Solly Zuckerman's connection with Political and Economic Planning (PEP, later the Policy Studies Institute) began in 1941, with a subscription to the organisation's journal, Planning. By 1944 he had become a member of PEP itself. By 1946 he had persuaded his American friend, John Rogers, to join, and handled Rogers' subscription arrangements. In January 1949 he addressed a PEP Speaker Luncheon. From time to time his views were canvassed on PEP reports, for instance that on the universities in 1951 (the section on research), on The World's Food in 1952, on agriculture and land use (1957), on the Common Market (1958), and on the PEP Scientific and Engineering Survey (1959). A copy of this report, Scientific and Engineering Manpower Survey, by Richard Fort MP, Planning, vol. XXV, no. 430, 19 January 1959, is in File SZ/PEP/1.
Correspondence and miscellaneous documents from the years 1939-40 relate to the role of science and scientists in war and in post-war reconstruction and are complementary to material in Series SZ/TQ. Correspondence from 1978 onward refers to the Policy Studies Institute's lunchtime seminars.
File SZ/PEP/2, PEP Group on World Population, 1950-54, holds the bulk of the contents of the series and relates to the PEP Research Group on World Population, of which Zuckerman was a member. The papers relating to the work of the Group are complementary to those in Series SZ/WPC (UN World Population Conference, Rome, 1954). There is a proof copy of the Research Group's report, World Population and Resources, PEP, September, 1955, in Sub-sub-file SZ/PEP/2/3/4.