SPRI was founded by Frank Debenham in 1920 as the national memorial to Captain Robert Falcon Scott and his companions, who died on their return journey from the South Pole in 1912.

The institute is home to the Polar Museum and has some 60 personnel, consisting of academic, library and support staff plus postgraduate students, associates and fellows attached to research programmes.

Notable researchers that have been based at the institute include Julian Dowdeswell, British diplomat Bryan Roberts, and glaciologist Elizabeth Morris.

This group's work involves quantifying the state of the cryosphere using remote sensing by satellites, plus accurate field measurements and computer simulations, to understand the processes in detail.

[6] It contains displays of Arctic art and artefacts, material from the nineteenth-century search for the elusive Northwest Passage, relics from the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration (including the last letters of Captain Scott), and contemporary research and policy relating to the polar regions.

For industry, it is a prime information source on such subjects as exploration and exploitation of natural resources and on the environmental implications of such activities in the polar regions; on the design of ice-strengthened shipping and selection of sea routes; and on problems of construction and transportation in cold environments.

The Picture Library contains a photograph collection from both the Arctic and Antarctic, mainly depicting the history of exploration in the polar regions, including much material from the expeditions of Scott and Shackleton.

While climbing Mount Erebus in November 1912 as part of Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated Terra Nova expedition, Frank Debenham came up with the idea of a polar research institute.