The Centre for Research and Education for Social Transformation (CREST) was launched as an autonomous institution on April 1, 2008 by the Government of Kerala. It is the successor institution of Centre of Excellence which was established in 2002 by the Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode (IIMK), one of the reputed management institutions of the country, with the support of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Development Department, Govt of Kerala, India. Since its very inception the Centre has been offering programmes to cater to the educational, cultural and socio-economic mobility of the Scheduled Communities of Kerala.

The Centre was established with the vision to move towards creating a just, equitable and caring society through empowerment of the marginalized and underprivileged, based on the principles of humanism, equality and social justice. Its mission is to help the marginalized and the underprivileged gain confidence, build competence and achieve excellence in all spheres of human endeavor, for their social, cultural and economic development through education, training, research, and consulting.