The SPLASH team is made up of many individuals from 16 ministries, funding agencies and national research and technological development authorities based in 11 European countries. The following people are currently acting as Work Package leader, Task leader or key administrative support. More details will be added shortly.
- Anne Blenkinsopp
- Miriam Feilburg
- Julie Fisher
- Peter Furu
- Manfred Kaufmann
- Hans Klinge
- Martine Morton
- Frank Odhiambo
- Manon Rabanit
- Kerstin Schaberreiter
- Kim Chi Tran-Gulbrandsen
Anne Blenkinsopp
SPLASH Project Manager, DFID, London
a-blenkinsopp@dfid.gov.uk
+44 (0)1509 22 2633
Specialist areas of interest
Anne has 18 years of international management experience, developing business, leading teams and managing projects for both the public and private sectors. Before her return to the UK in 2002 Anne spent 6 years based in Brussels, leading and managing the internationally funded projects division of a multi national consulting firm predominantly active in Asia and Central Europe. She is currently studying as an Executive MBA student at the University of Nottingham.
Role within SPLASH
Anne works for the UK Department For International Development (DFID) as the Project Manager for SPLASH. As Work Package one leader, she is responsible for the overall management and coordination of the various activities of the Consortium, including the Technical Committee, the Scientific Advisory Council and the Strategic Management Board.
Miriam Feilburg
Danish Water Forum, Denmark
mfe@dhigroup.com
Specialist areas of interest
Miriam has experience in the following areas:
- The relationship between political governance and civil society, stakeholder involvement and gender issues, including training experience, as well as reporting, monitoring and evaluation and development of indicators for this purpose. Analysis of policies and organizational practises in relation to sustainable development, political structures, organizational and political decision-making processes.
- Project management and planning, network building, conducting international workshops, seminars and conferences as well as information management, communication strategies, reports and presentations.
- Working experiences in developing countries (Africa as well as Caucasus and Central America) and a number of European countries.
Role within SPLASH
Miriam is Task leader of Work Package 1, Task 1.3, responsible for development and implementation of a monitoring and evaluation system for SPLASH. This involves biannual monitoring of the project on activities and their implementation, as well as a general involvement in Work Package 1 activities. She is also project manager for the Danish SPLASH participants. Miriam has also been involved in the development of the Concept Note on Water and Energy and in the inclusion of the private sector in research activities.
Julie Fisher
Research Associate and Conference Manager, WEDC, Loughborough University
j.fisher1@lboro.ac.uk
+44 (0)1509 22 2393
Specialist areas of interest
Julie is a Social and Information Scientist with over 17 years experience in academic research, publication and teaching. For the past nine years, she has played a key role in information management relating to water supply and sanitation at WEDC, concerned with all aspects of communication and dissemination of research in the development sector, and was lead author of the DFID-funded Spreading the Word Further. Her other interests are the historical investigation of water supply and sanitation services, and the issues relating to the evidence of outcomes for women of improved water, sanitation and hygiene. The past two WEDC International Conferences have been managed by Julie.
Role within SPLASH
Julie has been involved in several SPLASH activities. She is a member of the Scientific Advisory Council, with the role of representing the views of those members who are unable to attend meetings. She has contributed to the outputs of the Work Package on Knowledge Transferred into Practice, and leads the Work Package on Dissemination. She is also task leader of "An evaluation of research outcomes in water for development".
Peter Furu
Senior Adviser – Environmental Health and Health Impact Assessment
Head – WHO Collaborating Centre on Health and Environment in Sustainable Development
DBL – Centre for Health Research and Development
Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Copenhagen
pfu@life.ku.dk
+45 3533 1430 (direct)
Specialist areas of interest
Peter Furu is a Senior Adviser currently heading the "WHO Collaborating Centre on Health and Environment in Sustainable Development" at the DBL-Centre for Health Research and Development in Denmark. He has more than 25 years of working experience in international health from his position at DBL, which is based at the Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Copenhagen. The main thematic working areas include environmental health, health impact assessment (HIA), health related aspects of agricultural development and water resources development, health impacts of climate change, integrated control of neglected tropical diseases as well as poverty and environmental health linkages.
