Activities in 1969 and plans for 1970

Abstract

This review of the work of IOR brought up to date the picture presented in the “First Four Years” booklet of 1967, at a time when IOR’s work programmes were expanding rapidly, while its staff had mobilised to overcome the shock caused by the sudden death of IOR’s first Director, Neil Jessop. In 1969, seven new professional staff members had joined the unit’s offices in London and Coventry, joining the six recruited during 1968; and three programme groups had been formed, with overlapping membership but designated convenors, with responsibility for work in the fields of government, health and industry. For central government, work now focused on the simulation of alternative personnel policies and the design of a major project on relocation of government policy work from London. Publication of a book on the Coventry city government project now led to an action research experiment in six local government areas to test the applicability of the methods proposed, and an SSRC project was launched to explore multi-agency decision making in town development. In the health field, work focused mainly on the development of operational policies for new hospitals, while exploratory studies were conducted in a variety of other areas. IOR’s Industrial Research Panel continued to support work on new fields of shared concern to sponsoring companies, while the publication of a monograph on the management of capital investment led to a programme of seminars on this topic.