Following the introduction of Water Week to the international water community at SIWI World Water Week in Stockholm, the next phase will turn the ideas, partnerships and learning gathered through consultation into a practical framework for action.
The UK will provide the first national blueprint for Water Week, creating an opportunity to test how a shared approach to education, storytelling, citizen science, behaviour change and civic participation can help strengthen water stewardship at scale.
Building the UK Blueprint
The Blueprint will bring together activity across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, while allowing each nation and participating community to respond to its own priorities, landscapes and water challenges.
Rather than replacing existing programmes, Water Week will provide a framework through which schools, communities, businesses, water organisations, governments and civil society can connect and amplify what already works, create new opportunities for participation and learn from one another.
The ambition is to move from engagement to measurable impact: inspiring people through stories, building understanding through education and science, creating opportunities to participate and act, and gathering evidence about what works.
The UK Blueprint will test how these elements can work together as a nationally coordinated engagement and impact infrastructure – transforming local participation into national learning and, ultimately, contributing evidence and experience that can be shared internationally.
Learning locally, sharing globally
What is learned through the UK programme is intended to help shape a model that other countries can adapt to their own cultures, education systems, priorities and water challenges.
Water Week is therefore not about exporting a single campaign. The aim is to create a shared framework through which every participating country can develop its own Water Week and its own Water Story, while contributing knowledge, resources, evidence and successful approaches to a growing global learning network.
Help shape what comes next
The next phase of Water Week will depend on collaboration.
We are inviting organisations and individuals across water, education, science, engineering, government, business, civil society, research, media and the creative industries to help develop the UK Blueprint – whether through expertise, educational resources, research, storytelling, networks, practical activities or opportunities for children, young people and communities to participate.
By working together, we can test what works, learn from experience and build a model capable of creating lasting value for water, people and nature.
