Editorial: AQUA Utility Research Battle: bridging utilities and academia

AQUA has made it a key goal to facilitate bridging between Therefore, AQUA will now launch the ‘AQUA Utility utilities and academia and introduces an engaging challenge for utilities and academia. ‘What does his lucid explanation amount to but this, that in theory there is no difference between theory and practice, while in practice there is?’ wrote Benjamin Brewster in the Yale Literary Magazine in 1882. Today the perception that theory does not apply well to real-life operations remains a difficult barrier to overcome between water utilities and water academia. However, especially these days, while we are working on re-creating a sustainable human society, the need for utilities and academia to collaborate is more important than ever. We believe that research has important insights to contribute to utilities and we believe that without research we will not reach the goals of a sustainable world. Utilities are crucial in ensuring water sustainability because this is to a large extent where the practical implementation is done. Utilities have been thrown into frontline sustainability work. Hence, as we strive to build sustainable and regenerative societies it is crucial that utilities and academia move closer to each other. It ought to be so in the field of water that academics spends a significant amount of their time in water utilities and that water utilities would welcome academia to look at their challenges waiting in suspense for research updates. Those who have worked to bridge this gap between theory and practice know the difficulties involved: communication is difficult, the aims of the two groups differ, progress can often be slow with many set-backs due to a multitude of practical issues and the recognition for the work is often modest whether you work on the industrial side with academic questions or on the academic side with industrial questions.


Yale Literary Magazine in 1882.
Today the perception that theory does not apply well to real-life operations remains a difficult barrier to overcome between water utilities and water academia. However, especially these days, while we are working on re-creating a sustainable human society, the need for utilities and academia to collaborate is more important than ever.
We believe that research has important insights to contribute to utilities -and we believe that without research we will not reach the goals of a sustainable world. Utilities are crucial in ensuring water sustainability because this is to a large extent where the practical implementation is done. Utilities have been thrown into frontline sustainability work. Hence, as we strive to build sustainable and regenerative societies it is crucial that utilities and academia move closer to each other.
It ought to be so in the field of water that academics spends a significant amount of their time in water utilities and that water utilities would welcome academia to look at their challenges -waiting in suspense for research updates. Those who have worked to bridge this gap between theory and practice know the difficulties involved: communication is difficult, the aims of the two groups differ, progress can often be slow with many set-backs due to a multitude of practical issues and the recognition for the work is often modest whether you work on the industrial side with academic questions or on the academic side with industrial questions.
Therefore, AQUA will now launch the 'AQUA Utility Research Battle' to provide a space for utilities to challenge academia with intriguing problems and questions. In turn the challenge provides academia a way to get their hands on high-profile, real-life cases. With multiple teams working to solve these challenges, we aim to provide a field for comparison of ideas and approaches.

ABOUT THE AQUA UTILITY RESEARCH BATTLE
We are calling for two new types of papers, 'challenge papers' and 'solution papers'.
Step 1 Firstly, we invite leading utilities to submit 'challenge papers' describing the questions or problems they imagine could benefit from a research perspective. From the submitted 'challenge papers' the three most appealing will be chosen by the Editors in Chief. The three papers will be published in AQUA and as open access papers.
Step 2 The 'challenge papers' act as invitations to academia to compete for the best science-based solution to the utility challenge.
'Solution papers' should present interesting research-based solutions to one of the challenges and will be published to inspire the whole industry. The hope is to inspire both utilities and academia in how research can be applied to real-life problems.
Step 3 One year after publication of the 'challenge papers', the authors of the challenge papers together with Editors in Chief will decide which 'solution papers' presents the most promising science-based idea. The winner will be awarded • relevant data from SCADA systems or similar (these will be made available via the website) • description of the most important parameters, or evaluation criteria, with which you would rate a good solution to the challenge • contact information (email) for follow-up questions Please follow the journal's Instructions for Authors.
How to submit your utility challenge: Use the online submission system to submit your challenge, using the Section/Category 'Utility Research Battle', no later than 20 December 2020.
We encourage direct collaboration between utility and academia and would be happy to see new partnerships as a result of this battle. Hence, it is not considered 'cheating' to co-author papers between utilities and academia. However, we leave the establishment of such collaborations to utilities and researchers.

CRITERIA FOR SELECTION
Criteria for selecting 'challenge papers':