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The Water RDI Roadmap Annual Report 2016 / 2017 highlights some of the challenges and opportunities emerging in the process of implementing the Water RDI Roadmap . For the full report contact Shanna Nienaber ( manager of the Water RDI Roadmap Implementation Unit ): shannan @ wrc . org . za .
Roadmap overview and macro vision
The Water RDI Roadmap is a collaborative plan that coordinates a range of stakeholders engaged in waterrelated innovation activities as well as the funders of these activities . This is with a view to preparing South Africa for future water-related challenges and opportunities by ensuring that we are equipped with the knowledge to make sound decisions , the skills and capabilities to deploy solutions , and the technology and know-how to insert new solutions into the water sector . The investment aspiration underpinning the plan over a 10-year period is R8.4-billion , which necessitates the careful targeting and synergising of existing investments in water RDI space . This will demand a range of public and private sector partners to collaborate to address the remaining investment gaps as there is currently only between R300 000-million and R400 000-million a year spend on Water RDI .
Roadmap implementation support function
The PMU provides overall support to the roadmap in terms of coordination , monitoring , and evaluation . The PMU fulfils the following six core functions :
• Signalling Water RDI investment priorities
• Manging roadmap co-investment , where needed
• Profiling exciting Water RDI roadmap aligned activities
• Monitoring and evaluating the Water RDI Ecosystem
• Scoping new opportunities
• Supporting , coordinating and managing partnerships
WADER is one of the instruments of the Roadmap and focuses on the demonstration of promising technologies emerging from the innovation pipeline in the water sector . WADER is also housed at the WRC ( http :// wader . org . za ).
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WRC
In addition to WADER and the PMU , a range of existing organisations and their implementation mechanisms support the different aspects of the roadmap implementation process , for example , the WRC , the National Research Foundation ( NRF ), the Technology Innovation Agency ( TIA ), municipalities and utilities , and so on .
Roadmap governance
The PMU and WADER are supported by three governance structures providing differing levels of strategic support .
Diagram summarising the governance arrangements of the Water RDI Roadmap and their intersection with other sector role players .
Progress towards implementing the Pillars of the RDI Roadmap
In year 1 of implementation the PMU focused on unpacking the contribution of the WRC ( as the major funder of water research in South Africa ) to the Water RDI Roadmap . In future years , the contribution of other sector role players will be added .
The first pillar of the Roadmap is research [ Fig 1 ]. The Water RDI Roadmap aims to address gaps in research and build on areas of high potential and opportunity
The second pillar of the Water RDI Roadmap is human capacity development . The core capacity development focus of the Roadmap is on postgraduate skills ( honours , Masters , PhDs ). In 2016 / 17 the WRC supported approximately 495 postgraduate students through its projects . Of these 495 students total , 93 % were engaged in work aligned to the Water RDI Roadmap clusters .
The third pillar of the Water RDI Roadmap is deployment of innovations . This pillar focuses on two broad aspects . First , the actual process of taking the solutions that emerge from research and developing them into technologies ,
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The Water RDI Roadmap has three pillars : research , human capacity development , and deployment of innovation . |
products , and tools that are ready for use by end users . This typically involves a range of piloting , demonstrating , intellectual property , partnership , and other pre-commercialisation activities . Second , there is a focus on understanding how processes of knowledge dissemination , brokering , and uptake best operate in different water sector contexts . The WADER programme is the main active initiative driving the innovation aspects of the roadmap at this point .
WADER
As an innovation intermediary , WADER ’ s mission is to facilitate cluster-aligned , demand-driven , collaborative technology demonstrators from the public and private sectors to accelerate technologies through the innovation value chain . Notably , WADER is not mandated to take a product or technology to the market , but rather to create an enabling environment for acceleration of technologies into the market through partnerships .
The role of WADER is thus as a technical broker in the sector and to provide platform opportunities for innovators to display their technologies . It does not play a direct role around how an SMME interacts with other partners and investors to full commercialisation of its technology .
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