Foreign Office: Research Department and successors

This series contains records created by the Research Analysts of the Department of the Foreign Office. These include subject index cards of Soviet personalities, and research files on different countries.

The records are arranged in distinct collections based upon subject matter. Each group of records represents a research project undertaken by the Research Analysts of the Foreign Office and their successors.

The Soviet personality index cards are arranged by individual's surname and each piece contains the index cards relating to multiple individuals.

• Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Research and Analysis Department, 1991-1992
• Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Research Department, 1968-1990
• Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Research Units, 1993-2022
• Foreign Office, 1782-1968
• Foreign Office, Information Research Department, 1948-1968
• Foreign Office, Research and Library Department, 1946-1959
• Foreign Office, Research Department, 1943-1946

From 2024 Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

Topics

International

Research

The Foreign Office (later Foreign and Commonwealth Office) Research Department was established in 1943 during the pressures of the Second World War to provide briefings and analyses to foreign policy makers, independent of policy making within the Foreign Office. The department's origins stem from both the Foreign Research and Press Service, which was set up at Balliol, Oxford in 1939, and the Foreign Office's Political Intelligence Department.

In 1989 the department changed its name to the Research and Analysis Department, which was thought to more accurately describe the work of the department. In 1993 the Research and Analysis Department was split into separate research units attached to specific departments and now exists as a professional cadre within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.