Centre of Research for Water Systems

Water is essential for human life and nature and plays a critical role in most natural processes. Water is of huge global importance and is central to all the key current environmental issues: climate change, biodiversity, natural hazards, pollution, ecosystem services, and desertification. As the populations of municipal areas continue to grow, maintaining sustained access to sufficient amounts of clean potable water progressively becomes more important. Through environmental and water resource engineering, researchers must involve in constantly advancing the development of systems that deliver clean water effectively and reliably.
The main objective of the proposed action is to establish a new centre for research and education in the field of Water Systems, building on a partnership between internationally-leading counterparts at EU level and the Technical University Gheorghe Asachi from Iasi (TUIASI). The city of Iasi in the North-East of Romania is a strong research and higher education hotspot. TUIASI intends to develop a centre for research and education in the field of Water Systems and will need the strong support of internationally-leading counterparts in Austria and Germany. The Centre will enhance networking activities and strengthen the research collaboration between research institutions in Romania (TUIASI) and Austria (University for Bodenkultur Wien) with the support of knowledge transfer organisations from Germany (Steinbeis Europa Zentrum). The specific objectives of Centre of Research for Water Systems include:
· Enhancing the scientific and technological capacity of TUIASI and the project partners in the research areas of Water Systems;
· Raising the scientific profile of Romanian researchers in the research areas of Water Systems;
· Boosting productive communication with the public and the policymakers in Romania, to advocate the importance of Water Systems research.
To achieve the objectives the partners will develop comprehensive measures and activities, which include:
- Knowledge exchange and mutually beneficial collaborative research, building on a two-way exchange partnership to create opportunities for interdisciplinary research, as well as other measures for enhancing professional skills of the TUIASI research staff.
- Increasing visibility of Romanian Danube Basin research results and of TUIASI excellence team on the EU map necessary for (a) involvement and successful competition of Romanian Danube Basin engineers in international project calls, (b) dissimilation of new ideas and approaches developed in Romanian laboratories, and (c) increased attractiveness of both Water Systems Engineering and the TUIASI for young talented students and researchers.
- Improving TUIASI international projects participation and the possibilities for TUIASI international funding and its innovation capacity.
- Communication to increase public and private support for Water Systems engineering and for TUIASI.
The breadth and depth of research into water systems will be unique within Eastern Europe leading to the creation of a body of key specialist areas of integrated water research and infrastructure management in water management. Additional research will focus on the area of waste as a resource (evaluation and recycling of waste and residual material flows, waste management, waste forensics), waste logistics and the development and monitoring of disposal infrastructures systems, which have minimal need intervention.