Message from our Executive Director
I am pleased to present the 2020-21 Water Institute Impact Report. Our Impact Report highlights how our growing number of faculty members from 24 different University of Waterloo departments and schools continue to push the boundaries of water science, engineering, governance and economics.
During 2020-21, the COVID-19 pandemic continued to present challenges and, in some cases, opportunities to our researchers and students. The potential impacts of the pandemic and the world’s path towards recovery on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) gained particular attention. In addition, the past year highlighted systemic racism, especially against Black and Indigenous communities in North America.
This report shows the Water Institute’s response: from researchers developing cutting-edge COVID-19 early detection methods in wastewater, a three-day international conference on How to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals in a post-COVID world, to contributing to the 10 Calls to Action for Natural Scientists to enable reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians, and a Water Institute and Students of the Water Institute (SWIGS) Anti-Racism Task Force to address unconscious bias and racism in our institution and operations.
In the coming year, where we hope to further transition to a “new normal”, the Water Institute will stay focused on its core mandate to create value-added by supporting and promoting our members’ unique strengths in interdisciplinary and disciplinary water research, education and innovation. At the same time, we will continue to contribute to the SDGs and help solve water challenges in Canada and elsewhere by further strengthening our collaborations with other University of Waterloo research centres and institutes and leading water organizations around the world.
The COVID-19 pandemic and other societal events have forced us more than before to learn, to adapt, to be creative and resilient. This Impact Report illustrates how the Water Institute is meeting this challenge.
Roy Brouwer
Executive Director The Water Institute University of Waterloo
34th
BEST ACADEMIC INSTITUTION FOR WATER RESOURCES IN THE WORLD
Shanghai Ranking of Global Universities, Water Resources, 2021
“The University of Waterloo is making significant contributions towards achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, including its objective to ensure the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. The Water Institute plays a crucial role in this strategy by providing a dynamic, interdisciplinary platform for researchers and students to collectively make a global impact in addressing water issues of increasing scale and complexity.”
Charmaine Dean
Vice-President, Research and International
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