Evaluation of completed TKI Water Technology projects

What have the TKI Water Technology projects achieved so far? What impression do the participants have about collaboration within these projects? These types of questions form part of the evaluation covering the first few years of TKI Water Technology (2013 – 2016). This study concerns 21 projects that have been completed by KWR during this period and is supplementary to the top-sector-wide, policy-supporting evaluations undertaken by Dialogic (2016, 2017).

Since its launch in 2013 a total of around 150 PPS projects have been started via TKI Water Technology: collaboration projects in which the business community, knowledge organisations and other parties work together on specific research and innovation projects. Guiding themes are Resource Efficiency, Smart Water Systems and Sustainable Cities. By far, the majority of projects run over several years.

Evaluation by participants

When completed, a project is evaluated by the participants on the basis of a dedicated protocol using five criteria: (1) Degree to which the original aims have been achieved, (2) Use amongst end users, (3) Market development by technology suppliers, (4) Knowledge development and dissemination and (5) Collaboration within the consortium. A summary report of the 21 projects completed by 2016 has been produced, the purpose of which is to gain insight into the outcomes compared to the specified criteria and to identify potential improvements where possible.

Conclusions

The project participants are generally positive about the outcomes. More than 60% of the projects achieved their aims, while 33% largely or partly achieving their aims. The likelihood of successful application of the technology is considered to be high, especially in technical terms. The technical and economic opportunities are considered greater for larger projects. Approximately 50% of the projects have specific potential for (prospective) clients. Across the entire board the mutual collaboration is considered to be positive.

Focus areas

The evaluation shows that bridging and/or linking the various worlds of TKI project participants could be improved and of course it remains a challenge to find applications for the research projects that are both technically and economically successful. Finally, a number of improvement points have been reported regarding the configuration of the actual evaluation protocol.