Role within SPLASH
Representing the Danish Water Forum, Peter Furu has been engaged in SPLASH since its inception in 2007, primarily as the leader of Work Package 3 (WP3) of the SPLASH programme specifically focussing on best practices in research management. WP3 partners are identifying, learning from and sharing current best practices for research management in the context of programming, project implementation and evaluation. Partners are furthermore involved in needs assessment for capacity building in research management in developing countries through investigating lessons from ongoing EU Member States' programmes. Responding to identified needs, recent WP3 tasks emphasize the development of training material for a research management course, establishing good practices for outcome evaluation of projects as well as engaging the private sector in water research.
Manfred Kaufmann
Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Switzerland
manfred.kaufmann@agrl.ethz.ch
+41 44 632 35 39
Specialist areas of interest
Manfred is an environmental scientist by training and holds a PhD from the ETH Zurich in soil science. He worked for several years as a consultant, mainly in the area of environmental impact assessment. Currently, he works at the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) focussing on the water sector and on food security issues. He also holds a position at the North-South Centre of ETH Zurich where he is concerned with research collaborations with developing countries.
Role within SPLASH
He is representing SDC in the SPLASH Consortium and is leader of Work Package 9 (Joint call on sanitation service chains in urban areas).
Hans Klinge
Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources, BGR, Hannover
hans.klinge@bgr.de
+49 (0)511 643 x2401
Specialist areas of interest
Hans is working at the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) as a senior hydrogeologist at the Sub-Department "Groundwater Resources - Quality and Dynamics". He studied geology with the main focus on groundwater quality and utilisation. Before joining BGR, Hans worked as a consultant in the Middle East and Africa in the field of groundwater exploration and groundwater management. At BGR his working field includes hydrogeological investigations, safety analyses of final repositories in geological formations for radioactive wastes. He has coordinated BGR's hydrogeological investigations and research at the Gorleben salt dome, a candidate for a final repository for radioactive wastes. Since 2003 his main focus has been on planning and coordination of groundwater projects in Africa and the Middle East funded by the German Ministry for Technical Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
Role within SPLASH
During the first phase of SPLASH, Hans was responsible for BGR contributions to the project. This included detailed planning of Task 6.3 and contributions to Work Packages 2 to 5. Subsequently the activities were handed over to Kerstin Schaberreiter. Hans remains involved in Task 8.1 (Support of the African Groundwater Network in capacity development) giving lectures within the context of groundwater courses jointly organized by AGW-Net, CapNet and SPLASH.
Martine Morton
Conference and Project Administrator, WEDC
m.c.morton@lboro.ac.uk
+44 (0)1509 22 2885
Role within SPLASH
Martine is the administrator for the SPLASH EUWI ERA-Net project. Her main responsibilities for the project are financial record keeping, note-taking at the twice-yearly meetings, arranging travel and accommodation for the UK partners and the Scientific Advisory Council, and providing assistance to SPLASH members both before departure and while in country.
Additional roles
Martine is also the WEDC International Conference Administrator and Administrator for Special Projects. WEDC International Conferences are held either in Africa or Asia in partnership with a Local Organising Committee. Martine is responsible for assisting the Conference Manager during pre-conference visits, coordinating enrolment and registration, disseminating information to participants and the WEDC Conference team, marketing, travel and accommodation, and assisting delegates and staff during the conference. Martine is currently studying for a BA (Hons) in Environmental Studies.
Frank Odhiambo
Lecturer
f.o.odhiambo@lboro.ac.uk
+44 (0)1509 22 2396
Specialist areas of interest
Frank's main area of specialism is knowledge management. His interests include the interface between knowledge and evidence, communication for development, knowledge and participatory action, and monitoring and evaluation as evidence building. His current research involves developing knowledge brokerage methods to facilitate the adoption of scientific and technical knowledge on sanitation; developing an internet-based architecture to communicate scientific and practical knowledge; working with civil society to upscale national monitoring; and developing systems to capture project knowledge.
