As a contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations (in particular SDG 6 - Water and Sanitation), the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) initiated the funding measure "Global Resource Water" (GRoW). In the main phase, 12 research consortia and one networking and transfer project with a total of more than 300 people from science, industry and practice conducted research and collaborated in case study areas around the world. The guiding principle of the funding measure is to link global analyses with local approaches to solutions. An integrated perspective was chosen to look at the complex reality of sustainable water management with its cross-connections to the thematic complexes of energy, food security, ecosystems and climate change.