​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​At the 19th meeting of RAG in 2012, RAG invited the Director, BR, to develop a database, within existing budgetary limitations, to enable ITU-R Recommendations to be searched and filtered by categories.

In April 2014, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) of Japan kindly provided a voluntary contribution of US $290,000 to encourage and expedite the database development and to make it accessible to the ITU membership, including developing countries.

The database development was managed by Ms. Junko Koizumi, working in the Radiocommunication Bureau on secondment from the MIC. Experts from the Administration of Japan also provided expert guidance for the development, particularly Dr. Akira Hashimoto, the former Chairman of ITU-R Study Group 5. In addition to ITU-R Recommendations, the search facility was extended to also include ITU-R Questions, Reports, Resolutions and Handbooks. 

The development of the database was finalized in June 2017. T​he Administration of Japan's support for its development is greatly appreciated.