Strategische Agenda 2022-2025

Strategic Agenda - Focus on the Future, Fast Forward Now 23 The principal question here is: how can we make our infrastructure more resilient in such a way that it will continue to operate effectively in the decades to come and so that can be adapted quickly in response to climate change or changes in boundary conditions linked to water and the subsurface? This mission area is about the management and maintenance of hydraulic engineering structures such as our flood defences and the use of nature-based solutions. The subsurface and the water system are at the heart of the use of space in delta areas. Deltares uses the systemic approach as an integrated guiding principle for the analysis of issues relating to current and future land use. We look at long-term developments and the implications for the action perspective now. We continuously switch between integrated approaches and local solutions. A unique knowledge domain. We have developed fifteen programmes for this purpose – see our 2021 activity plan – which, taken as a whole, encompass our knowledge base: • Area-based programmes: these programmes are built up around related issues that have specific area characteristics. Examples are seas & coastal systems, river systems, rural areas and dynamic urban areas; • Thematic programmes: water availability, land subsidence, flood risk management, the infrastructure replacement task, natural disasters, ecological sustainability, the energy transition and so on; • Methodological programmes: risk approach, adaptation strategies, operational information and so on. In order to secure and develop the knowledge at Deltares and its partners, we have a range of knowledge facilities at our disposal. The knowledge facilities both facilitate and inspire. We facilitate the needs of the mission areas in terms of the functionality and deployment of knowledge facilities. On the other hand, the facilities provide inspiration by offering new technologies and experimentation opportunities to make an impact in our mission areas. Moonshots as a way of delivering challenges, cohesion and result-driven thinking We will be elaborating our mission-driven approach further for the coming strategy period . We will do this by formulating challenging goals in the formof moonshots for our mission areas and the related programmes. These moonshots will therefore be the building blocks, and the results, of our mission-driven work. They are stories exemplifying dossiers where we wish to lead the way in the years to come, while targeting the impact on society. In that way, we are implementing mission-driven working further in our organisation and introducing even more focus. As well as directing the deployment of our strategic research resources. We also use the moonshots to build strategic alliances with clients, other knowledge institutes and market parties. At the same time, this also involves leading the way and setting the agenda where knowledge about water and the subsurface makes the difference in the major challenges and transitions. So we need to demonstrate thought leadership to address bottlenecks and action perspectives in good time. Deltares cannot do the work on these interrelated mission areas alone. We therefore always work with other knowledge partners, government authorities and market parties in the knowledge and innovation network to address these complex, interrelated tasks. We have a major impact but, until now, our approach to that impact has been primarily narrative and exemplary in nature. We describe many wonderful examples. Although this approach is very illustrative of our work, it is difficult to quantify and monitor the objectives. The evaluation committee referred to above has therefore advised us to monitor our impact more systematically. We are eager to take up that gauntlet and we will be doing so in consultation with, among others, the Ministry of Economic Affairs. The mission areas and the associated moonshots are an excellent way of measuring our impact in a more methodological way. We will also be looking much more closely at the expected effects in the early stages of the development of our research questions. That will involve consultation with our clients and the world in which we operate. By way of illustration, we have elaborated a first moonshot in this Strategic Agenda. It relates to one of the dossiers to which we, as an organisation and as a workforce, feel enormously committed and motivated to make a difference.