The Royal Society and the Promotion of Science since 1960

The first synoptic history of how the Royal Society faced up to the challenges of continued relevance from 1960 onwards.

Peter Collins (Author)

9781107029262, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 12 November 2015

352 pages, 22 b/w illus. 6 tables
23.5 x 16.2 x 2 cm, 0.72 kg

'The Royal Society is a venerable, elite and prestigious organisation that has played a remarkable and often crucial role in the development of science policy and support in the years since the major economic and political crises of the 1960s. That more recent track record has never before been subject to properly detailed historical analysis. An authority both on the workings of the Royal Society and on the changing character of public science and its significance, Peter Collins offers an unprecedentedly well-documented and frank account of the way the Society changed in key periods of transformations in the sciences, their private and public funding, and their place in the social and economic worlds … Using unrivalled access to the principal personalities and to the records of the Society's activities, [he] has produced a book that will be valuable reading for anyone concerned with the political and public condition of British science and its development in the past five decades.' Simon Schaffer, University of Cambridge

The Royal Society is one of the world's oldest and most prestigious scientific bodies, but what has it done in recent decades? Increasingly marginalised by postwar developments and the reforms of civil science in the 1960s, the Society was at risk of resting on its laurels. Instead, it found ways of exploiting its unique networks of scientific talent to promote science. Creating opportunities for outstanding individuals to establish and advance research careers, influencing policymaking at national and international levels, and engaging with the public outside the world of professional science, the Society gave fresh expression to the values that had shaped its long history. Through unparalleled access to the Society's modern archives and other archival sources, interviews with key individuals and extensive inside knowledge, Peter Collins shows how the Society addressed the challenges posed by the astounding growth of science and by escalating interactions between science and daily life.

1. Presidential politics and postwar priorities
2. Running UK science? 3. Supporting individual researchers
4. The applications of science
5. Defending the science base
6. Doing science publicly
7. Science and international politics
8. Keeping the door open
9. Europe: competition and collaboration
10. Doing science globally
11. Looking outward
Annex: running the Society
Sources
Index.

Subject Areas: History of science [PDX], Impact of science & technology on society [PDR], Science funding & policy [PDK], Postwar 20th century history, from c 1945 to c 2000 [HBLW3], Biography: science, technology & medicine [BGT]