The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations is a British non-profit research and consulting organisation, specialising in the study of group behavior. There are sister organisations in China and Germany. It was formally established in September 1947. It publishes a peer-reviewed journal ''Human Relations'' with

Sage Publications Sage Publishing, formerly SAGE Publications, is an American independent academic publishing company, founded in 1965 in New York City by Sara Miller McCune and now based in the Newbury Park neighborhood of Thousand Oaks, California. Sage ...

and it hosts the journal ''Evaluation''. The Institute is located in Gee Street in

Clerkenwell Clerkenwell ( ) is an area of central London, England. Clerkenwell was an Civil Parish#Ancient parishes, ancient parish from the medieval period onwards, and now forms the south-western part of the London Borough of Islington. The St James's C ...

, London.

Activities

The Tavistock Institute offers research, consultancy, project evaluation work and professional development programmes, based on unique methodologies drawn from

social sciences Social science (often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of society, societies and the Social relation, relationships among members within those societies. The term was former ...

and

applied psychology Applied psychology is the use of psychological methods and findings of scientific psychology to solve practical problems of human and animal behavior and experience. Educational and organizational psychology, business management, law, health, pro ...

. Methods include systems psychodynamics, complexity theory, Theory of Change and Social Dreaming. The main method is

experiential learning Experiential learning (ExL) is the process of learning through experience, and is more narrowly defined as "learning through reflection on doing". Hands-on learning can be a form of experiential learning, but does not necessarily involve students ...

- learning through experience. The Institute's website describes its work as having a focus on how humans relate to each other and non-human systems, how people grow and learn and effect creativity and change, in groups.

Research, evaluation and consultancy

The Institute's portfolio includes leadership development programmes in the

NHS The National Health Service (NHS) is the term for the publicly funded health care, publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom: the National Health Service (England), NHS Scotland, NHS Wales, and Health and Social Care (Northern ...

, work with female innovators in European sustainable fashion via the "shemakes" collaboration, a five-year programme of work with women and girls' projects in England, an evaluation of

Barnardo's Barnardo's is a global charity headquartered in Barkingside in the London Borough of Redbridge. It was founded by Thomas John Barnardo in 1866, to care for vulnerable children. As of 2013, it raised and spent around £200 million each ye ...

work with care-experienced young people, including a focus on the voices of the young people, and a study of continuing

vocational education Vocational education is education that prepares people for a skilled craft. Vocational education can also be seen as that type of education given to an individual to prepare that individual to be gainfully employed or self employed with req ...

for the European Union. The Institute's clients are individuals, teams, organisations and partnerships of organisations – undertaking work and projects in government, business / industry and the 3rd & 4th sectors at local, national and international level. The list includes organisations and sectors of all shapes and sizes, from grassroots community-based organisations to government agencies. Examples include the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

, many

British government His Majesty's Government, abbreviated to HM Government or otherwise UK Government, is the central government, central executive authority of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

departments, Third Sector and private clients. In 2023, the Institute's organisation in Europe, Tavistock Institut gGmbH, based in Germany, moved its office to Berlin. The Institute has an arm in China - Tavistock Institute China.

Professional development

The professional development and training work that the Institute offers is in the fields of organisation development and group relations. The Institute is developing online training courses available on the Teachable website Learning programmes are tailored and delivered in-house or online for organisations, including the NHS

Sharing knowledge

The academic journal ''

Human Relations In social psychology, an interpersonal relation (or interpersonal relationship) describes a social association, connection, or affiliation between two or more people. It overlaps significantly with the concept of social relations, which ar ...

'' is owned by the Tavistock Institute and published by Sage. Recent books and reports published by authors linked to the Institute include a Systems Psychodynami

trilogy,
book on the Theory of Change
and how it can be used to support organisational development and
report on labour shortages in the European Union
published by European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, Eurofound.

History

The early history of the Tavistock Institute overlaps with that of the

Tavistock Clinic The Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust is a specialist mental health trust based in north London. The Trust specialises in talking therapies. The education and training department caters for 2,000 students a year from the United Kin ...

because many of the staff from the Clinic worked on new, large-scale projects during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, and it was as a result of this work that the institute was established. During the war, staff from the

played key roles in British Army psychiatry.A history of the Institute can be found in the publication
The Social Engagement of Social Science: A Tavistock Anthology
' published by the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

Press in three volumes between 1990 and 1997. Working with colleagues in the

Royal Army Medical Corps The Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) was a specialist corps in the British Army which provided medical services to all Army personnel and their families, in war and in peace. On 15 November 2024, the corps was amalgamated with the Royal Army De ...

and the

British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...

