Aiming to avert a future world water crisis

Issued: Wed, 01 May 2013 15:22:00 BST

A team of biologists, chemists and engineers has been awarded £5m in funding to develop innovative solutions that could help safeguard the global supply and treatment of water.

The UK Minister for Universities & Science, David Willetts, announced the award at the inaugural Global Grand Challenges Summit in London: an international event bringing together leading thinkers and engineers to develop solutions to common issues.

Five Frontier Engineering projects, including the one led from Glasgow, will share £25m from the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council and other partners.

The developed world’s water infrastructure, created with tremendous vision and effort by the engineers of the industrial revolution, is now unsustainable: aged, faulty, costly to run, and expensive to maintain. 

In many countries water demand will exceed supply by an estimated 40% within 25 years. One-third of humanity could lack half the clean water required for life’s basics.

Professor Steve Beaumont, Vice-Principal for Research & Enterprise at the University, explains: ‘The Frontier Engineering award will allow us to investigate a broad spectrum of synthetic biology approaches to address pressing global issues. We’ll engage in new research including cloning genes into existent organisms and even evolving inorganic “life”.’