All partners, excluding Michigan State University (MSU), are members of the project consortium of Water Magic Project, and also comprise a majority of the core group representing the initiative on water management and treatment in colder climates. MSU complements the group with their specialisation. With the project coordinators being project managers with high success rates in contract research grants, their addition creates a very strong and comprehensive research consortia capable of winning highly competitive research grants. The application initiatives, joint research, and sharing of educational material and guest lecturing – all are mutually beneficial activities. This will create a financing and motivation mechanisms that secures a long term sustainability of the collaborations and further development of the centre

Linkages between higher education and research cooperation and the project

All coordinators and lead researchers of MEMPREX are senior academic staff members with teaching and supervision responsibilities. They are responsible in reviewing and improving of the graduate programs and the impacts from MEMPREX will positively contribute. The strengthened international network among universities will generate enhanced supervision possibilities. The consortia will be very strong and competitive, thus we believe it will be able to attract more research grants for additional research. A concrete possibility is the priority to obtain Valle stipend for graduate students from UW and NMBU to have 9-12 months fellowships. MEMPREX will also result in a number of joint refereed papers published in high-profile journals, and preparation of membrane-focused proposals to the NSF, Horizon 2020 and other funding organizations

Enterprises: added value to the research and educational activities?

The project envisages a close collaboration with a number of industrial actors, as the research innovations anticipated will necessarily require their involvement. One industrial partner (A-Aqua, Norway) is a formal partner of the project while each partner has several industrial partners with a history of collaborations. Some of these are internationally active partners (for example DOW), which will give mutually beneficial opportunities industrial partners to function in new countries through MEMPREX partners. They will also facilitate site visits and assistance the development of learning tools (laboratory tests and videos) relevant to the full-scale implementation of membrane systems. The research placement for grad students will be enhanced.