SANITAS will create the next generation of integrated Urban Water System (UWS) management professionals by providing a unique Europe–wide training platform in the technical and complementary skills they will require. This is needed since in the near future climate change will bring dramatic regional variations in excessive surplus and deficiency in water supply and unpredictable variations in water quality placing unprecedented demands on European UWS’s. SANITAS is acutely aware of many unmet needs regarding deficiencies in manpower and application of innovation to the field. The partners have realized the need to draw on their Complementary skills, to innovate at all levels and create a critical mass of excellence that will drive the innovation required to comprehensively address the fundamental rethinking of water use management that climate change demands. They have also realized that the scale of the problems to be faced in future will require new approaches to cooperation between academia, industry and policy makers that transcend traditional barriers to the creation and uptake of innovation and enabling technologies. By drawing on expert participation from academia, industry, water authorities and policy specialists, SANITAS will critically examine and develop the cutting edge skills required to meet the future UWS management challenges that Europe faces. SANITAS introduces novel methodologies that will provide direct training to researchers in Intellectual Asset Management, patent application filing and how to write successful reports for policy makers. Over and above regional impact, SANITAS will serve as a source for regional UWS infrastructure integration and policy formulation worldwide. By doing so, SANITAS will support the responsibility and opportunity Europe has to take the lead in technical innovation and policy formulation that the world needs in facing critical challenges of water quality and supply and energy requirements of wastewater management.