Water BOOST Enabling Innovation for Future Ready Cities 2025

Conclusion: Aligning systems to accelerate innovation Water-BOOST is more than a toolkit, it is a call to action. As global water challenges intensify, cities must move beyond isolated pilots and embrace systems-wide strategies that connect stakeholders, align incentives and enable innovation to scale. By analysing six diverse cities, Water-BOOST shows that enabling environments for water innovation depend not only on the presence of key actors but on the quality of their relationships and the mechanisms that connect them. The findings highlight the role of enablers – policies, platforms and financing models – in fostering collaboration and scaling solutions, while also demonstrating that cities need not work in isolation; strategic comparison and adaptation can unlock insights that accelerate progress across contexts. The findings presented in this report highlight the importance of connecting enablers: the policies, platforms and financing models that allow institutions to collaborate, test and adopt new solutions. They also show that cities do not need to work in isolation; strategic comparison and adaptation can unlock insights that accelerate progress across contexts. Water-BOOST provides a practical framework to map these dynamics, identify gaps and strengthen innovation ecosystems. Its systems-based design supports application across local, regional and national levels, offering value to city leaders, funders, utilities and policy-makers alike. The opportunity now is to embed this thinking in practice: using the framework to guide planning, inform investment and enable more coherent innovation pathways. With continued piloting, iteration and institutional support, Water- BOOST can help translate scattered ambition into coordinated action. Equally, by positioning structured cross-city learning within global platforms such as UN Water or C40,46 the framework can influence policy dialogues and create new loops between local practice and international ambition. The message is clear: cities must design not only for water innovation but also for the systems that enable it to succeed. Water-BOOST helps make this possible, turning institutional complexity into strategic clarity, and transforming fragmented enabling environments into connected platforms for long-term impact. Already informing global platforms such as Water Futures and the UpLink Aquapreneur Innovation Initiative, it highlights a simple truth: collective action is essential, but acceleration is now urgent – and tools like Water-BOOST can help make it happen.Water-BOOST turns institutional complexity into strategy, helping cities build innovation-ready systems. Water-BOOST: Enabling Innovation for Future-Ready Cities 41