The Brennholt Institute of Applied Taxonomy is a private research body founded in 2023 in Brennholt by Cormac Brindlecott, who directs it as Chief Ontologist. It employs four researchers, including him. It has not grown since its founding and states that it does not intend to.
Its declared scope is narrow and stated in one sentence: manufactured objects produced in large volume for which no published classification exists. The Institute does not work on objects already covered by an industrial norm, does not perform testing for clients, and does not certify. It publishes classifications and it publishes the objections to them.
Every classification the Institute issues follows the same four steps, in order. The steps are published so that a reader can repeat them, and the Institute holds that a classification whose procedure is not published is an opinion.
The fourth step is the one most often criticised, because it produces classes with no members. Brindlecott's position is that a classification must declare where it stops, and that a range ending at its last observation describes the sample rather than the object.
| Refused | Stated reason |
|---|---|
| Samples supplied by manufacturers | A supplied sample is a chosen sample |
| Certification of products | The Institute holds no authority to certify |
| Paid classification work | A commissioned class has a client's interest in it |
| Objects already covered by a norm | Outside the declared scope |
| Destructive testing | Excluded by the observability criterion |
| Provisional publication | A provisional class is cited as a final one |
The Institute publishes one periodical, the Bulletin of the IBTA, which appears irregularly and which Brindlecott edits. Twelve items have appeared under his name between 2024 and 2026. They have been cited seventeen times; sixteen of those citations are his own. The Institute prints the figure in its annual note and has never presented its citation count as a measure of anything.
Every classification is reviewed by an internal review panel of three, which publishes its objections in the same issue as the work it objects to. The panel's notes are not advisory: they are published as text of equal standing, and the Institute does not resolve the disagreement before printing. Four of the Institute's published classifications currently carry an unwithdrawn panel objection. The panel's most recent note is dated 3 March 2026 and covers five separate points.
Brindlecott has twice been overruled by the panel and has complied twice, on matters of procedure. He has declined to comply on matters of classification, and the Institute publishes both facts.
The Institute is self-funded from the sale of its publications and from Brindlecott's private means. It holds no grant, accepts no industry money, and has never applied for public funding. It states that this is a limitation and not a virtue: the sample sizes it can afford are small, the paperclip series of 1,200 units is its largest, and several entries in its register have remained open for three years for want of resources rather than for want of interest.
The review panel's standing objection to the Institute's design is that a body of four researchers which reviews its own work internally cannot be said to be peer-reviewed, and that the Institute's practice of publishing objections alongside conclusions, while honest, is not a substitute for external review. Brindlecott accepts the objection as stated and has not acted on it. The Institute has not sought external review and does not say when it will.
The taxonomist of Kettering holds that the Institute's scope is self-serving, since an object with no classification also has no body of prior work against which the Institute's results could be checked. Brindlecott's reply is that this is a description of the field and not a criticism of the Institute. Neither has published since 2025.