A vision for Venki: where next for the Royal Society?

With a roll-call of predecessors that stretches back to the 17th century and includes Samuel Pepys, Isaac Newton, Joseph Banks and Ernest Rutherford, the presidency of the Royal Society is one of the most prestigious - and daunting - jobs in British science. This week, as the society celebrates its 355th birthday, Sir Venki Ramakrishnan takes over from Sir Paul Nurse, as its 62nd president.

Sir Venki is currently deputy director of the MRC Laboratory for Molecular Biology (LMB) and a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. A biochemist, Venki studies how genetic information is translated by the ribosome to make proteins, and the action of antibiotics on this process. Together with Tom Steitz and Ada Yonath, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 2009.

The presidency of the Royal Society is an unpaid role, held for five years, but comes with a few perks, including a grace and favour apartment overlooking the Mall. More importantly, the president is expected to be a champion and ambassador for science, with policymakers, in the media, and with the wider public.

Venki has given a few hints about his priorities as president, but compared to his immediate predecessors, he is a less well-known public figure. So what can we expect from his period in office? And how will he stamp his mark on the UK’s national academy of science? We invited a handful of Fellows of the Royal Society to offer their thoughts.

Martin Rees FRS is emeritus professor of cosmology and astrophysics at the University of Cambridge, and former president of the Royal Society

The Royal Society’s independent voice has never been more important. Heads of research councils and university vice chancellors have less clout than in the past: they too often succumb to the management speak of metrics, impact and suchlike. So the Society has a unique obligation to proclaim the importance of sustaining UK research, and to sound an alarm about threatening trends.

As Paul Nurse has emphasised, active scientists are the best judges of what problems are likely to prove most fruitful and timely. In choosing a research topic, they are staking a big chunk of their working lives and their reputation. Those who become Fellows of the Royal Society will have shown better-than average judgement in this regard. And they should be listened to when they urge that ‘responsive mode’ funding should not be unduly eroded in favour of big ‘top-down’ projects.

The Society should offer the public (and politicians) the best scientific assessment of controversial issues, without downplaying the uncertainties. Its policy work is crucial - and it’s good that Claire Craig, a scientist who is now one of Sir Mark Walport’s deputies, is joining the Society to head up this area of its work.

But when engaging with broader social or ethical issues, I think the Society should be wary of advocacy and should instead present options. It should encourage scientists to participate more actively in public debates on (for instance) responses to climate change, and the ethics of gene editing. But it shouldn’t take a collective stance on topics where there are seriously divergent views among experts, as well as non-experts.

More and more science-linked issues need to be tackled globally (climate, energy, environment, health). Here the Society’s role is growing. Indeed right back in its first decade, the 1660s, it offered - in the quaint phrasing of its first published journal - a forum to ‘the undertakings, studies and labours of the ingenious in many considerable parts of the world’. Some countries still don’t have national academies that are sufficiently resourced and non-geriatric to be effective. So the Society has special opportunities in the international arena.

The Society has a high profile, but what’s not always recognized is how limited its resources are, especially in relation to its broad and expanding remit. In most quantitative respects, it is smaller than, for instance, the Institute of Physics or the Royal Society of Chemistry. And even though FRSs are a highly select group (and their pro bono efforts are hugely valuable), they represent only a small fraction of the UK’s active scientific expertise. The Society needs to fundraise effectively so as to expand its in-house senior staff, and at the same time use its convening power to expand collaborations (on education policy for instance) with other learned societies and academies.

The role of the honorary officers, and especially the President, will become more demanding if the Society is to punch its full weight. I wish Venki Ramakrishnan luck, but fear he’ll have to adjust to spending a much-diminished amount of time in his lab.

Lord Rees was president of the Royal Society for the period 2005-10.

Uta Frith FRS is emeritus professor at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, UCL

Five years are a fleeting moment in the long history of the Royal Society. The weight of tradition can be oppressive, and it takes constantly renewed efforts to enable growth and change. Just as in a person’s life, changes in the history of science are often imperceptible and rarely marked by sudden changes.

I am hoping that the projects that were started under our distinguished past presidents will continue to flourish during Sir Venki Ramakrishnan’s term of office. One of these is the mission to increase diversity. It is now widely agreed that we need to draw from the widest range of backgrounds and perspectives in order to maximise innovation and creativity in science. This is why the Royal Society seeks to develop a world in which studying and working in science is open to all.

However, diversity not only concerns individuals but also subjects that have been under-represented until now. Just like the demographics of Fellows, the range of topics in science has expanded enormously. The Society needs to keep up with developments that redefine the focus of different branches of science. When well established sciences acquire new neighbours, they are not always happy about these newcomers and remain sceptical about their staying power.

My own field, call it psychology, or cognitive or behavioural neuroscience, still leads a rather shadowy existence in the hallowed halls of science. Although nearly 100 years old, it is far from maturity. There is as yet no Newton. Many would agree that one of the biggest scientific challenges this century is to understand the mind-brain. So I dare hope that it will be possible to increase the number of outstanding scientists in this field, currently representing less than three per cent of the Fellowship.

This would lead to an increase in the prestige of mind-brain studies and attract more brilliant young researchers. One reason for the currently poor reputation of psychology is the obstinate belief that we already know what goes on in our mind, and that we can explain why we do what we do. This naïve belief will be overcome by improved communication of empirical findings, and especially of those that go against ingrained folk psychology. It’s not rocket science. It’s a lot harder than that.

