The series consists of correspondence of Departments and of other organizational units of the Development Policy Staff (DPS), Central Projects Staff (CPS), and the Regional Offices primarily with the Vice President, Development Policy (VPD), the Director, Development Policy, and the DPS Research Adviser concerning research projects in support of operations. Most of these projects were funded through the Bank's External Research Budget beginning in 1972, but the series also includes correspondence relatingto research funded through Department resources. The remainder of the series consists of: research project files, 1972 - 1974 and sector research files, 1975 - 1977.

The research correspondence for the 1972 - 1974 period includes: research proposals forwarded by DPS, CPS, and Regional Office departments to the Research Committee; reports of reviews of research proposals by Research Committee review panels; memos concerning funding estimates for approved research projects; lists of projects requiring funding submitted by the Departments; research project status reports; correspondence of VPD, Bank Departments, and Regional Offices with outside consultants conducting research for approved projects; Terms of Reference (TOR); Back - to - Office Reports (BTOs) for missions associated with research projects; and research proposals from outside researchers and multi-national organizations and responses to these proposals. Also with the 1972 - 1974 correspondence is a copy of the pamphlet World Bank Research Program - Policies and Procedures.

Found with the 1972 - 1974 correspondence are reports prepared in 1973 at the request of Ernest Stern, (Director, Development Policy), which provided information for the first comprehensive report on the Bank's external research program in 1973. Among these reports is a 28 September 1973 status report prepared by the Director, Policy Planning and Program Review Department, DPS of 58 policy papers underway and planned for FY 1974 - FY 1975 and policy papers added, completed, and dropped. A November 30, 1973 update of this report is also in the files. Also among the 1972 - 1974 correspondence are copies of letters and other correspondence concerning the Task Force on Education and Development (ECIEL) and other research issues coming out of the conference on social research held at Bellagio, Italy in February 1974 and co-sponsored by the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, the Bank, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), and the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID). Filed at the end of the correspondence for 1972 - 1974 are project files relating to various topics including anthropology, export promotion and preference, growth potential of iron ore from developing countries, and urban transport and the automobile.

The research correspondence for 1975 - 1977, while similar in content to the earlier 1972 - 1974 correspondence, includes for the first time copies of mostly administrative correspondence of the Secretary to the Research Committee, Orville F. Grimes, Jr., including copies of Research Committee review panel announcements and minutes of Research Committee meetings. The 1975 - 1977 correspondence also includes Grimes' memos to supervisors of external research projects requesting input for the Abstracts of Current Studies booklet issued annually; copies of revisions of procedures for preparation and submissions of research proposals and informal guidelines for panel review of proposals issued by the Research Adviser; a copy of a bibliography on foreign aid prepared in VPD and furnished to the Executive Directors (EDS) on 19 March 1976 covering publications dated from 1968 to 1975; drafts of sections of the Annual Report on Research forwarded for comment by VPD; correspondence concerning the formation in 1977 of the Research Advisory Panel on Income Distribution and Employment (RAPIDE), including an informal history of the origins of the Research Committee prepared by Grimes (10 October 1972); and a report prepared at VPD's request by the Chief Economist, Latin America and the Caribbean Regional Office, concerning prospective research in country analysis and identification of areas justifying increased external funding or internal staff time.

Immediately following the research correspondence, 1975 - 1977 are three folders, apparently created by Grimes, which contain copies of grey cover annual reports of the World Bank Research Program for 30 December 1975, 8 January 1975, and 13 January 1977, and an annotated draft of the annual report for 1978. A folder on cotton research precedes the 1975-1977 sector research project files which are similar in content to the earlier (1972 - 1974) research project files. The kinds of documents found in the three 1975-1977 research study files at the end of the series (Kenya Socio-Economic Impact, Private Sector Development Study, Socio-Economic Impact Study) are similar to those found in the earlier research project files.