, they were responsible for innovations such as the War Office Selection Boards (WOSBs) and Civil Resettlement Units (CRUs). The group that formed around the WOSBs and CRUs were fascinated by this work with groups and organisations, and sought to continue research in this field after the war. Various influential figures had visited the WOSBs during the war, so there was scope for consultancy work, but the Clinic staff also planned to become a part of the

National Health Service The National Health Service (NHS) is the term for the publicly funded health care, publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom: the National Health Service (England), NHS Scotland, NHS Wales, and Health and Social Care (Northern ...

when it was established, and they had been warned that such consultancy and research would not be possible under the auspices of the NHS. Because of this, the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations was created in 1947 to carry out work specifically with organisations once the Clinic was incorporated into the NHS. The

Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The foundation was created by Standard Oil magnate John D. Rockefeller (" ...

awarded a significant grant that facilitated the creation of the institute. In the early years, income was derived from research grants, contract work, and fees for professional development courses. During the 1950s and 1960s, the institute carried out a number of signature projects in collaboration with major manufacturing companies including

Unilever Unilever PLC () is a British multinational consumer packaged goods company headquartered in London, England. It was founded on 2 September 1929 following the merger of Dutch margarine producer Margarine Unie with British soap maker Lever B ...

, the Ahmedabad Manufacturing and Calico Printing Co.,

Shell Shell may refer to: Architecture and design * Shell (structure), a thin structure ** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses Science Biology * Seashell, a hard outer layer of a marine ani ...

Bayer Bayer AG (English: , commonly pronounced ; ) is a German multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company and is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies and biomedical companies in the world. Headquartered in Leverkusen, Bayer' ...

, and Glacier Metals. They also conducted work for the

National Coal Board The National Coal Board (NCB) was the statutory corporation created to run the nationalised coal mining industry in the United Kingdom. Set up under the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946, it took over the United Kingdom's collieries on "ve ...

. Particular focuses included management, women in the workplace, and the adoption (or rejection) of new technologies. Projects on the interaction between people and technology later became known as the sociotechnical approach. The 1950s also saw the institute conducting consumer research and exploring attitudes to things as varied as

Bovril Bovril is a thick and salty meat extract paste, similar to a yeast extract, developed in the 1870s by John Lawson Johnston. It is sold in a distinctive bulbous jar and as cubes and granules. Its appearance is similar to the British Marmite and ...

fish finger Fish fingers (British English) or fish sticks (American English) are a processed food made using a whitefish or pinkfish, such as cod, hake, haddock, shark, salmon, or pollock, which has been battered or breaded and formed into a rectan ...

s, coffee and hair. In the 1960s and 1970s, there was a notable focus on public health organisations such as hospitals. Studies examined a range of aspects of healthcare, from ward management and operating theatres to the organisation of cleaning staff. More recently, the institute has conducted work for the European Commission and British government bodies.

Research units

In the institute's early years, there were four main units: Programme Groups A and B within a Committee on Human Resources; Organisation and Social Change and Operations Research Unit; and a Committee on Family and Community Psychiatry. The Human Resources Centre (HRC) and the Centre for Applied Social Research (CASR) were established in the 1950s, and in 1963 the Institute of Operational Research (IOR) was established in conjunction with the British Operational Research Society. The Centre for Organisational and Operational Research (COOR) was created from a merger of the HRC and the IOR in 1979. The Self Help Alliance project begun in the 1980s led to further work in evaluation and the creation of a dedicated unit, the Evaluation Development Review Unit (EDRU) in 1990.

Key figures

The institute was founded by a group of key figures from the

and British Army psychiatry including

Elliott Jaques Elliott Jaques (January 18, 1917 – March 8, 2003) was a Canadian psychoanalyst, social scientist and management consultant known as the originator of concepts such as corporate culture, midlife crisis, fair pay, maturation curves, time ...

Henry Dicks Henry Victor Dicks (1900 – 12 July 1977) was a British psychiatrist. He drew on his wartime experiences, which included the medical care of Rudolf Hess, to develop views on authoritarian personality and the collective psychopathology of authori ...

, Leonard Browne, Ronald Hargreaves,

John Rawlings Rees John Rawlings Rees, (25 June 1890 – 11 April 1969), also known as 'Jack' or 'J.R.', was a British civilian and military psychiatrist. Early life Born in Leicester to the Methodist minister Reverend Montgomery Rees and his wife Catharine Mil ...

, Mary Luff and

Wilfred Bion Wilfred Ruprecht Bion (; 8 September 1897 – 8 November 1979) was an influential English psychoanalyst, who became president of the British Psychoanalytical Society from 1962 to 1965. Early life and military service Bion was born in Mathu ...

, with Tommy Wilson as chairman. Other well-known people that joined the group shortly after were Isabel Menzies Lyth, J. D. Sutherland,

John Bowlby Edward John Mostyn Bowlby (; 26 February 1907 – 2 September 1990) was a British psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, notable for his interest in child development and for his pioneering work in attachment theory. A ''Review of General Psychology'' ...

Eric Trist Eric Lansdown Trist (11 September 1909 – 4 June 1993) was an English scientist and leading figure in the field of organizational development (OD). He was one of the founders of the Tavistock Institute for Social Research in London. Biograp ...

