This edited collection commemorates the 90th anniversary of the first South African public social research organisation, the National Bureau for Education and Social Research, and the 50th anniversary of its successor, the Human Sciences Research Council. It is a scholarly reflection on the history of statebased social research. Contributions work with the archive of the institution in its several forms, with its research history and, of most interest, with its relationship with the dominant political structures of the day, from the preapartheid segregationist government, to the apartheid order and ultimately the postapartheid government. The book also addresses the topical issue of the role of evidence and scientific knowledge in policymaking.