Peer Review Committee praises KWR’s scientific level and impact

‘KWR is a unique institute of its kind,’ whose ‘scientific level is assessed as very high’. This was the main conclusion of the Peer Review Committee which, in late 2018, at the invitation of KWR, gave its assessment of KWR’s scientific performance and research impact over 2013-2017.

Every five years, KWR asks a panel of internationally renowned (water) scientists to give their assessment of the institute’s scientific performance and the impact of its research. The members of the 2018 committee were:

Xavier Litrico (Chair), Scientific Director, Suez (France).
Prof. Jörg E. Drewes, Chair of Urban Water Systems Engineering, Department of Civil, Geo- and Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Munich (Germany).
Prof. Bernhard Truffer, Head of the Department of Environmental Social Sciences at the Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag) in Switzerland, and professor at Utrecht University on ‘Geography of Transitions in Urban Infrastructures’ (the Netherlands).
Prof. H.-J. Albrechtsen, Professor in the Department of Environmental Engineering at the Technical University of Denmark (Denmark).
Prof. Juliette Legler, ERT, Professor of Toxicology and Head of Toxicology at the Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences (IRAS), Utrecht University (the Netherlands).

Over a two-day period, the committee members delved into KWR by means of in-depth interviews with experienced and novice KWR scientists, and with a number of the institute’s collaboration partners, who had prepared extensive self-evaluations. This resulted in the positive final assessment cited above, but also valuable recommendations aimed at further improving KWR’s scientific level and its different research groups in various areas in the years ahead. For example, the committee advises KWR to further strengthen its focus on the field of hydroinformatics. The same advice applies to the commitment to continue growing KWR’s international activities, through the Watershare intitiative and the valorisation of research, for instance.

The KWR Management Team and Scientific Council have incorporated these recommendations into their future plans for the institute. They would like to express their thanks to the committee members for their work, commitment and valuable advice.

CEO, Dragan Savic, and Chief Science Officer, Kees van Leeuwen, inform KWR researchers about the results of the Peer Review.