A new network paves the way for more international water conferences in the Aarhus region

In early 2025, a new network came to life in the Aarhus region. Called "WaterHub Aarhus," the network brings together leading players from the Danish water sector and works to attract international water conferences, scientific meetings and professional events to the Aarhus region.

"We've succeeded in creating a network that people genuinely want to spend their time being part of - and where they contact us themselves to join. We've created a kind of FOMO (fear of missing out - ed.), which means we now have a really strong network with exactly the right people," says Nina Bech Stage, project manager at VisitAarhus and the person behind the establishment of WaterHub Aarhus.

Although the network is relatively new, VisitAarhus took its first tentative steps back in 2021. At that point the destination organisation reviewed data from sources including Aarhus University and ICCA (the International Congress and Convention Association) to better understand which areas of strength held the greatest potential for drawing conferences to the region. And the data pointed, among other things, to water.

Aarhus was already known for its strong position within the water sector, built on close collaboration between Aarhus University, utility companies, businesses and public authorities - a model that few other places can match. At the same time, there were several relevant water conferences whose size was a good fit for Aarhus and the wider region. That is how the idea of a network was born, and when the national project "Valuable Meetings" (Værdifulde Møder) was established in autumn 2024, the idea took shape - and gathered speed.

An exclusive network

The aim of Valuable Meetings is to strengthen Denmark's international position in the congress market through closer collaboration between destination organisations and the national industry clusters, while also boosting innovation and internationalisation within the clusters by hosting international congresses.

VisitAarhus entered into a partnership with CLEAN, Denmark's water and environment cluster, which helped identify relevant companies and potential network members. From the outset, it was essential for VisitAarhus to create an active forum with a real ability to deliver concrete results.

In connection with this, Nina Bech Stage took the initiative to open a dialogue with the key players - a process that required time and lengthy preparation, but which paid off. Today it means that, through WaterHub Aarhus, VisitAarhus has managed to activate the entire ecosystem surrounding the water industry.

"Once we managed to get the potential across to the first few, things actually became quite easy from there. In the water industry many people know one another, so once one or two had said yes, they quickly brought others along," says Nina Bech Stage, who has paid particular attention to getting the right composition in the network:

"I've done some tough filtering. If they don't have decision-making authority, they're not relevant - because we need to be able to act on the things we decide in the network. At the same time, it's important that they're people who understand the value of conferences," she explains.

One-on-one meetings and real value create engagement

Once the members had been selected and the network established, the challenge was to maintain engagement - and that has succeeded. Partly because VisitAarhus has taken care to ensure relevant, high-quality content, and along the way has prioritised one-on-one meetings with network members.

To produce results, the network also makes use of alternative meeting formats. Among other things, it has held a LEGO® Serious Play® workshop, where members built LEGO models and ideas to explore new ways of attracting conferences, knowledge and collaboration to the Aarhus region. It has also held a so-called co-creation workshop to pinpoint specific conferences that the network wants to focus on bringing to the destination in the years ahead.

"If participants feel they're getting something out of it, they come back. That's certainly what we're experiencing. And we also make a real effort to include a little experience at every meeting. At the last workshop, for example, we visited the upcoming Scandic Bassin 7 on Aarhus Ø, which is still under construction and could easily serve as a venue for a future water conference," says Nina Bech Stage.

Aarhus is the city of water

The work of attracting water conferences to the Aarhus region has only become more relevant since the network was established. In November 2025 it was announced that the new EU headquarters for water will be located in Vandets Hus ("The House of Water") on the harbour in Aarhus itself. This makes Aarhus the headquarters of the coming Water Knowledge and Innovation Community in Europe, EIT Water.

"That Aarhus is becoming the City of Water is huge news that fits perfectly with the work we are already fully engaged in. Because we already have an established network and are in the middle of the bidding process, we are far ahead of where we would otherwise have been," says Nina Bech Stage.

The ambition now is to win at least two new water conferences for the Aarhus region before the end of 2027 - and according to the project manager, that is a very realistic goal.

"Our dream is that when people out in the world talk about water conferences, they'll also be talking about Aarhus. And that's actually already starting to happen. We've found that people reach out to us because they've heard about Aarhus and the things we've got underway. So we've come a long way, and I believe we'll succeed," Nina Bech Stage concludes.

The Valuable Meetings (Værdifulde Møder) project runs from October 2024 to September 2027 and is carried out as a collaboration between MeetDenmark, Destination Fyn, Destination Nord, VisitAarhus and Wonderful Copenhagen, together with the four business clusters Danish Life Science Cluster, Food & Bio Cluster Denmark, Green Hub Denmark and Odense Robotics. The project is supported by the Danish Board of Business Development (Danmarks Erhvervsfremmebestyrelse).

Read more about WaterHub Aarhus here.