This paper addressed the relationship between design research and design history, first in terms of understanding the historical context for the emergence of design research in the post-war period; its origins and methodologies; and secondly in terms of the potential for historians and designers to work together to develop new research approaches. Design history’s practices, including artefactual research and the analysis of design processes, materials and methods in their social, political and historical contexts, can contribute much to inter-disciplinary research endeavours in the humanities and the sciences. Design history can also provide a platform for public engagement with design research, through exhibitions and curation, given its close relationship with museums. Using case-studies drawn from public sector design research in the 1950s and 1960s, the paper reflected on the contribution of historical research to contemporary, and future, design research, and vice versa.