Following the completion of the interdisciplinary FutureDAMS project in early 2022, this lecture delivered by the project leads reflects on what they have learned through their research, capacity development and policy engagement over the last four and a half years. Are there any over-arching conclusions about major water/energy/food/ environment initiatives that can be agreed upon on, or does everything depend on ‘context’? And importantly, what does the future hold for these major nexus programmes?