Northumbrian Water

Funding: £21 million

Coaching / Bid co-writing support

WATER SECTOR

In 2021, Ofwat (economic regulator for the water sector in England and Wales), launched a new innovation funding initiative: The Water Breakthrough Challenge (WBC).

The fund (£200 million over five years) aims to drive innovation within the water sector to address long-term challenges and deliver significant benefits to customers, society, and the environment.

Northumbrian Water Limited (NWL) is a major UK water and sewerage company (WASC). The company is strongly focused on innovation and sustainability. They are leaders in innovation both within and beyond the water sector.

NWL’s innovation team constantly generate and explore innovative, new ideas to address key water sector challenges. We help NWL select those ideas with the greatest potential impact. Together we develop those ideas into innovation projects, suitable for Ofwat WBC funding.

We work closely with the bid writers at NWL, guiding them through our effective methodology for writing innovation funding bids. Additionally, we provide an iterative review and optimisation service, co-writing key sections of the application to produce a compelling, and persuasive funding proposal.

To date, we have directly enabled NWL to successfully secured over £21 million in funding for innovative projects aimed at tackling key water sector challenges such as leakage, ageing infrastructure, river water quality management and support of vulnerable customers.