Background The implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) and related directives, such as the Floods Directive, is a priority. It is now known that less than 40% of water bodies will meet the ‘Good Ecological Status’ requirements set by the WFD by 2015. New knowledge and expertise is needed to introduce the necessary innovations for meeting these requirements. However, practitioners – such as, basin authorities, municipalities, agricultural or industrial users and technology suppliers – are generally small or medium-sized entities and often lack the knowledge, time or resources to make the necessary investments and technological changes. Furthermore, research outputs designed to enable implementation of the WFD are not always ready-to-use due to patent problems or the lack of a market-oriented approach. The typical length of time needed to complete the development cycle in the water sector is 10-12 years, well beyond the timeframe currently set by the WFD. Objectives The objective of the WaterRtoM project was to reduce the time-lag for transferring excellent research outputs to practitioners in the water sector to 3-5 years. It planned also to investigate the long-term sustainability of the project partnership and its service of facilitating research to market in the water sector. The beneficiary aimed to develop a ‘Research-to-Market Assessment Strategy’ (ReMAS) to measure the ‘distance’ to market of research technologies. This will enable an assessment to be made of the potential benefits of emerging tools or processes and the potential costs and risks which might prevent their uptake. The project also planned to conduct a study of the water sector to assess practitioners’ current knowledge and demand, and to identify a list of promising research projects in the EU. It would then use ReMAS to assess the outputs of between 20 and 30 of the most promising projects. The beneficiary expected to assess 8-12 research outputs as ‘close-to-implementation’. An individualised strategy would be made for each of these, making the business case for implementation. Such a Precursors Marketing Strategy (PMS) would also identify sites and companies to take over the innovation. Results The project met its objectives, pioneering a networking approach and organising a Liaison Committee. The updated version of the ReMAS and the PMS are now available and they allowed the project to reach its quantitative objectives: 235 research projects pre-selected and analysed, exceeding the target number; 85 research outputs selected according to the website, more than the expected 75; 30 Business Cases (BC) treated (despite slight delays); and Reduction of the transfer time between research and market achieved for 13 outputs. One very significant impact of project was the acceleration of the implementation of the water directives to improve the water quality management in Europe. The project helped initiate fresh dialogue between the research and practitioner worlds. The more than 200 research outputs highlighted during the pilot project and listed on databases (such as LIFE, research ministries and, universities) were transferred to stakeholders in ready-to-use format. Such transfer was possible thanks to the methods piloted by the project. The ReMAS and the PMS were designed to create tools that are accessible to both researchers and practitioners. These tools are sustainable in the long term and as such they serve to: Encourage the networking and clustering of researchers, end-users and SMEs; Function on an operational level; Improve the visibility of innovations outside of the scientific community and improve dialogue with the stakeholders; Create expert and user committees.The project also effectively publicised the results, producing more informational material than envisaged: posters, information boards, leaflets and an interactive website. The results were also presented at 18 international events, 17 national events and through 10 e-seminars, which is overall more than targeted. The beneficiaries aim to further expand the use of the WaterRtoM tools by applying for a new Commission funded project that groups together partners in six different European countries (Austria, France, Germany, Spain, The Netherlands and Romania). Further information on the project can be found in the project's layman report and After-LIFE Communication Plan (see "Read more" section).