About Bridge4Water

Bridge4Water is coordinated by Aarhus University in collaboration with Water Valley Denmark and is implemented as a pilot initiative aligned with the emerging EIT Water Knowledge and Innovation Community under Action Programme 6. The programme contributes to advancing water-smart and circular water management systems and strengthening collaboration across the European water research landscape.

All companies, universities, and relevant stakeholders are invited to join the platform and participate in collaborative research projects.

Bridge4Water operates under a fully open framework, meaning that projects are co-created by academia and industry, funding is allocated to research institutions, and all results are shared openly without IP restrictions to enable downstream innovation across the sector.

COMPANIES should join to:

› collaborate with leading academic researchers on shared water challenges
› explore new solutions and de-risk early-stage ideas
› access open knowledge, data, and methods to support innovation and implementation

ACADEMICS should join to:

› propose research ideas within the 2026 thematic tracks
› collaborate with industry in an open, interdisciplinary environment
› strengthen the impact and applicability of their research

What is Open Innovation in Science?

Bridge4Water is based on the co-creation approach, Open Innovation in Science (OIS), which focuses on open research collaborations, where universities and companies participating agree to publish all results as soon as possible and waive any claim to intellectual property rights. The ongoing sharing of results and knowledge enables researchers and companies to accelerate innovation and development activities. As no one can protect the foreground knowledge and results from the collaborations, anyone is free to further develop the results and potentially use them for commercial purposes downstream.

Open Collaboration

Collaborating in an open project allows the participants to:

Create new collaborations with ease between academics and industry partners through facilitated matchmaking, and with fast project starts based on standard contracts and no IP negotiations.
Find new solutions to technical problems and easily gain access to new knowledge and robust data that can help move the industry forward by solving common challenges and tackling barriers faced by everyone.
Access a robust foundation of knowledge based on excellent research from all funded projects that can be applied for downstream innovation and used for commercial purposes with no strings attached.
Reduce fragmentation in water research and innovation by fostering collaboration and knowledge sharing across academia, industry, and other stakeholders, enabling coordinated efforts to address shared water challenges

Open Innovation in Science website

Open sharing

All funded Bridge4Water projects are obliged to share their results and data across openly and to the network as quickly as possible. They can do this through Bridge4Water’s website, through relevant databases, and through open publishing in preprint archives and journals - all in accordance with the practices described in the project agreement and in the grant notification for each subproject.

What is a precompetitive project?

The open projects funded under Bridge4Water must be of a precompetitive nature and have broad value creation for more than just the project participants. The results originating from the projects shall similarly be useable by others. Broadly speaking, precompetitive projects are characterized by and focus on:

Challenges and problems that are relevant for groups of companies or the entire industry, for example by tackling market barriers, foundational gaps in knowledge, or developing common tools and methods.
Creating open results and data that provide a generic knowledge foundation, which allows companies and others to use these for the later creation of new products and services through downstream innovation.
The results of the project can be shared openly with the public without compromising the participating companies’ ability to adapt the open results for specific, commercial, and protectable applications.

Advice for applicants

Ensure that the results of your project will be applicable to the relevant industry broadly and is solving a common challenge for all players in said industry.

Clearly identify in your application the timing of when the industrial partner will make commercial use of the results and ensure that this happens after the Bridge4Water project is finalized.

Revised 15.04.2026

Mine Silje Sanddal Lindemann