Michael Balint Michael Balint ( ; 3 December 1896 – 31 December 1970) was a Hungarian psychoanalyst who spent most of his adult life in England. He was a proponent of the object relations school. Life Balint was born Mihály Mór Bergsmann in Budapes ...

and

Fred Emery Frederick Edmund Emery (August 27, 1925 – April 10, 1997) was an Australian psychologist specializing in the field of organizational development, particularly in the theory of participative work design structures, such as self-managing teams ...

. Although he died before the TIHR was formally established,

Kurt Lewin Kurt Lewin ( ; ; 9 September 1890 – 12 February 1947) was a German-American psychologist, known as one of the modern pioneers of social psychology, social, industrial and organizational psychology, organizational, and applied psychology in the ...

was an important influence on the work of the Tavistock: he was a notable influence on Trist, and contributed an article to the first issue of ''

''. Many of the members of the Tavistock Institute went on to play major roles in psychology.

became first president of the

World Federation for Mental Health The World Federation for Mental Health (WFMH) is an international, multi-professional non-governmental organization (NGO), including citizen volunteers and former patients. It was founded in 1948 in the same era as the United Nations (UN) and the W ...

. Jock Sutherland became director of the new post-war Tavistock Clinic, when it was incorporated into the newly established British

in 1946. Ronald Hargreaves became deputy director of the

World Health Organization The World Health Organization (WHO) is a list of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations which coordinates responses to international public health issues and emergencies. It is headquartered in Gen ...

. Tommy Wilson became chairman of the Tavistock Institute. One of the most influential figures to emerge from the institute was the psychoanalyst Isabel Menzies Lyth. Her seminal paper 'A case study in the functioning of social systems as a defence against anxiety' (1959) inspired a whole branch of organisational theory emphasising unconscious forces that shape organizational life. A.K. Rice did considerable work on problems of management, increasing productivity at one factory by 300%. Eric Miller became director of the ''Group Relation Program'' in 1969, and in this function he later developed the design of the

Nazareth-Conferences The Nazareth-Conferences were the beginning of a project of Psychoanalysis, psychoanalysts from England, Israel and Germany, whose founding fathers and mothers intended to contribute to a process of solving Conflict theories, conflicts that develop ...

. The Tavistock Institute became known as a major proponent in Britain for psychoanalysis and the psychodynamic theories of

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( ; ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies seen as originating fro ...

and his followers. Other names associated with the Tavistock include

Melanie Klein Melanie Klein (; ; Reizes; 30 March 1882 – 22 September 1960) was an Austrian-British author and psychoanalysis, psychoanalyst known for her work in child analysis. She was the primary figure in the development of object relations theory. Kl ...

Carl Gustav Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and psychologist who founded the school of analytical psychology. A prolific author of over 20 books, illustrator, and correspondent, Jung was a ...

, J. A. Hadfield, Charles Rycroft,

Enid Mumford Enid Mumford (6 March 1924 – 7 April 2006) was a British social scientist, computer scientist and Professor Emerita of Manchester University and a visiting fellow at Manchester Business School, largely known for her work on human factors and ...

and R. D. Laing.

Tavistock for the workplace

The techniques used to rehabilitate soldiers were believed by some researchers to be applicable to a more human-centered organisation of work in industry by empowering lower ranking employees. This agenda helped showcase the two sociotechnical scholarship attributes: the close association of technological and social systems and also, the importance of worker involvement.

Focus of conspiracy theorists

The Tavistock Institute has sometimes been associated with conspiracy theories, the most common of which associate it with

the Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. The core lineup of the band comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are widely regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatle ...

and

the Rolling Stones The Rolling Stones are an English Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for over six decades, they are one of the most popular, influential, and enduring bands of the Album era, rock era. In the early 1960s, the band pione ...

. Two books focusing on this are ''The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations: Shaping the Moral, Spiritual, Cultural and Political'' (2006) by John Coleman and ''Tavistock Institute: Social Engineering the Masses'' (2015) by Daniel Estulin. The ''Rough Guide to Conspiracy Theories'' notes that the Tavistock Institute has been named by some conspiracy theorists as having a part in "The most extravagant anti-

Illuminati The Illuminati (; plural of Latin ''illuminatus'', 'enlightened') is a name given to several groups, both real and fictitious. Historically, the name usually refers to the Bavarian Illuminati, an Enlightenment-era secret society founded on 1 ...

conspiracy theory" of John Coleman "known as he' Aquarian Conspiracy'. This totalitarian agenda culminates in the Illuminati 'taking control of education in America with the intent and purpose of utterly and completely destroying it.'" By "'means of rock music and drugs to rebel against the status quo, thus undermining and eventually destroying the family unit'." Todd Van Luling, writing in ''

HuffPost ''HuffPost'' (''The Huffington Post'' until 2017, itself often abbreviated as ''HPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and covers p ...

'' also mentioned this idea "from popular conspiracy theorist Dr John Coleman", saying that "The Tavistock Institute is a publicly known British charity founded in 1947, but conspiracy theorists believe the Institute's real purpose is to similarly engineer the world's culture." The ''Post'' looks at Coleman's claim that the popularity of the Beatles was an Illuminati plot to advance the "Aquarian Conspiracy".