Uta Frith is on twitter @utafrith

David Colquhoun FRS is emeritus professor of pharmacology, UCL

The Royal Society is commonly perceived as elitist, populated largely by old men, and craven in its attitude to its royal origins. The first women were elected only in 1945 (Kathleen Lonsdale and Marjory Stephenson) and in 2014, of approximately 1600 living Fellows and Foreign Members, 5 per cent were women. The average age of a newly-elected fellow is now 55.

But things have changed a great deal. The Royal Society now takes very seriously the problems of diversity. The success rate for men and women in fellowship applications is now similar, on average. It will take time for the changes to work though, but they will.

The Royal Society is good at public engagement with science, and that should continue. But perhaps the most valuable thing it does is to support for young people through its university research fellowships. These provide five years of freedom to get on with the job. And the Dorothy Hodgkin fellowships provide support to people who need career breaks (men are eligible, but most go to women). The success rate in applications for these is only nine per cent, and I hope that there will be far more of them in future. That may be necessary to protect discovery research from well-meaning, but often wrong, predictions of senior scientists about the next great breakthrough.

I hope too that the Royal Society will become more active in opposing the imposition of perverse incentives on scientists to publish. The Royal Society signed the San Francisco declaration on research assessment but only two universities have done so. Perhaps it should refuse grants to anyone who hasn’t signed.

David Colquhoun is on twitter @david_colquhoun

Athene Donald FRS is professor of experimental physics and master of Churchill College, University of Cambridge

The Royal Society needs to make sure its voice continues to be strong and independent. Given the challenges we face, from climate change to food security, as well as our local economic woes, this voice needs to stress the relevance of science to everyone’s daily needs and decisions. The message must be that science is not just an intellectual nicety for curious folk working in labs but vital for our society and its wellbeing.

Science needs to be recognized as a central part of our cultural heritage and a driver for future prosperity, indeed survival. These messages need to reach the heart of government and also the (wo)man on the Clapham omnibus. It is not sufficient for the Society to talk only to fellow scientists around the world. It must be, and be seen to be, outward facing and inclusive. And it must continue to engage with policymakers nationally and internationally.

So, as FRSs focus their minds on contributing to global solutions, they must also work hard at explaining what they do and why it is important – however blue skies their research. The new President should take the lead in delivering these important messages and demonstrate that the Society is no longer a club for elite gentleman, as in centuries past, but a vibrant community of diverse individuals and talents who have a significant role to play in our society. I look forward to working with Venki and to making my own contribution to this agenda.

Athene Donald is on twitter @AtheneDonald

Georgina Mace FRS is professor of biodiversity and ecosystems at UCL

After five years as President, Paul Nurse leaves the Royal Society in very good shape, so Venki can afford to do a few things differently and even to take some risks. My hopes for the next five years are not radical; but rather a shift in focus. I would like to see us concentrate on things that a well-founded and well-funded national academy can do, that comparable bodies cannot, leading and convening the scientific community to achieve the very best science, and ensuring its benefits flow to society.

I would like to see an invigorated international programme, as the next five years will see heightened concerns for international development and security. Science is essential for developing and sharing solutions, evaluating technologies, growing international networks, enhancing communications, and building trust.

These in turn need more effective linkages to social, medical and engineering sciences that are so close to our mission yet curiously difficult to integrate across the complex set of academies in the UK. We could take a look at how to do this better. I think the time is right to support networks for young and mid-career researchers; this will soon be their world and they need tools and approaches to cope with ever-increasing rates of change.

Finally, I would also like to see us do something radical with scientific publishing. After years of deliberations and false starts, let’s make it easier for scientists to swiftly bring their discoveries to the people who funded them and who need to know what they did. Let’s make it easier and cheaper for them to read, understand and use the research.

Georgina Mace is on twitter @GMMace

Laurence Pearl FRS is professor of structural biology and head of the School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex

Paul Nurse has been a hugely effective and astutely political president, who has developed a strong personal profile and leadership style that has helped put science - and especially his ‘big tent’ version of it - firmly into the public awareness. Whatever one may think of the ‘Nurse Review of Research Councils’ - which, in my humble opinion, is a bit of a curate’s egg - it is a testament to Paul’s clout that George Osborne seems to have taken it on wholesale.

Venki is a whole other kind of PRS. He is a very active hands-on researcher, still producing a constant stream of high impact publications that makes the rest of us look on in awe. So far, his focus seems totally on the science - his recent Bernal Lecture at Birkbeck College was a straight research seminar, very different from the big-picture ‘science and society’ themes that this prestigious event is used to. As far as I know (and unlike Paul), he has never previously run anything bigger than a research lab, so leading the UK’s National Academy is going to be quite a departure for him. But he is a very, very, thoughtful scientist who will assuredly work it all out in that curious mix of quiet reserve and profound enthusiasm that endears Venki to everyone that knows him.

Laurence Pearl is on twitter @laurencepearl

Tom McLeish FRS is professor of physics at Durham University, and chair of the Royal Society’s education committee

The Royal Society has for a long time worked with government, from its independent standpoint, to advise on national science and innovation policy. Its engagement with the landscape in science education is more recent, but no less vital for our future, both culturally and economically.

After three years of intensive work, in 2014, the society published its Vision for Science and Mathematics Education. This emphasises high quality science education for all, science throughout the school curriculum to age eighteen, strong support for science teachers and their careers, a better understanding of where a science education can take people, and research-based curricula and policy.

Central to the vision is the need to recover an understanding and experience of science as creative and experimental, which can be lost in present school education under the pressure of examinable course content. The new President will have the support of a strong education committee, representing expertise across the education landscape. There are opportunities to work with other professional bodies in science, in education and its assessment, and with the British Academy in those aspects of education policy that affect the humanities as well as the sciences. Without this, there will be no future science to work with.

Tom McLeish is on twitter @mcleish_t