Illustrious origins and our family today
Although the James Hutton Institute was launched in April 2011, our
creation was the result of a merger between two long-established
institutions: the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute and SCRI
(Scottish Crop Research Institute). The former started in 1930 and the
latter originated in the Scottish Plant Breeding Station, which was set
up in 1921. In merging, we followed the name and legacy of one of
the world’s greatest scientists and the first to describe the earth as a
living system.
Today the James Hutton Institute family also encompasses:
•
BioSS (Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland), which undertakes
research, consultancy and training in mathematics and statistics as
applied to agriculture, the environment, food and health.
•
The Division of Plant Sciences within the University of Dundee,
which is based at our Dundee site.
•
Our commercial subsidiaries: Macaulay Scientific Consulting (MSC)
Ltd and Mylnefield Research Services (MRS) Ltd; a summary of
2012–13 activities is on page 18.
•
Postgraduate School with 133 PhD students from 26 countries.
Over 600 staff across five locations in Scotland
Our internationally networked organisation operates from multiple
sites around Scotland. The main offices are in Aberdeen and Dundee.
Our field research stations are in rural locations and each has a
different focus.
•
Balruddery Farm in Angus
hosts a large experimental platform
and includes our Centre for Sustainable Cropping, which is the first
test-bed of its scale in the UK. This is researching ways to achieve
a balance between maximising crop varieties, conserving arable
biodiversity and maintaining ecosystem functions.
•
Glensaugh in Aberdeenshire
hosts experiments from plot to field,
up to landscape scale. Livestock farming is the primary activity.
Glensaugh is one of 11 UK sites in the Environmental Change
Network, measuring many long-term environmental indicators.
•
Hartwood in Lanarkshire
focuses on developing sustainable
management systems to meet agricultural and environmental
objectives, including researching the welfare of beef suckler cows
and long-term experiments that examine the effects on grassland
when recovered wastewater sewage is applied.
8
How will biodiversity respond to anthropogenic drivers?
What are the key links between biodiversity change and
ecosystem function? Our research directly addresses the
need for information to answer these questions.
