Innovation Deals for Circular Economy is an initiative by the European Commission, which intends to approach the obstacles the European regulation constitutes for innovation in a specific area. It is based in a voluntary cooperation between different stakeholders (public authorities at the European national, regional and local level; innovators; researchers, end users...) and its aim is to know the barriers and bottlenecks that are present in the regulation and study solutions that allow overcoming them.

The Innovation Deal called “SUSTAINABLE WASTEWATER TREATMENT COMBINING ANAEROBIC MEMBRANE TECHNOLOGY AND WATER REUSE” (link: https://ec.europa.eu/research/innovation-deals/index.cfm?pg=home), coordinated by Aurora Seco, full professor of the Department of Chemical Engineering of the Universitat de València, has been one of the two selected among the 36 presented proposals. As its name indicates, its scope of action will be focused in the regulation related to the water treatment through anaerobic membrane technology and wastewater agricultural reuse.

The stakeholders of this initiative are:

• Confederación Hidrográfica del Júcar (Spain)
• Águas de Portugal (Portugal)
• The Water and Energy Agency (Malta)
• Water Services Corporation (Malta)
• Conselleria de Agricultura, Medio Ambiente, Cambio Climático y Desarrollo Rural de la Generalitat Valenciana (Spain)
• Entidad Pública de Saneamiento de Aguas Residuales de la Comunidad Valenciana (Spain)
• Universitat de València (Spain)
• Universitat Politècnica de València (Spain)
• Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Portugal)
• Institut Européen des Membranes (France)
• Laboratoire de Biotechnologie de l´Environnement of INRA (France)
• H2020 SMART Plant project consortium
• ECOFILAE (France)
• Canal de Riego del Río Turia (Spain)

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