Water resilience has already been approached by MedRESOURCE from two complementary perspectives. In the article “MedRESOURCE explores European updates of water protection rules for environmental safety”, the project looked at recent developments in European water policy and placed them within the broader framework of the European Water Resilience Strategy, adopted in June 2025. In order to establish an integrated pathway towards water resilience by 2050. But defining a strategy is only one part of the challenge.
A second MedRESOURCE article, “Water management: MedRESOURCE moving toward a bottom-up approach through the implementation of the Living Lab”, shifted the perspective from the European policy framework to the territories where solutions are actually tested. The article highlighted an important point: evidence generated through the Living Labs can contribute not only to technical experimentation but also to governance, regulatory dialogue, capacity building and the transfer of solutions across different Mediterranean contexts. It also stressed the connection between the results produced through experimentation and the skills required to assess, adopt and transfer innovative solutions. These two perspectives — European strategy and local experimentation — raise a third question. How can knowledge move effectively between them? And, more specifically, which skills and capacities are needed to transform research and innovation into solutions that institutions, professionals and communities can understand, assess and use? This question is particularly timely.
On 21 September 2026, the European Commission formally launch the Water Resilience Stakeholder Platform in Brussels. On the same day, directly after the Platform meeting, the launch event of the European Water Academy (EUWA) will take place. The Academy was announced by the European Commission in June 2025 as one of the flagship actions of the European Water Resilience Strategy. Led by the Joint Research Centre, it was specifically conceived to address capacity needs in Europe’s water sector and to help bridge the gap between research and the real-world application of technologies. This is what makes the initiative particularly interesting from the perspective of the MedRESOURCE project. The Academy will combine advanced and entrepreneurial training, capacity building and knowledge transfer, while supporting innovation and collaboration between public and private actors. Its scope includes areas closely related to contemporary water-management challenges, such as water reuse, wastewater surveillance and treatment, precision irrigation, desalination and the protection of critical infrastructure. The underlying principle is simple but important: technological innovation does not automatically lead to implementation. New solutions require people and organisations capable of understanding them, assessing their suitability, managing their risks and adapting them to specific technical, regulatory and territorial contexts. In other words, innovation requires capacity.
Particularly relevant to MedRESOURCE is the Academy’s explicit reference to a Living Lab approach, using real-world environments to test innovative technologies and bring together research, public institutions and economic actors. This approach is closely aligned with MedRESOURCE, where the Living Labs connect technical experimentation with the territorial, institutional and operational conditions that influence the adoption of new solutions. Their role is therefore not limited to testing technologies: they also help identify the knowledge, skills and capacities required to understand, assess and potentially transfer them. At the same time, MedRESOURCE’s transnational structure gives the project a broader role. It can act as a bridge between knowledge developed at European level and the realities of Mediterranean partner countries. European policies, research results, technological solutions and training resources can be interpreted and adapted to different regulatory, environmental and institutional contexts through the project’s Living Labs and capacity-building activities.
This exchange, however, is not one-way. Evidence and experience generated in Palestine, Jordan, Tunisia and Italy — including the constraints encountered, the adaptations required and the responses of local stakeholders — can circulate across the partnership and contribute to mutual learning.
MedRESOURCE initiative can therefore support a two-way flow of knowledge: bringing European research, policy and capacity-building resources closer to Mediterranean territories, while feeding the lessons generated in those territories back into a wider process of cooperation and learning.
Anna Pireddu is Communication and Capacity Building manager of CRENoS and Mohammad Taweel is Project Coordinator of the Palestinian Wastewater Engineers Group.
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