6 November 2023, Petten, Netherlands - On 27-29 September 2023 UNITAR Division for Prosperity, in collaboration with UNEP and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), as member entities of the World Water Quality Alliance, co-organized the Innovation Workshop in Water Quality Monitoring and Assessment, in which 65 participants from all around the world attended. 

The Innovation Workshop took place in Petten, Netherlands, at the EU Science Hub for policy support and technology innovation of the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission. 

The 3-days workshop was designed in a hackathon-style format, and aimed to pull collective intelligence to innovate on water quality monitoring and assessment challenges and to build momentum to support the ideas and projects generated out of the workshop. Four innovation challenges, brought by global entities, were selected to be addressed in the Workshop.

• Data to Action: Transforming data into actionable insights for water stewardship
• Empowering citizen scientists to improve water quality, from monitoring to action
• Melding AquaWatch & Global Indigenous Knowledge 
• Routine Monitoring of Antimicrobial Resistance in Water

On the first day of the SDG Innovation Bootcamp, the participants dived into the different challenges and were trained on innovation methodologies, such as shaping their challenge, building the solution approach to their challenge, and learning how to pitch. During Day 2, the participants split into groups and worked on building solution approaches to their defined challenge. A final pitch took place where all groups presented their final outcomes. The last day was dedicated to landing participants' learnings and engaging in fruitful discussions about the needs and resources to advance the solution approaches. 

The workshop ended with a visit to the JRC Petten site.