The Wartime Social Survey was the British Government's social research unit which was created during World War II to provide any government department with the information required for forming and administering government policy, when that information could not be obtained by other means. It was founded in April 1940 by Duff Cooper under the auspices of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research and worked from the London School of Economics. Whenever Home Intelligence undertook detailed reports on particular subjects it used the semi-autonomous Wartime Social Survey unit to undertake sampling surveys. The Wartime Social Survey was concerned with ascertaining the state of national morale by investigating social problems with the aim of establishing facts and discerning the attitude of the British public towards these facts.

Alfred Duff Cooper, 1st Viscount Norwich,, known as Duff Cooper, was a British Conservative Party politician and diplomat who was also a military and political historian.