The National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) is a registered charity and is the largest independent social research institute in the UK. The research charity was founded in 1969 by Sir Roger Jowell and Gerald Hoinville with the aim of carrying out social policy research to improve society. Until 1999, it was known as Social and Community Planning Research and gained a reputation for promoting high standards in survey research and pushing the boundaries of survey methods. It hosted for 25 years the ESRC Survey Methods Centre - later, when ESRC funding was not renewed, known as the SCPR Survey Methods Centre a centre of expertise which carried out methodological research, ran popular seminars and published a regular newsletter. SCPR authors produced a handbook, Survey Research Practice., published by Heinemann in 1978, which remained in print for 20 years and was translated into other languages.