| Background
The
Contaminated Land Assessment & Remediation Research Centre (CLARRC)
founded SETN in 2006 in response to the demand from Scottish
environmental businesses. SETN received funding from the Scottish
Government SEEKIT programme during 2006-2010 with additional support
from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), Scottish
Enterprise and the Scottish Funding Council (SFC).
During
this time, SETN was based at The University of Edinburgh where CLARRC
had its core offices and laboratories. The broadening of activities
eventually led to CLARRC being incorporated into SETN in November 2010
at which time SETN was established as a separate unit in the Faculty of
Engineering at University of Strathclyde.
Contaminated Land Assessment & Remediation Research Centre (CLARRC)
The
University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh Napier University and the Scottish
Universities Environmental Research Centre (SUERC) founded CLARRC in
June 1998 with funding from the Scottish Higher Education Funding
Council (SHEFC). The Research Development Grant (RDG) scheme that
supported CLARRC had the aim of improving knowledge exchange and
collaboration between universities and industry.
In 2001, CLARRC were appointed as coordinators of the LINK Bioremediation Programme,
which supported over £10m of collaborative R&D projects. CLARRC and
SETN Director Colin Cunningham also served on the board of the Scottish
Environmental Industries Association (SEIA) and as a reviewer and
monitoring officer for the Technology Programme of the Technology
Strategy Board (TSB).
SETN
has built upon this strong foundation of knowledge exchange and
innovation experience. The CLARRC laboratory capabilities developed
over more than 12 years formed the core of the SETN laboratories at the
University of Strathclyde and offer comprehensive technical support to
Scottish businesses.
CLARRC
was very successful in providing internships that offered students the
opportunity to gain experience whilst providing companies with a cost
effective way to undertake collaborative R&D projects. SETN has
continued this tradition and has made internships a core element of our
support for Scottish ECT businesses.
Link Bioremediation Programme
The
programme was founded in 2001 following the Joint Research Council
Review of Bioremediation Research in the UK (1999) that recommended the
development of a multidisciplinary research initiative "to help provide
UK industry with the multidisciplinary capability necessary to enable
the commercial application of bioscience for the clean-up of
contaminated land, air and water". |