Welcome to the NRW Forschungskolleg - Future Water

Water is the foundation for all life on earth. Virtually no other resource is used in such a wide variety of ways. People on their own need water for various purposes, such as drinking water, food production, personal hygiene, local recreation, transportation and  for industry and agricultural production purposes. However, there is frequently competition between individual uses.

Developing and ensuring sustainable water management is therefore a central issue of our time. This requires intensive co-operation between science, water management, industry, policy and civil society. Disciplines and science alone cannot be the engines of necessary innovation. Interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity are thus firmly grounded in the FUTURE WATER Research College. In addition to the University of Duisburg-Essen, the Ruhr University Bochum, the Ruhr West University of Applied Sciences, the EBZ Business School and the Institute for Energy and Environmental Technology e.V., many practitioners are involved in FUTURE WATER. 

During the first funding period, from 2014 to 2017, sustainable structures were developed and established within this context with external partners from practice and civil society. The PhD students in the first phase of funding examined the question from an economic, scientific, technical, medical, ecological and sociocultural perspective. 

During the second funding period, from 2017 to 2022, the focus was on "diffuse substance inputs and stormwater management". Implementing effective and efficient measures to reduce diffuse intakes of substances and the introduction and maintenance of integrated rainwater management is an important step towards sustainable water management.