The Documentation Centre has expanded alongside the Groupe de Recherche et d’Information pour la Paix et la Sécurité (GRIP). It started as a simple reading room and library for researchers, becoming more specialised over the past 30 years, expanding and adapting to new information and communication technology. It is managed by an Information Officer and a small team of staff members, administrative support and trainees.

The Documentation Centre’s main activity is supporting the work of GRIP’s researchers and in-house analysts, providing daily news alerts, monitoring the press and electronic information sources, carrying out document searches, summaries, acquisitions, managing the documentary resources, and so on.

The Documentation Centre covers GRIP’s general research domains: security and defence in Europe, Africa and other regions of the world; conflict prevention and management; developments in conventional and nuclear weapons, arms proliferation and control (particularly small arms); the arms economy (the arms industry, military expenditure, arms exports, etc); international relations, defence policies and new security concepts. Special attention is paid to yearbooks and reference works.

GRIP’s Documentation Centre develops synergies with university and scientific libraries and specialist information and documentation centres. We are part of the European Information Network on International Relations and Area Studies (EINIRAS) and the ‘Association Belge de Documentation’ (ABD).

Documentary resources are stored in the library and archives. An increasing proportion of our documents are stored electronically.

The resources are divided into four broad categories. Several thousand books and occasional papers related to our subjects of research. Specialist reviews, including more than a hundred active series and nearly two hundred archived series. Yearbooks and reference works published by various research institutes, institutions and NGOs, such as the SIPRI Yearbook (SIPRI), Arms Control Reporter (IDDS), Military Balance (IISS), Année Stratégique (IRIS), Enjeux Diplomatiques et Stratégiques (CEDS), RAMSES (IFRI) and annual reports from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, etc. The documentary resources include occasional papers, periodicals and documents published by national, regional and international bodies (UN, NATO, OSCE, the European Union, etc.).

Most of the resources are available in English or French with the remainder (bar a few exceptions) in Dutch, German, Spanish or Italian. Our documents are acquired by subscription, publications exchange, mailings and donations.

Since 2002, the documentary resources have been managed by the "Socrates 4 Windows" software. The database currently contains around 20,000 bibliographical references (including more than 4,000 book references); the files have several entries and an innovative key-word index. Several hundred new references are added every year. The database will soon be available online.