Ce contenu est disponible uniquement en anglais

The NEX-LABS project was presented at the workshop entitled "Strengthening EU-Africa cooperation in water Research, Development and Innovation: opportunities and challenges" organized by the Water Joint Program Initiative within the Cairo Water Week.

The event took place on the 26th of October and was the occasion to present the opportunities to boost innovation in the Mediterranean, offered by NEX-LABS, and its contribution to the alignment of Research and Development and Innovation programs between Africa and Europe.

The aim of this Water Joint Program Initiative (JPI) workshop was to explore opportunities for collaboration between Europe and Africa in water Research, Development and Innovation. Participants mainly targeted development banks, research funding agencies, international organizations dealing with water management and capacity development as well as research operators. 

Results from this workshop will support the Water JPI in the development of its international cooperation strategy.

In particular, NEX-LABS presentation focused on opportunities and grants offered by the project to support innovation in the Mediterranean, that will be launched in the upcoming months:

• NEXUS testing vouchers: to cover services designed to test and validate new prototypes, products, services, materials, pilots or methods that address the Water, Energy and Food NEXUS challenges. 
• NEXUS innovation vouchers: to grant access to external expertise addressing studies of technological surveillance and information on state of the art/studies of technological and industrial viability developments of processes, products and/or services or support IPR registration of new business models linked to NEXUS
• NEXUS incubation vouchers: to grant incubator working and community space for new promising businesses addressing NEXUS challenges in the Mediterranean region
• Acceleration grants: For selected innovation prize applicants, to support attendance to different events organized by the project or other existing funding bodies and organizations where to present the business idea to large live audiences and allow building communities around them. 
• NEXUS innovation prize: To select the 10 best business ideas to be submitted by the NEXUS stakeholders' ecosystem (SMEs/individual researchers/entrepreneurs) from the target countries. 
• NEXUS Research 2 Business 2 Research (R2B2R) missions: People-to-people approach through mobility scheme vouchers to visit/meet different clusters in Mediterranean Partner Countries dealing with NEXUS. 

About the Water Joint Program Initiative (JPI)

Launched in 2010, the Joint Programming Initiative Water challenges for a changing world, the Water JPI, tackles the ambitious challenge of achieving sustainable water systems for a sustainable economy in Europe and abroad.

The JPI “Water challenges for a changing world” deals with research in the field of water and hydrological sciences. The availability of water in sufficient quantities and adequate quality is indeed a public issue of high priority and addresses a pan-European and global environmental challenge.

On the 17th January 2017, the Water JPI launched the Coordination and Support Action IC4WATER dedicated to the development of international cooperation in the Water area. Read more about the project here

About the Cairo Water Week

The Cairo Water Week 2021 will take place until 28th October, find detailed information and program on the event website