Martin Taylor looks to the future

When I became responsible for overseeing the Royal Society’s Science in Society programme a few years ago, it was a fascinating new experience. My background was entirely in mathematics, and I had been involved in only a handful of Science in Society activities, such as public lectures and outreach into schools. It was a very steep learning curve, but with the help of John Selborne, who chaired our group of advisers, it has been hugely enjoyable. We have really made a difference on some important issues. 

I particularly enjoyed our project on the review of some of the work of the Food Standards Agency (initiated by John Krebs). We have done a very good job in keeping pressure on government for the environmental health and safety issues surrounding nanotechnology. The Royal Society’s scheme to pair scientists and MPs has been extremely rewarding, and has fostered strong links between the very different worlds of science and policy. Our work on synthetic biology is proving to be a very lively area of scientific development with substantial ethical and societal concerns. 

Funding discontinued

Given this newly-discovered passion for Science in Society activity, my initial reaction was to feel depressed when, in the government’s spending review last autumn, funding for the Royal Society’s excellent work in this area was discontinued. As a result of Ministers’ decisions regarding the full economic costs of research, there is less money to fund other activities. But the Royal Society has done a good job in pushing Science in Society up the agenda, and the government is now working on renewing its own work in this field.

Faced with these changing circumstances, we had to work out how to ensure that the Royal Society’s Science in Society work could continue to have an impact. Some of our flagship activities – such as the MP-Scientist pairing scheme – are simply too valuable to lose. To secure their future, we will be diverting resources away from other things we would like to have done. Indeed, we want to build on our success so, last year, we trialled an extremely successful system of pairing civil servants and scientists, which we hope to develop. 

Other parts of the Royal Society’s Science in Society programme will be brought into the mainstream of our policy work, sustaining our established commitment to thorough stakeholder dialogue in relevant areas, such as depleted uranium, nanotechnology, personalised medicine and synthetic biology. 
 
Similar activities

The Society also undertakes a whole range of activities in the broad field of Science in Society, but which are not formally part of the Science in Society programme. Our education team, for example, funds partnership grants, which give unique support to schools to work on stimulating, exciting and creative projects in partnership with scientists and engineers. More than 35,000 pupils and their teachers have benefited in the past four years. Our work on women in science – such as support for the Athena Forum – is helping to ensure that the scientific workforce is representative of UK society.

Our hugely successful programme of public lectures and events involves many thousands of people each year in exciting and cutting-edge science. The flagship Summer Science Exhibition alone attracts 5,000 people over three days each June and July, with interactive and hands-on ways of indulging a passion for science. 

Societal benefit

The Royal Society is approaching its 350th anniversary in 2010, and we are preparing a whole series of events and activities both to celebrate the past and to look to the future.

As we look back over our history, it’s clear that we have always set our work in the context of wider society. Our public lectures date back to the 1730s. The very first edition of the very first scientific journal ever published emphasised that science should be used for the ‘general benefit of mankind’ and it was the Royal Society that published it.

The loss of a funding stream for the specific Science in Society programme is serious; it will inevitably mean we cannot do everything we wanted to. But after 348 years of supporting science for the general benefit of society, the Royal Society has no intention of neglecting this important section of its work.
 
Professor Martin Taylor is Vice President and Physical Secretary of the Royal Society