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.
The first synoptic history of how the Royal Society faced up to the challenges of continued relevance from 1960 onwards.
Peter Collins worked at the Royal Society from 1981 to 2013, responsible primarily for the science policy function and latterly for governance and for history of science. These roles included substantial engagement in international affairs and in often controversial public debates. As a long-term core member of senior staff, he was closely involved in development and delivery of the Society's strategy, and had a ringside seat at many key events in this period. Before joining the Society's staff, he studied chemistry at Oxford and took a Ph.D. in history of science at Leeds. In addition to many Royal Society reports, he has published on the history of the British Association and of the Royal Society, including a volume of conference proceedings on the Society in the twentieth century.
'This is a scholarly account of the Royal Society's achievements in
promoting science in the UK and the rest of the world since 1960.
Peter Collins expertly summarises and analyses the major activities
of the Society focusing on where these had the greatest impact on
science. This is a great read and is thoroughly recommended.' Sir
Paul Nurse, President of the Royal Society
'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
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