Within the CIRSEAU cluster, and with the aim to maximize the impact of all projects activities, five Working Groups have been established:
1. Working Group Assessment Frameworks: The Cirseau Working Group on Assessment Frameworks compares the methodologies in each project to measure the impacts of specific activities, such as the implementation of new technologies, processes, services, business, and governance models. The objective is to define unified criteria to guide policy recommendations and select priority actions to achieve sustainable solutions from holistic perspectives.
2. Working Group Communication & Dissemination: The Working Group Communication & Dissemination develops a common communication and dissemination strategy for the cluster in order to increase the impact and use synergy effects when communicating and disseminating the projects, their results, and their goals. A shared presentation was developed already and the attendance of events as a cluster is in planning.
3. Working Group Policy & Long-term Impact: The Working Group on “Policy & Long Term Impact” focuses on impact generation by providing evidence to policy activities related to water, from the implementation of the CIRSEAU sister projects. The working group is led by Dr. Dimitris Xevgenos, Assistant Professor at TU Delft, The Netherlands (email: d.xevgenos@tudelft.nl).
4. Working Group Stakeholder Engagement: The 5 sister projects under the CIRSEAU Water Alliance consider meaningful stakeholder engagement critically important to effectively contribute towards a smart water society and take dedicated actions to ensure it. Effective stakeholder engagement is necessary not only to ensure the achievement of the project’s outcomes but also to maximize the value and impact of the solutions and approaches developed by these projects, thus addressing societal needs and challenges in water management. The CIRSEAU Stakeholder Engagement Working Group was established to strengthen and leverage the individual project’s efforts on stakeholder engagement. For this purpose, the Working Group conducts a number of activities. Firstly, the Working Group mapped the stakeholder engagement approaches employed across the 5 projects and reflected on their advantages and limitations. This information was shared with the European Commission project officers and used within the respective projects to strengthen their stakeholder engagement activities. Secondly, the Working Group mapped the potential stakeholders’ overlaps across case studies and shared the information with the relevant case studies to support exploiting potential synergies and minimizing stakeholder fatigue. Thirdly, the Working Group identified common discussion topics across projects’ stakeholder platforms and currently supports the exchange of experiences and learnings with, among others, cross-fertilization activities. Lastly, the Working Group extracts lessons learned from the projects’ stakeholder engagement activities and will compile them into dissemination products to be shared with relevant audiences such as the European Commission officers and the scientific community. By focusing on these activities, the Working Group established an inclusive and collaborative cross-project environment that promotes efficiency, consistency, and continuous improvement in stakeholder engagement practices, ultimately leading to enhanced project outcomes and stakeholder satisfaction across all the sister projects.
5. Working Group Young Water Professionals: The Young Water Professionals Working Group facilitates the engagement of young professionals across the CIRSEAU projects and encourages active participation from the young professionals in the CIRSEAU projects’ meeting arenas. The Working Group has initiated several activities with young professionals, including the investigation into how young professionals can be enthused into the water sector, learning from good practices, and challenges from the CIRSEAU partners and beyond.
