The Research, Development, and Innovation department at Hydro Concepts (U) Ltd is charged with undertaking high quality, applied research aimed at WaSH product innovation and development, knowledge creation and dissemination. We pride ourselves in finding novel solutions through research, innovation, and technology. Given a rapidly changing world, we cannot attempt to still try solving new water problems with old solutions, thus necessitating the need to change our way of thinking about water and water management. This is what merits the need for constant research to broaden knowledge of water resources management, and adequately prepare technically grounded professionals with the right water engineering skills to work in a constantly changing sector.
Innovation is the soul of our company’s progress, and as an innovative high-end technology firm, we maintain a fully-fledged research and innovation team, composed of intelligentsia who research and trial a broad range of new products and services to ably respond well to changing customer requirements and market dynamics. Our R&D team members exhibit high enthusiasm, energy, vibrancy, and professionalism, and work tirelessly to develop innovative new solutions and products for our industry. We devote a significant budget of our revenues towards research, innovation, and product development efforts.Â
As a forward-looking company, we develop comprehensive solutions that tackle both today’s and tomorrow’s industry challenges. Through applied research, case studies, and pilot programs, we research various advanced water engineering and environmental technologies. Once these innovative solutions prove successful at the trial phase, we scale them up, enabling us to stay ahead of the innovation curve. We leverage on our deep market sector knowledge, unrivalled technical expertise, and in-depth research to deliver innovative WaSH solutions to some of the industry toughest challenges using a compendium of new frontier technologies and approaches. We aim to address some of the critical knowledge gaps by raising the visibility of underexplored WaSH aspects and fostering discussion and collaboration between activism, research, policy and practice. We also seek to impact policy through the knowledge production process and through our evidence-based policy relevant research undertakings, thus informing the implementation of innovative concepts for water resources sustainability.
Our keen interest is to address unique and emerging sector topics such as groundwater monitoring, water supply system efficiency and sustainability, virtual water trading, water safety planning, fossil groundwater, sanitation value chains, water security planning, digital water, water diplomacy, water governance, transboundary water management, etc.
Our research programs are executed in collaboration with national and international think tank bodies, research partners, centres of excellence, universities, and research institutes.
We undertake the following trainings, capacity building programs, and consultancies under our R&D section.
WASH ToT training (capacity building workshops) and technical backstopping programs.
Public health engineering, hygiene, and sanitation trainings.
Development and compilation of WaSH related O&M manuals.
Technical evaluations and audits of WaSH programs.
Baseline evaluations, midterm reviews, and endline evaluations for water, sanitation, and environmental projects.
WaSH product innovation and development.
Project proposal development for water, sanitation, and environmental programs.
Rapporteur services for production of conference and workshop technical reports for proceedings from WaSH sector related symposia.
Consultancy for development of WaSH advocacy strategies, WaSH policy analysis, etc.
As a centre of excellence in WaSH related research, our action-oriented research has seen the company spearhead the promotion of various appropriate and innovative products. We are constantly innovating high-quality products for Clients. Through our research, we engineer resilient solutions for the successful exploration, development, management, and long-term protection of strategic water resources. Our R&D team makes the most forward-thinking and context-specific water and sanitation solutions on the market. Outcomes of our research findings are presented at high level national and global level taskforces, policy forums, and WaSH symposia. These platforms enable us to interact with academic experts, imminent scientists, think tanks, research institutes, policy makers, technology firms, utilities, regulators, engineering firms, technology giants, investors, and WaSH practitioners from other water agencies, enabling us to transform our knowledge and research findings into solutions that can be applied and solve real water problems, for sustainable adoption of advanced water supply engineering and management technologies.
For consultancies and project evaluations, our eagle-eyed research experts offer in-depth analysis, informed opinions, and deliver stimulating and insightful write-ups. We also produce research-based knowledge and publications that are relevant to, and have a significant impact on the WaSH sector policy and practice, which we make open source to the public, taking them through our projects, innovative products, and services, and new research findings with a strong focus on their practical use and applicability within water resources management.
We understand the needs of our valued Clients and continuously upgrade ourselves to meet these requirements. Our R&D department plays a major role in this, through undertaking rigorous, intellectually ambitious, and technically sound research that is relevant to the most pressing questions and compelling opportunities in water resources engineering, hence creating a lasting impact on the WaSH discourse. Our team continues to test and experiment new ideas, and to demonstrate what works on the basis of scientific evaluation approaches, hence scale the most effective solutions, services, and technologies. It is this unwavering commitment to research that has transformed Hydro Concepts (U) Ltd into a birthplace of masterstroke innovations, pioneering path breaking work in a number of game changing innovations and supporting the scaling of evidence informed solutions. This has been made possible by the fact that we bring together some of Uganda’s foremost water engineers and seasoned versatile writers, whose intellectual rigour has enabled our firm to be at the cusp of releasing ground-breaking innovations over the years. Our R&D team comprises high achieving award winning luminaries, consummate, and seasoned research experts who have written and published widely with reputable national and international scientific journals, research institutes, and think-tank bodies. Our high-quality outputs encompass different forms of technical reports, policy briefs, advocacy strategies, strategic plans, peer reviewed papers, thought pieces, working papers, background papers, fact finding reports, white papers, abstracts, and research papers.
Statement of Independence
Hydro Concepts (U) Ltd strives to meet the highest standards of integrity and quality in its research and analyses and in the evidence-based recommendations offered by its researchers and experts.
Hydro Concepts (U) Ltd strives to meet the highest standards of integrity and quality in its research and analyses and in the evidence-based recommendations offered by its researchers and experts.
We believe that operating consistent with the values of independence, rigour, and transparency is essential to maintaining those standards. As a research and evaluation Consultant, we do not take positions on issues, other than making objective analysis of projects entrusted to us.
We share evidence-based views and recommendations as obtained from our evaluation, data collection, and analysis, and we do follow the evidence wherever it may lead. Our research experts express professional opinions truthfully and only when founded on adequate knowledge and honest conviction, and as such the expert opinions and judicious recommendations offered are based on factual evidence from high quality information gathered.
It is instructive to note that funders do not determine our research findings or the insights and recommendations of our experts. Our scholars and experts only make objective analysis of projects entrusted to us, and it is on this account that our Clients continue to value us as an independent, trustworthy advisor.
