Last week saw the first Better Water 4 All Network+ ECR Conference hosted by the University of Surrey. The event was attended by lots of EBNet members, as the two Networks have many topics in common: EBNet’s emphasis is on biotech and its remit also covers solid waste and contaminated land, while BW4All has a stronger focus on water and covers purely engineering systems and processes as well as biotechnologies.
The Conference began with an exceptional set of keynote presentations, opening with a surgically-precise dissection of some current issues in management of the water industry by Prof Sir John Kay of Oxford Business School. The following speakers – Sarah Gillman of Scottish Water, Brett Sallach of the Environment Agency and Alistair Young of Water Rangers and the River Wey Trust – maintained the astonishing standard while spontaneously riffing off one another on this and related themes.
ECR sessions were grouped under Future-inspired Solutions, Circularity & Resource Recovery, Modelling and Pollutants and covered a scintillating range of topics important to EBNet members, from biological nitrogen removal to membrane bioreactors. Watch out for more news, as we very much hope that most of the presentations will be made available in recorded form.
The Poster sessions were also excellent – our sympathy to the judges who had to select winners from a hugely competitive field.
An EBNet-sponsored prize for a presentation on an environmental biotech challenge went to Aimee Fisher of the University of Surrey for her talk on Clean sink, dirty problem: the challenge of disinfecting hospital sink drains – a fascinating topic for the Water Biofilms WG. Look out for full details of all the prizes on the BW4All website.
EBNet is proud to have been a supporter of BW4All from its first inception: congratulations on this great ECR Event!
Aimee Fisher receives her prize from Prof Russell Davenport of Newcastle University. (Photo courtesy BW4All).