Role within SPLASH
Within SPLASH, Frank is involved with two tasks of WP3 which relates to research management. The focus of Task 3.2 is capacity development for research management. The overarching finding of this work is that research management is a neglected area. Generally speaking, research managers learn their management skills on the job rather than through training. Further, though much good practice on individual aspects of research management is written, it is rarely adopted by research managers in practice. Task 3.3 is about developing a course in research management. The course material will be available free of charge to training institutions. It will be paper-based, modular, and aimed at a distance-learning audience. However, it will be possible to adapt the course to different learning environments, for example, online or face-to-face delivery in a classroom setting.
Manon Rabanit
IRD (Institute of Research for Development), Montpellier, France
rabanit@msem.univ-montp2.fr
+33 (0)4 67 14 9038
Specialist areas of interest
Manon is a geologist, with a Masters degree in geomorphology, sedimentology and tectonics, studying in France and Spain. She has worked for three years in the private sector as a geologist in Brazil and France. Responsibilities have included the implementation of scientific material measurements of energy flux, hydrology and biomass in an experimental basin for the AMMA international research programme in Niger. Manon also has three years experience as project manager of research cooperation with Europe, Africa and Latin America with CIRAD and IRD.
Role within SPLASH
Manon represents the IRD (Institute of Research for Development) in the SPLASH Consortium and assists the French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs (MAEE) in the programme. She is leader of Work Package 6, and is responsible for Task 6.1. Within Work Package 1, Manon is responsible for coordination of the Scientific Advisory Council. She is currently assisting the MAEE in the joint call for sanitation development in Work Package 9. In Work Package 8, Manon takes the lead on the implementation of activities to support African Centres of Excellence in Water. She is also working as a partner in the development of the Research Management Course (Work Package 3).
Kerstin Schaberreiter
Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources, BGR, Hannover
kerstin.schaberreiter@bgr.de
+49 511-643-3302
Specialist areas of interest
Kerstin is currently working at the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) in the Sub-Department "Groundwater Resources – Quality and Dynamics", where she is responsible for coordinating BGR activities within SPLASH. Kerstin studied economic geography with the main focus on business administration, international economic areas and cooperation, environmental sciences and intercultural communication at the University of Munich. She then worked for the Project Management Agency – part of the German Aerospace Center (PT-DLR) – which is a research funding organisation supporting the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) along with other Federal Ministries. There she acquired a broad knowledge in the implementation of programme-related project funding.
Role within SPLASH
As a member of the task leader team of Task 6.3 within Work Package 6, Kerstin is responsible for work on "The contribution of water and sanitation research on economic development and poverty reduction", which aims to sensitise national governments in developing countries to the importance of research. BGR is the leader of Work Package 8, and Kerstin is responsible for overseeing the work of the task managers, for ensuring adherence to the stated objectives and the production of deliverables, and for updating the Strategic Management Board concerning the progress. Within WP 8 she is also involved in the coordination and implementation of Task 8.1 (Support of the African Groundwater Network in capacity development).
Kim Chi Tran-Gulbrandsen
Senior Adviser, NVE
kctg@nve.no
+47 22 959595 x9817
Specialist areas of interest
Kim received her PhD in Chemistry and worked for several years in UNESCO in the fields of Integrated Coastal Zone Management, Environmental Education and International Project Development and Management. She has also worked, taught and researched in the fields of Integrated Water Management including Water Pollution, Environmental Management including Offshore Environment Management for Oil and Gas Development, Sustainable Development, Local Community Participation in Environmental Protection and Development Projects, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Hydro-energy.
Role within SPLASH
Kim's main involvement is a member of WP6 Developing Joint Activities in which she participated in the development of the Yellow Pages for Water Research (LINK). She is task leader of the project entitled "Water and Energy: Sustainable development of hydropower involving the private sector in research collaboration in the Lower Mekong region".
