Collaborating across borders
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Through strong partnerships, we work towards to collaborate across borders.
We bring together international expertise and foster the exchange of knowledge and skills to develop shared responses to water-related challenges.
The major challenges of our time cannot be addressed within national borders alone. Global megatrends such as the energy transition, urbanization, and also Globalization 2.0 affect regions all over the world, each with different starting conditions.
Wilo therefore connects people, knowledge, and competencies across national and sectoral borders. International collaboration is an essential part of our self-understanding: we bring together technological expertise and local experience, promote exchange with academia, politics, business, and society, and work jointly on solutions for future water infrastructures.
Partnerships for projects relating to water infrastructure and capacity building
Forward-looking development emerges where different competencies come together. For this reason, the Wilo Group works worldwide with companies, research institutions, public institutions, and other partners.
In doing so, Wilo combines its expertise in water technology, digitalization, and AI with local knowledge and requirements. This exchange creates added value, especially in complex infrastructure issues: technological possibilities meet regional framework conditions, practical experience, and different perspectives.
Practical example: Smart Urban Areas in Vietnam
The Smart Urban Areas project in Vietnam is one example of this approach. Together with TU Dortmund University, Wilo organized a kick-off conference in Vietnam for the research project. The focus is on how urban spaces can be developed in a future-ready way in the context of urbanization, digitalization, and climate change.
The example illustrates how international collaboration brings together knowledge from research and practice while also taking local perspectives into account. Especially in the development of intelligent urban and water infrastructures, this exchange is important: solutions need to be technologically capable while also fitting the respective regional conditions.
Global WATER AI Academy connects international stakeholders
A new dimension of international collaboration is emerging at the intersection of water and artificial intelligence. With the Global WATER AI Academy, Wilo has created an international hub for innovation, education, and cooperation.
The Academy combines industrial practice with academic expertise and brings together partners from academia, industry, technology, and infrastructure. Its focus includes joint research, knowledge and technology transfer, practical use cases, and the development of digital and AI-based solutions for the water sector.
This network continues to grow. Partners include Heriot-Watt University, TU Dortmund University, the EUREF Talent Campus, Emschergenossenschaft and Lippeverband, Mitsubishi Electric Europe, and InstaDeep. In this way, an international network is taking shape that connects different competencies and perspectives.
Scaling innovation together
Many challenges can only be addressed when successful approaches are transferred across regions and countries. Wilo therefore supports the international transfer of knowledge between markets, projects, and partners. Experience from one region can thus be used and further developed in other parts of the world.
Technologies and data-based platforms facilitate the international exchange of knowledge and experience and can help share new approaches more quickly between markets, projects, and partners. Especially in the fields of digitalization and artificial intelligence, this is creating new forms of international collaboration that increasingly transcend geographical borders.
Practical example: developPPP
One example is participation in developPPP projects of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. Here, the Wilo Group works together with public institutions, local partners, and international organizations on infrastructure projects in developing and emerging countries.
By connecting technical know-how, local experience, and long-term capacity building, approaches can emerge that extend beyond individual projects and support long-term development.
Collaboration as a basis for global impact
International cooperation creates more than economic success. It connects people and institutions across borders. By building global networks and bringing together different perspectives, Wilo contributes to approaches that can be effective locally and scalable internationally. In this way, cross-border collaboration can help share knowledge, advance innovation, and support the long-term resilience of structures.
