The SWITCH project focused on innovations for 'Managing Water for the City of the Future'. Its research themes were: Integrated Urban Water Management; stormwater management; efficient water supply and use for all; innovations in sanitation and waste management; urban water environments and planning; and governance and institutional change.

Following an action research methodology, 11 Learning Alliances were set up in cities in different regions of the world. Learning Alliances are platforms in which researchers work closely together with local and other stakeholders on the ground. They are designed to break down barriers between science, policy and practice, emphasize the joint identification of issues and a common learning process in search for locally adapted solutions. In this way, Learning Alliances helped speed up the process of uptake as well as of the up-scaling of innovation at national, regional and global levels.

To facilitate the replication of the SWITCH approach a Training Kit has been made available on the SWITCH Training Desk. It consists of a series of modules targeted at local governments and water utilities to support them in improving the sustainability of their water management approaches and systems.