About Us

CREW was launched in April 2011 and is a partnership between the James Hutton Institute and all Scottish Higher Education Institutes to ensure that water research and expertise is available and accessible to the Scottish Government and its agencies, in a timely and effective manner.

• To build networks:
  
  • to establish a delivery mechanism at the science, policy and practice interface
  • to ensure knowledge reaches the people who can apply it, in a timely manner.

• To create new capacity:
  
  • to use collective knowledge to enhance the formation, implementation and delivery of water-related policies in Scotland
  • to ensure international knowledge is available to the widest user community.

• To increase impact:
  
  • to enhance Scottish science so that it is placed at the centre of the global knowledge economy
  • to inform and influence the international context for water resource management.

CREW links water research to water policy in the following ways:

• We offer an enquiry service where government policy colleagues can request immediate research outputs and advice to inform urgent policy priorities
• We carry out rapid research projects in response to immediate policy requirements from Scottish Government and its agencies
• We jointly develop capacity building research projects with Scottish Government and its agencies to help with delivery of medium term policy needs. We commission and deliver these projects.
• We disseminate policy relevant research from national and international experts to the Scottish policy community working on water issues
• We assess future research needs to identify water related research the Scottish policy community is likely to need in coming years, drawing on national and international and legislation, emerging thinking, liaising with both experts and policymakers.