Social Science Insights and Water Sector Pictionary

This year at the IWA World Water Congress in Toronto, KWR brought a wide array of experts. We – Sandra Sikkema, Lisa Andrews and Caro Mooren – are the three social scientists present and here is a summary of what we did:

Sandra presented her research legitimation strategies that can build institutional trust and help shape legal changes for supportive regulatory obligations for water-related reuse practices;
Lisa presented her recently published paper on conceptualising boundary work activities for enabling impact in transdisciplinary water and climate projects; and
Caro presented practical insights on Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystem Nexus governance in the Lielupe and Mesta-Nestos river basins. What are the current challenges and how can we move forward?

In the water sector, we need to look beyond our disciplines and collaborate with others. One way to improve communication across disciplines is to partake in social learning processes – and what better way to do that than at the KWR Booth through the first ever KWR Water Sector Pictionary. It was a blast!

We brought together the contestants from all over the world, including:

Dr. Heather Smith, Senior Lecturer in Water Governance, from Cranfield University 🇬🇧
Gonzalo Meschengieser, CEO de la Cámara Argentina del Agua 🇦🇷,
Hadi Toure Guindo, AFR’EAU Co-Founder and IWA & Grundfos Youth Action for SDG 6 Fellow 🇲🇱,
André van Toly, Research & Strategy, Waterbedrijf Groningen 🇳🇱

Not only did these contestants join us to kick it off, but then we had a huge crowd of people who contributed to the game too, including the winners Julia Baribeau, Oscar Alvarado, Gints Dakša – thanks for your enthusiasm! The prize was a Circular Naif scrub with recycled calcite pallets and without microplastics made possible by Aquaminerals.

We saw people come together, laugh, and get very competitive – which helped build new connections – having fun certainly helps cross boundaries that you wouldn’t expect. And what a better way to kick-off the last day than to hear Juliet Willetts speech, where she perfectly summarized what we promote as social scientists at KWR:

Build relationships and maintain them
Reflect on our values
Be transformative leaders

We need to work together to achieve these goals and we hope that by having fun and presenting our research we brough some of those to life!

Please reach out to us if you want to learn more of what we do at KWR.