Scottish Consortium for Rural Research

SCRR operated as an independent network from 1989 to 2025. Its activities are now hosted here by Moredun in a simpler form, focused on signposting to the annual Peter Wilson Lecture with the Royal Society of Edinburgh, other SCRR events and the archive of resources.

Event artwork for the 2025 Peter Wilson Lecture, a dark teal textured background with the corner of an ornate gilt picture frame and the Royal Society of Edinburgh and SCRR logos

The Peter Wilson Lecture

SCRR's principal annual activity: a public lecture held jointly with the Royal Society of Edinburgh each spring, bringing rural and agricultural science to a wider audience through a named speaker addressing a subject of national significance.

2025 · Talk and exhibition

Preserving what matters: Scotland's National Collections

Scotland's national collections are a cornerstone of our scientific, cultural, and societal heritage. They support research, innovation, public understanding, and evidence-based policy. Yet, their longevity often works against them, resulting in them being taken for granted.

Visit RSE event page

Nearly eighty years of shared research

SCRR grew out of a much older effort to bring Scotland's rural research organisations together around a shared site.

Easter Bush House on the Bush Estate near Edinburgh, a large stone country house with multiple chimneys and a wide lawn and curved driveway in front, hills visible in the background — Bush House on the Bush Estate, near Edinburgh, the original home of SCRR.

1947

Edinburgh Centre for Rural Economy founded

Sir Stephen Watson, then Professor of Agriculture and Rural Economy at the University of Edinburgh, set out to build a Rural Science Park on land the University had acquired around the Bush Estate, near Penicuik.
1989

Edinburgh Consortium for Rural Research formed

By this point around ten autonomous research organisations had laboratories and field stations on the Bush Estate. The group restructured, stepping back from estate management to focus on shared scientific initiatives between members.
June 2012

Renamed the Scottish Consortium for Rural Research

The new name reflected a membership that had grown well beyond Edinburgh, with organisations based in Dundee, Stirling and across the Highlands and Islands.
2025

Concluded independent operation

SCRR's archive and activities moved to a simpler, hosted home here at Moredun. The Peter Wilson Lecture continues each year, run jointly with the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

How it worked

For over three decades, SCRR ran as a low-cost, no-frills network rather than an institution in its own right. Members took turns hosting each other for working lunches, followed by a programme of visits and presentations about the host's research priorities.

A regular programme of VIP visits also gave people in government, the research councils and the wider rural sector a closer look at the work being carried out across SCRR's membership, often leading to new research contracts and collaborations. Each autumn, an Annual General Meeting reviewed the past year's activities and approved the audited accounts.

That combination, a large membership held together with very little overhead, was what set SCRR apart from other research networks in Scotland and the wider UK.

Map of Scotland marked with blue circles showing where SCRR's member organisations were based, from Shetland and the Highlands to a dense cluster around Edinburgh and the Borders

A national network

Twenty organisations made up SCRR, carrying out research on Scottish, and globally important, rural priorities: food, farming, land use, health, climate, biodiversity and sustainable development. Members were active across land, freshwater, coastal and marine research, from Shetland to the Borders, giving Scotland's rural research community a coordinated voice on policy.

Founded: 1947
Members: 20 organisations
Status: Concluded independent operation, 2025; archived by Moredun