Latin America is home to a large number of institutions with a high level of technical and scientific knowledge and considerable experience in the water sector.

In order to strengthen ties and exchanges among these institutions, and between them and different political levels, the RALCEA (Latin American Network of Knowledge Centres in the Water Sector) project issued a call to Research and Education Centres to present declarations of interest in collaboration (http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/where/latin-america/regional-cooperation/ralcea/index_en.htm).

The success of the call for interest was demonstrated by the total number of 56 proposals, representing numerous Latin American institutions (including consortia) belonging to 12 of the 18 countries which make up the RALCEA project.

Sixteen institutions have been selected, 13 of them Latin American institutions/consortia, while the remaining three are international bodies whose collaboration and active involvement in the activities will not be funded by the project.

The list of centres can be consulted on the Aquaknow platform (http://www.aquaknow.net).