Utilities Digital Solutions Europe

Video: Professor Anita Hardon on people power

Wednesday, 5 October 2022

Professor Anita Hardon believes that we should people beyond the role of “data collectors” and instead co-create future water systems together.

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Citizen science movements are helping to fill data gaps on water quality, yet we should see people not just as data collectors, but as active participants in water innovation.

That’s according to Anita Hardon, professor and chair of the Knowledge, Technology and Innovation Group at Wageningen University & Research (WUR).

Delivering the keynote address at the recent European Water Technology Week (EWTW) in Leeuwarden, The Netherlands, she stressed the importance of people in water decisions, even when we think it’s “just a technical system”.

Speaking to Aquatech Online at the event, the professor said: “We need to engage people as participants in all the systems transitions that are needed to ensure that we keep on having fresh water in the future.”

Highlights from the video interview can be seen below:

Professor Hardon added: “I think we should start from people's concerns about water and also their concerns about polluted water, maybe their reflection on their role including water.

“We can engage them in co-creating better water and testing the results of interventions, co-creating those studies together. In that way, we can deal also with their concerns from the start.”

During the week, Dutch company Ferr-Tech won the Water Alliance Innovation Stimulation Award (WIS) for its ferrate (VI)-based water treatment innovation.