolkits and interoperable data layers enable plug-and-play replication by other river basins, accelerating market growth beyond the project lifetime.

• Improved water resilience underpins €2.6 trillion of annual EU GDP that depends on secure water supply (agri-food, pharma, semiconductors, renewables), providing macro-economic justification for further investment.

8. Strategic Value of Operating at EU Scale

• Addresses hydrological cycles that ignore national borders, ensuring solutions match natural systems rather than administrative limits.

• Consolidates fragmentary monitoring networks into a coherent European Observing System, reducing uncertainty and data costs for all users.

• Creates a first-mover advantage for European SMEs & utilities in the growing global market for climate-resilient water management (projected €1 trillion by 2030).

Bottom Line: By exploiting the EU’s single market, regulatory alignment, world-class research networks and blended-finance toolbox, projects under this call can achieve faster innovation, broader deployment and higher socio-economic returns than would ever be possible through isolated national initiatives.