National Institute of Industrial Psychology

Abstract

IT is a tragedy that, just when increasing attention is being given to the human factor in industry, the National Institute of Industrial Psychology, which, more than any other single institution in Great Britain, stands for the scientific study of the human factor in occupational life, should be threatened with disbandment after seventeen years of continuous and successful work. At least £2,000 is required to avert the Institute's disbandment, and to meet the expense of the Institute's unpaid national work a sum of not less than £6,000 per annum is required or an endowment which would provide this sum. In his presidential address to the British Association at its Blackpool meeting, Sir Josiah Stamp pointed out the anomaly of leaving to private support an enterprise of such outstanding national importance, and the situation becomes all the more anomalous in view of recent departures for the encouragement of research into social problems. The great services which the Institute has rendered to private firms through its fee-earning service should not be allowed to overshadow the importance of the work it has undertaken, sometimes voluntarily, for the departments of State, such as the Civil Service Commission, the Home Office (Prison Commission), Post Office, War Office, Admiralty, Royal Air Force, Ministry of Agriculture, Board of Education, Ministry of Labour, etc. Moreover, the experience gained in service rendered to particular firms in industry has itself a national value as providing a basis for further work and as giving to the whole of industry a new viewpoint on the value of applying psychology to working conditions.