Impact Alliance Live at KWR

The meeting was opened by Stefania Munaretto (KWR) who welcomed participants and asked them to position themselves in the room on a spectrum from “full researcher” to “full professional”. As everyone got up from their seats and walked to the place they felt resonated most with their own role, it became clear that most participants were in the middle of the room. This shows the commitment of this network to bridging the gap between science and practice, and set the tone for the rest of the meeting.

Marielle van der Zouwen (KWR) then took the stage, welcoming the participants as CEO of KWR. She emphasized that KWR’s motto is “Bridging Science to Practice”. Elaborating on the collaborative research programme of the drinking water sector, she stressed the importance of stakeholder perspectives and initiatives such as the Impact Alliance.  

Then, remaining with the topic of research in the water sector, was a panel discussion with three experts: Karin Lekkerkerker-Teunissen, research manager at Dunea (water utility), Rob Ververs, senior policy advisor at Waternet (utility), and Michelle Talsma, programme manager water systems at STOWA (knowledge centre for the water boards), and moderated by Arvid van Dam (KWR). After a brief introduction of their work and the importance of research in this, the experts reflected on their role as knowledge users and commissioners of research projects. They shared good (and bad!) experiences of working with researchers. For example, the experts noted their preference for long-term (as opposed to ad-hoc) collaborations with researchers. The discussion showed the enthusiasm of the experts for science-practice collaborations, and gave a perspective on stakeholder engagement in research that stressed the need for close communication and collaboration. After a round of questions from the audience, the panel discussion was closed with the presentation of the Journey of Progress game in the form of a gift to the panelists.

After a short break, the afternoon continued with two rounds of parallel sessions of workshops and discussions. The individual parallel sessions are summarized in the full conference report, which you can read if you click on the below mentioned button.

All in all, the Impact Alliance meeting at KWR reiterated the crucial insight that interaction is key to successful involvement of stakeholders in research. Researchers, policymakers, strategists, and professionals are eager to get closer together. Yet, they don’t always know how to find each other, are afraid to bother each other, or don’t know how to approach one another. The structures in which they work often don’t help either. Time pressure, work pressure, and other work stimuli can cause us to continue to focus on our own work and stay indoors, despite the desire to interact. And the work of integration experts that is required to enable interaction is often still underrepresented in project budgets. Still, the vibrant discussions at this meeting, and the enthusiasm of stakeholders and researchers alike that constitute the Impact Alliance community, shows that the crucial step in stakeholder engagement (interaction!) can be, and is being made.

If you want to read the full conference report, please see below.