The Netherlands Centre for River Studies (NCR) has come about as a result of renewed societal interest in rivers, in particular concerning the transport of water, ice and sediment (protection against flooding), transport over water (accessibility) and nature preservation, recovery and development (quality of life). Such interest is reflected in policy development and planned infrastructural intervention. On an international scale, for instance, in the framework of the International Rhine Commission, the EC structure fund Interreg Rhine Meuse Action programme (IRMA), or the Word Water Forum; on a national scale, in the Fourth Policy Document on Water Management and the Fifth Policy Document on Spatial Planning. At the same time, organisations involved in these issues (from the RWS to the EU) are furthering increased expertise on rivers by means of research programmes.

The NCR partners are:

• TUD (Delft University of Technology)
• UU (Utrecht University)
• RU (Radboud University Nijmegen, until 2004 named KUN)
• UT (University of Twente)
• Unesco-IHE (Institute for Water education)
• RWS-WD (Rijkwaterstaat Water Management Service)
• Deltares (a merger of WL | Delft Hydraulics, GeoDelft, part of TNO Built Environment and parts of RWS-DWW, -RIKZ and -RIZA).

NCR has two key functions:

• Co-operation: in which the true commitment of the aforementioned partners is reflected,
• platform: this function is reflected in the organisation of meetings at which expertise and experience are exchanged; other parties are very welcome to attend; examples are the yearly NCR-days and the different workshops NCR organises.