ABSTRACT
Throughout her career, Barbara Tizard has focused her research on problems with important policy implications. Not content simply to describe and analyse the factors that shape the way in which children develop in their early years, she has always tried to find solutions to the many problems of caring for children in contemporary societies. She has engaged with vigour in a wide range of policy debates. It is therefore appropriate in a volume honouring her work to include a contribution on the relationship between research and policy from the perspective of a think tank. Since the history of the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) has not yet been written, it provides me with a welcome opportunity to tell the story of its origins, its way of operating and the work it has done over its first seven years.
