The Royal Radar Establishment was a research centre in Malvern, Worcestershire in the United Kingdom. It was formed in 1953 as the Radar Research Establishment by the merger of the Air Ministry's Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) and the British Army's Radar Research and Development Establishment (RRDE). It was given its new name after a visit by Queen Elizabeth II in 1957. Both names were abbreviated to RRE. In 1976 the Signals Research and Development Establishment (SRDE), involved in communications research, joined the RRE to form the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment (RSRE).
The two groups had been closely associated since before the opening of World War II, when the predecessor to RRDE was formed as a small group within the Air Ministry's research centre in Bawdsey Manor in Suffolk. Forced to leave Bawdsey due to its exposed location on the east coast of England, both groups moved several times before finally settling in separate locations in Malvern beginning in May 1942. The merger in 1953 that formed the RRE renamed these as the North Site (RRDE) and South Site (TRE).[1]
The earlier research and development work of TRE and RRDE on radar was expanded into solid state physics, electronics, and computer hardware and software. The RRE's overall scope was extended to include cryogenics and other topics. Infrared detection for guided missiles and heat sensing devices was a major defence application.[2] The SRDE brought satellite communications and fibre optics knowledge.
In 1991 they were partially privatized as part of the Defence Research Agency, which became the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency in 1996. The North Site was closed in 2003 and the work was consolidated at the South Site, while the former North Site was sold off for housing developments. Qinetiq now occupies a part of the former RSRE site.
- ^ Bud, Robert; Gummett, Philip (2002). Cold War, Hot Science: Applied Research in Britain's Defence Laboratories, 1945–1990. London: Science Museum. p. 249. ISBN 978-1-900747-47-9.
- ^ Smith, R. A. (10 April 1956). "Physics at the Radar Research Establishment, Malvern". Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series A. 235 (1200): 1–10. Bibcode:1956RSPSA.235....1S. doi:10.1098/rspa.1956.0060. S2CID 110025325.