Science in 2010

The Royal Society began in a discussion meeting 350 years ago and since then its essential purpose has always been to bring together the greatest scientific minds from all over the world in discussion without boundaries.

Discussion meetings

Each year the Society hosts a series of interdisciplinary scientific meetings. They focus on new or rapidly changing research fields in science, engineering and technology, and over two days hundreds of delegates from a wide range of disciplines discuss papers presented by leading researchers in the field. In 2010 we are expanding our programme of scientific meetings to pick out and begin to address the scientific questions that will dominate the 21st century.

The meetings will bring together world-leading researchers to tackle interdisciplinary topics and problems with global impact. They will reach broadly, both to map out the future of the most vital research fields and to communicate their growing importance to a wider audience. The topics will include:

• Greenhouse gases in the earth system
• The new science of ageing
• Handling uncertainty in science
• Web science: a new frontier

The meetings are the scientific backbone of our 350th anniversary celebrations and they will help to set the agenda for the next generation of scientists.

Science policy

The Royal Society has been advising rulers for 350 years, originally by convincing Crown and Parliament to attend to science at all, and now by providing the best synthesis of current scientific thought to leaders and policy makers all over the world. In 2010 the Society’s Science Policy Centre will publish two major reports: The Scientific Century has just been released and Global Science will follow later in the year.

History of science

The Royal Society’s Library and Archive is one of the world’s great scholarly resources. It includes manuscripts, books and paintings that provide a record of 350 years of scientific achievement, as well as contemporary journals and monographs about the history of science.

The library is currently closed for refurbishment because in 2010 it will reopen as the Royal Society Centre for the History of Science. Thanks to a grant from the Wolfson Foundation, the Society is modernising the library facilities, making its collections more available and creating a new space suitable for conferences, workshops and exhibitions. These begin in April with a conference on the Royal Society and 20th Century Science.