Coastal research in The Netherlands has a long history. For many centuries, experience gained from the country's successes and failures in the struggle against the sea has been the major source of innovative knowledge. A more formal and systematic approach has developed over the last hundred years:

• 1920: An important step in the development of formalized knowledge was taken in the 1920s by the Nobel-prize laureate Hendrik Lorentz, who designed a computational scheme for assessing the tidal effects of the closure of the Zuyderzee. At the same time, with the founding of Delft Hydraulics, physical scale models became the favourite instrument for designing coastal engineering works. They remained so for a long time.
• 1953: The storm surge disaster of 1953 provided a strong incentive for coastal research in support of the Delta Project, which entailed a drastic shortening of the Dutch coastline. The Delta Project profoundly affected the morphodynamics of the Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt delta; large parts of the system were transformed into what one might call a life-size hydraulic laboratory.
• 1965: In the 1960s, a monitoring programme (JARKUS) was established to assess the evolution of the nearshore zone along the entire Dutch coast on a yearly basis. The resulting data base revealed not only short-term fluctuations of the shoreline, but also large-scale structural trends. The JARKUS data set represents a key source of coastal information, particularly in combination with historical observations of Dutch coastline evolution that date back to 1840-1850. With no equivalent data set available worldwide, the unique JARKUS data base has inspired a wealth of coastal research programmes throughout the years.
• 1985: The growing need for integrated coastal management led by the end of the 1980s to the development of a national coastal defence policy of 'Dynamic Preservation' (1990). This involved sustainable maintenance of the coast through 'soft' interventions (often nourishment of the beach and shoreface with sand taken from offshore) allowing for natural fluctuations. The basic principles were derived from a major research project for the systematic study of persistent trends in the evolution of the coastal system. This Coastal Genesis project - carried out by a multidisciplinary team of coastal engineers, physical and historical geographers and geologists - laid the ground for NCK.
• 1991: The successful multidisciplinary collaboration initiated during the Coastal Genesis project was institutionalized by means of the founding of the Netherlands Centre for Coastal Research (NCK).

The NCK was initiated by the coastal research groups of Delft University of Technology, Utrecht University, WL | Delft Hydraulics and Rijkswaterstaat RIKZ. Early 1996, the University of Twente and the Geological Survey of The Netherlands (now the Netherlands Institute of Applied Geoscience TNO: TNO-NITG) joined NCK, followed by the Netherlands Institue for Sea Research (NIOZ, 1999), the Netherlands Institute for Ecology - Centre for Estuarine and Marine Ecology (NIOO-CEME, 2001), UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education (2004) and Wageningen IMARES (2008).

NCK web site.