The water and waste water sector is facing tremendous challenges to assure safe, cost-effective and sustainable water supply and sanitation services. DEMEAU promotes the uptake of knowledge, prototypes and practices from previous EU research enabling the water cycle sector to face emerging pollutants and thus securing water and waste water services and public health. The project exploits four groups of promising technologies from previous EU research: Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR), hybrid ceramic membrane filtration, hybrid advanced oxidation processes, bioassays. Exploitation takes place through action research with universities, research institutions, innovative SME’s, launching water utilities and policy makers.Essential in the DEMEAU approach is the cooperation with water utilities that have committed to act as launching customer for the selected technologies. Existing and improved performance assessment methodologies will be used to benchmark the novel technologies against existing ones. This is to demonstrate the suitability and cost-effectiveness of the demonstrated technologies. Demonstration sites at launching utilities act as transfer points for the technologies and will generate market opportunities for the SME’s involved.To foster a broader impact and market penetration of the technologies, DEMEAU seeks cooperation with relevant policy makers, regulators and standardization bodies on Member State and European level in order to address barriers and promoters for the implementation.A considerable percentage (39%) of the total requested EC contribution is allocated to SME’s.