The 10th Water Research Horizon Conference, organized by the Water Science Alliance, took place at the BGR in Hannover on June 18^th and 19^th, 2019. It was titled “Water Security and Food Security” and one workshop was of special interest for LimnoScenES: Under the topic “freshwater biodiversity – identifying and setting priorities for research areas” researchers from different disciplines discussed the research agenda “living waters” by Sonja Jähnig et al. (2019). Sonja Jähnig, who led the workshop, together with roughly 40 colleagues had drafted this research agenda early this year for the 15^th BMBF Forum on Sustainability. The agenda’s aim is to coordinate research on freshwater resources and their biodiversity across disciplines and research fields and strengthen its weight on the political agenda.