Tackling the great challenges of the 21st century
Sir Paul Nurse, President of the Royal Society and Lord Stern, President of the British Academy, discussed the new opportunities – and need – for collaboration between the traditional academic disciplines to respond to the big issues of our time,....
More details | Watch nowWriting wrongs – Rachel Carson, Silent Spring
What role do literature, science and policy play in protecting the planet? Fifty years since the death of conservationist Rachel Carson, we look at her masterpiece Silent Spring, and ask: "What have we learnt? Listen to our panel of experts: author ....
More details | Watch nowThe Science and Policy of Climate Change
Climate change is the most serious environmental challenge facing society in the 21st century. The basic science is clear: the International Panel on Climate Change concluded that there is more than 90% probability that human activities are causing....
More details | Watch nowThe Royal Society and the Rothschild ‘Controversy’
In the early months of 1971 the Heath government asked Lord Victor Rothschild to Ôthink the unthinkableÕ in his investigation into government policy. His subsequent report on research funding proposed something the Royal Society judged to be wholly....
More details | Watch nowThe Nuclear Debate
New carbon targets requires reducing emissions of greenhouse gases by 50% for 2030. This house believes that it will be impossible to meet the emissions reductions required to fulfil these obligations without the use of nuclear power. Taking the pr....
More details | Watch nowScience Advice and Policy Making
Professor Sir John Cadogan was awarded the RSC Lord Lewis Prize 2010 in recognition of his distinguished research in organic chemistry and his wide-ranging, distinctive and significant contributions in industry and public service.
More details | Watch nowThe social function of history: policy, history and twentieth-century science
Historians bring to thinking about science policy a very particular understanding which should be central to policy: historians are trained to know in their bones that the future is unknown and to understand the power of the cheap futurism which char....
More details | Watch nowClimate change: The two-degree target
In December 2009, policy makers meet in Copenhagen, Denmark to thrash out a new global deal on climate change. The aim is to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures. We sent three young climate researchers along ....
More details | Watch nowBernal and the Social Function of Science
Chris Freeman, the founder and first director of the UK's Science Policy Research Unit introduces Bernal, the father of the protein crystallography techniques which enabled the double helix structure of DNA to be unravelled. Bernal's major impact on ....
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