- 28 Jan 2026
The event was organized by the European Water Accelerator on the 27th and 28th of January in the Roca Gallery in Barcelona, Spain. The audience included a wide variety of water technology stakeholders, including water tech start-ups, engineering and technology providers, investors and funding representatives, public procurement executives and senior managers and other innovation‑ecosystem actors. The focus of this summit was to collectively discuss, among other themes, strategies to scale up technological solutions, overcome deployment challenges and identify funding mechanisms for accelerating the implementation of innovative water technologies.
On the first day of the summit, INCITE, represented by Sara Tejedor Sanz, EU-BRITE, JRC, presented to the audience its role in supporting water start‑ups on accelerating the uptake of their technologies in the context of the Industrial Emissions Directive. The agenda included a panel discussion on 'Innovation Procurement – Unlocking Innovation through Public Procurement' that examined how utilities (e.g., British Water, Canal Isabel II) can shift procurement from cost‑focus to performance, sustainability, and innovation‑driven models, offering start‑ups guidance. In addition, several start-ups (e.g., Claros Technologies, Tectero, Shayp) showcased their innovative technologies designed to enhance water efficiency and emissions reduction and discussed the challenges and opportunities of scaling innovation with key industry leaders (e.g. Hazardous Waste Europe, Texfor, etc) in the panel ‘Driving Industrial Water Innovation: Start-Ups Transforming the Future of Industry’.
The second day of the summit featured two parallel, half‑day workshops that focused on turning water‑technology ideas into market‑ready solutions. INCITE led one of the workshops, moderated by the European Water Tech Accelerator. In this session, Sara Tejedor Sanz from the INCITE team shared with the audience some practical guidelines on the exchange of information with INCITE, and provided examples of already submitted innovative techniques by a couple of water technologies start-ups. This dynamic workshop included the participation of Orianna Bretschger, CEO of Aquacyl, who shared her experience with INCITE on the exchange of information. This workshop was accompanied followed by a lively discussion in which start ups raised questions about how they could actively cooperate with INCITE, and how their technology could eventually be included as a Best Available Technique (BAT) and documented in the BAT reference documents | EU-BRITE.
Overall, the Start‑up & Scale‑up Water Summit provided a valuable platform to showcase INCITE’s mission, to understand current market challenges, and to identify concrete avenues for supporting water‑technology innovators. The full program of the summit is attached below.