History of The Psychometrics Centre
The Centre traces its origin to 1989, when John Rust, Director of the MSc in Psychological Assessment in Organisations in the University of London, gained the contract from the Psychological Corporation to carry out a standardisation of the world famous Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) in the UK. John, an established developer of psychometric tests across a wide spectrum of applications, saw the need to integrate the testing community that had that time had become disparate.
The Centre moved to City University, London, in 2003 and John became the UK's only Professor of Psychometrics. At the time psychometric testing was:
- becoming increasingly important in education, industry and the health sector throughout the world;
- experiencing major new challenges as an academic and applied discipline.
The Centre's relocation to Cambridge in November 2005 offered huge opportunities to develop our work through the international links, expertise and research capabilities of the University of Cambridge. Although 800 years old in 2009, Cambridge remains one of the leading universities of the world. It has an international reputation keeping it at the forefront of scientific development.
The Psychometrics Centre is based in the Mond Building, part of the Old Cavendish Laboratory, itself the site of the World's first Psychometric Laboratory in 1886-89. This site in the middle of old Cambridge accounts for 21 of Cambridge's 82 Nobel prizes, including those awarded to J. J. Thompson's for his discovery of the electron in 1897, to Ernest Rutherford for his first splitting of the atom in 1917, and to Watson and Crick for their discovery of the helical structure of DNA in 1954.