Researchers in the Human Resources Problem Area Group (HUMPAG) at the Institute of Development Studies work on questions of improving the quality of life for people: population growth with its manifold implications, employment and self-employment, patterns of industrial organisation, the effects of new modes of production on older patterns of economic and social organization, manpower planning, the relationships between employment and schooling, the distribution of income, the distribution of social services such as health care. Most of this work is represented here and most of it is offered as preliminary reflections on research which has been completed only very recently.

This issue of the Bulletin can claim then to be narrowing - even if in a minor way - the lag between research and dissemination. It helps to soften the complaint of the urgent practitioners of 'development', that the insights of research too often come too late to be of use.