The SRIA, which sits under the Water JPI Vision, is a roadmap for future water-related RDI actions in Europe, including, but not limited to, the Water JPI actions. It sets out specific RDI research themes, sub-themes and priorities. It also identifies areas where RDI actions are required. The identified research priorities are openly accessible to various stakeholders, such as researchers, regulatory agencies, policymakers, industry and the public.

The Water JPI SRIA 2025 core research themes are Ecosystems, Health and Wellbeing, Water Value and Usage and Sustainable Water Management. This new Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda for the Water JPI will guide the activities over the next 5 years.  It details each of the core themes that will in turn form part of an Implementation Plan with descriptions of tasks and indicators.

The SRIA 2025 makes a direct contribution in addressing the needs of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular the UN SDG 6 (“Ensure availability and  sustainable management of water and sanitation for all”), and the European Green Deal, while developing European Union (EU) and international cooperation to join efforts to solve the global challenges on water.

As part of the process to update the Water JPI’s Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) 2025 between 2019 and early 2020, synergies were identified between the Water JPI SRIA Sub-themes and Research Priorities and the core theme/research areas of other initiatives and their SRIAs/SRAs (Strategic Research Agendas). Together these can contribute to tackling the societal challenges also being addressed by other initiatives.

To read more about Synergies Between The Water Jpi and  Other Relevant Initiatives click here.

Process to Update the SRIA 2025

The SRIA is a “living” document that is updated every 5 years. Its development has resulted from a collective, forward-looking revision exercise that identifies and sets out an integrated vision of water RDI priorities at regional, EU and global levels. 

The SRIA 2025 has resulted from a comprehensive and extensive consultative process, which built on the three previous iterations of the SRIA (versions 0.5 in 2013, 1.0 in 2014 and 2.0 in 2016). Both the Vision and the SRIA have been revised to take account of the changes in key policies that have occurred since 2011, such as the ongoing water trends and challenges in both a European and a global context, expansion of the Water JPI membership and increased collaboration agreements and partnerships.

With the launch of the new European Research and Innovation Framework Programme, Horizon Europe, cooperation with the new “partnerships” is being taken into account.

A critical review of the Water JPI research themes from Vision 2011 made during the period 2018–2019 confirmed that these research themes are still valid. It was then recommended that the 11 sub-themes to be revised, to more representative, relevant and succinct themes.

To achieve the Vision 2030 and address its grand challenge, the Water JPI has now restructured its SRIA under the following four core research themes:

The revision and consultation steps leading to the development of the SRIA