In research & development, our services range from the innovation of new ideas, grounding in reality, submission of proposals to acquisition of public funding. As coordinators, we often take the lead in large collaborative projects with partners from businesses, politics, science, and society. Together with companies, we develop commercial products from the initial idea until they are ready for the market - we are the partner for preliminary laboratory tests, semi-technical piloting, and scientific advise for large-scale implementation. We place great emphasis on practical application and exploitation of project results.
Our success stories include project families such as the production of hydrogen in wastewater treatment plants, climate adaptation in municipalities, digitalization in water monitoring, concepts for water reuse, and water resource management in Asia and Africa.
FiW has the best conditions for research & development - with highly qualified scientific staff: as a non-profit association supported by members of the water sector, as an affiliated institute of RWTH Aachen University, and supported by a research advisory board in which representatives from companies, engineering firms, ministries, authorities, and development cooperation actively engage in transfer of research.
OUR PRODUCT PORTFOLIO
In cooperation with manufacturers and plant operators, we work on the development of new products and optimisation of environmental technology. We develop products and test plants at various Technology Readiness Levels (TRL). As an application-oriented transfer institute, we are not active in fundamental research, but develop, plan, and operate semi-technical pilot plants and demonstrators (TRL 5 to TRL 7) as well as support companies in the scale-up of customised solutions and their optimisation in operation (TRL 8 and 9). We operate our pilot plants together with partners on-site. This applies both to plants in Germany and robust mobile container solutions in international cooperation worldwide.
We prepare individual studies and expert opinions on a wide range of issues. With the expertise of our interdisciplinary team, we analyse both technical mechanisms as well as economic and social framework conditions. We carry out system analyses and use forecasting models and scenario analyses to develop forward-looking concepts for action. To ensure that they achieve their aims we prepare practical guidelines and monitoring concepts.
Water management is often facing conflicting usages. FiW has many years of experience with dialogue-oriented approaches in which the focus is on finding consensus between different groups of actors. Through knowledge-based moderation, viable solutions are developed, e.g. for competing water uses in the advancing climate change, for urban planning in water-sensitive urban development, for land use competitions in flood protection, and for minimising contaminant emissions in river protection.
Together with research and development partners from the global South, we work on solutions to tackle climate change. The supply of water and sanitation, sustainable water management, water reuse, and scoping with heavy rainfall and drought are key areas of our work, along with food and energy security. We develop new solutions in research projects, advise municipalities, companies, development banks and development organisations, and train personnel in capacity development. Co-design is one of our trademarks: all projects are developed and implemented closely together with local partners.