Catalogue description Department of Energy and predecessors: Atomic Energy Division and predecessors: Registered Files (RC Series)

In a Green Paper published in January 1970, the Labour Government recommended the creation of a British Research Development Corporation (BRDC). BRDC was intended to run the civil research and development laboratories of the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) and the Ministry of Technology (Mintech) under a single management structure, receiving a substantial proportion of its income through contracts with and from industry. Mintech set up a BRDC Division to work towards the establishment of the BRDC. This Division appears to have been set up in April 1970 and was staffed by personnel drawn from Mintech's Atomic Energy Division. The project BRDC was abandoned as a result of the Conservative victory in the 1970 General Election and the Division lost its raison d'etre.

After the merger of Mintech and the Board of Trade in October 1970 (which resulted in the formation of the first Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), the BRDC Division was reconstituted to form the Industrial Research Review (IRR) Division whose remit was defined as "the examination of policy issues raised by the review of Government industrial R&D (research and development) resources and activities, including those of the UKAEA ...[and] the co-ordination of work and the formulation of policy on Government industrial research".

The IRR Division was abolished in late 1971 and most of its personnel were transferred to Branch 3 of DTI's Atomic Energy (AE) Division, which was concerned with the organisation and funding of research and development on nuclear reactors, the organisation of the UK nuclear industry, and the atomic energy aspects of UK energy policy. On the abolition of DTI in 1974, the AE Division became the Atomic Energy Division of the new Department of Energy.