This Register is a publicly accessible UK-wide register for evidence gaps and relevant research establishing the environmental impact of offshore wind on the marine environment. This supports the knowledge base for the development of new offshore wind farms.

By cataloguing evidence gaps and relevant completed, current and future research projects, the OWEER helps prioritise urgent research areas for offshore wind environmental impacts. As a result, the register helps prioritise funding, and reduce duplication efforts for The Crown Estate’s portfolio, such as the Offshore Wind Evidence and Change (OWEC) programme, and more widely serves as the UK evidence register for offshore wind.

Filling evidence gaps is critical for informing appropriate mitigation and compensation measures, helping reduce uncertainty and prevent delays in consenting. This assists the UK in mitigating potential environmental impacts whilst fulfilling the ambitious target of supplying 50GW of offshore wind by 2030.

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The OWEER is now on version 6 (find relevant link at the bottom of the page) refined after rounds of robust annual open calls for evidence.

Looking ahead in 2025, The Crown Estate have commissioned a deep dive review of the OWEER to help us understand the status of the evidence gaps listed in the register. This is called the OWEER Gap Analysis and Reprioritisation (OWGRE). The analysis will provide insight into how the OWEER has shifted the dial in closing evidence gaps, helping to reprioritise the current version 6 and feed into the development of the OWEER version 7.

As well as annual updates to the OWEER content, this project will see integration of the OWEER into the Offshore Wind Evidence and Knowledge Hub (OWEKH), The Crown Estate's new offshore wind information repository - more information can be found here.