The Institute’s Great Lakes Restoration work falls within the Water and Watersheds policy area, and also overlaps with several other policy areas, including Trade and the Environment/Invasive Species; Revitalizing Older Cities; and Brownfields. The work complements that of the Great Lakes Task Forces.

The Institute has been active in the Great Lakes research and policy arena since its inception in the 1970s. The mission of the Institute's Great Lakes Restoration Project is to make federal policy and programs as responsive as possible to the needs of the Great Lakes ecosystem through research on ecosystem/program problems and policy/technical solutions, and information outreach to policy makers on Capitol Hill and in federal agencies.

Activities of the Great Lakes Restoration Project include building connections between the Great Lakes Task Forces and Great Lakes regional stakeholders to support Great Lakes protection and restoration; conducting policy research on opportunities for improving federal programs to address Great Lakes protection and restoration; and forging collaborative enterprises that are public-private, multi-jurisdictional, and multi-stakeholder to address restoration issues of concern to the Great Lakes region.

Specific technical/policy areas of research include economic valuation of environmental benefits in the Great Lakes region, financing Great Lakes Restoration, the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration, Great Lakes water management, large-scale restoration of the Great Lakes ecosystem, and preventing invasive species.