History of the NIOO-KNAW

NIOO-KNAW was created in 1992 by fusing three important ecological research institutes of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). Initially, it was known as the Netherlands Institute for Ecological Research, but in September 2002 the name was simplified to Netherlands Institute of Ecology, the Dutch acronym being NIOO-KNAW.

NIOO-KNAW’s two locations were established in the 1950's as independent institutes. At the end of 2010 the locations of Nieuwersluis and Heteren will move and merge to a new building in Wageningen. 

IOO and CTE
The oldest was the location in Heteren. It started as IOO (Institute for Ecological Research), established in 1954 and until september 2009 it was known as Centre for Terrestrial Ecology. Some of its research data go back even further, to 1910, when G. Wolda of the Plant Protection Service in Wageningen recorded data on great tits in nesting boxes. Records have continued to this day and therefore by 2010, we will have amassed a century of nesting box data – an extremely valuable database from which the impacts of climate change can be distilled.

Hydrobiology Institute and CL
The location in Nieuwersluis started as the Hydrobiology Institute, established in 1957 in order to conduct research on freshwater ecology. It was housed in the Villa Vijverhof, an imposing country house in Nieuwersluis because at that time the universities had no accommodation for research on the interactions between organisms and their environment. The name CL, Centre for Limnology, which it had untill september 2009 derived from the Greek word “limnos” (meaning “lake”): limnology is the science of bodies of freshwater. The research sites from locatiom Nieuwersluis range from the nearby Loosdrechtse Plassen to the Siberian tundra.   

Delta Institute and CEME
The precursor to the Centre for Estuarine and Marine Ecology (CEME) also dates from 1957, the year the Delta Institute for Hydrobiology Research was established in Yerseke in order to research the repercussions of the Delta Plan, that had just started up. Scientists monitored the impacts of the Delta engineering works on the flora and fauna of the tidal zones in Zeeland and Zuid-Holland, which were closed off from the sea, or remained wholly or partially open to the tides. CEME’s research on ecosystems of brackish and salt water now extends far further afield: from the adjacent Oosterschelde to the Antarctic. 

From february 2011 the departments in Heteren and Nieuwersluis can be found at a new location in Wageningen.