The Maritime Charities Funding Group (MCFG) commissioned the Institute of Public Care (IPC) at Oxford Brookes University to undertake a project to provide the MCFG with a UK demographic profile of the naval service, merchant navy and fishing fleet personnel and their dependants from 1945 to 2050. The start date was chosen to cover the huge decline in naval personnel following the end of World War II, and the anticipated decline in the number of veterans from that era in the coming years.