Review of Session 2003-2004

The Royal Society of Edinburgh Review 2005
(Session 2003-2004)
THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH REVIEW OF THE SESSION 2003-2004
The Royal Society of Edinburgh 22-26 George Street Edinburgh, EH2 2PQ
Telephone : 0131 240 5000 Fax : 0131 240 5024 email : rse@royalsoced.org.uk Scottish Charity No SC000470
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THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH REVIEW OF THE SESSION 2003-2004
PUBLISHED BY THE RSE SCOTLAND FOUNDATION ISSN 1476-4342
CONTENTS
Proceedings of the Ordinary Meetings .................................... 3 Proceedings of the Statutory General Meeting ....................... 5 Trustees Report to 31 March 2004 ....................................... 19 Auditors Report and Accounts .............................................. 35 Schedule of Investments ....................................................... 55 Activities Prize Lectures ..................................................................... 59 Lectures ............................................................................ 109 Conferences, Symposia, Workshops, Seminars and Discussion Forums ............................................................ 159 Publications ...................................................................... 195 The Scottish Science Advisory Committee ........................ 197 Evidence, Advice and Comment ....................................... 201 Inquiries ........................................................................... 203 Events for Young People .................................................. 205 Research and Enterprise Awards ...................................... 209 Medals, Prizes and Prize Lectureships ................................ 217 Grants Committee ........................................................... 219 International Programme ................................................. 221 Fellows Social Events ....................................................... 227 Grants, Sponsorship and Donations .................................... 229 Changes in Fellowship During the Session ........................... 231 Staff .................................................................................... 233 Index ................................................................................... 235
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ORDINARY MEETINGS

10 November 2003 Chairman Professor Andrew Walker VPRSE Formal Admission to Fellowship Professor Jeffrey Williams Lecture Grand Challenges for Computing Research. Professor Sir Tony Hoare FRS, Senior Researcher, Microsoft Research Ltd. (page 109) 1 December 2003 Chairman Professor Gavin McCrone CB VPRSE Formal Admission to Fellowship Sir Gerald Gordon (Honorary Fellow) Discussion Do We Approve of a Jury System for Complicated Trails? Professor Gerry Maher QC, a Commissioner at the Scottish Law Commission, and The Rt Hon Lord Penrose, Senator of the College of Justice in Scotland. (page 162) 12 January 2004 Chairman Professor John Coggins VPRSE Discussion The Cause of Eating Disorders: The Individual, the Culture, or Both? Dr Chris Freeman, Consultant Psychiatrist, Royal Edinburgh Hospital and Dr Harry Millar, Consultant Psychiatrist, Eating Disorder Service, Royal Cornhill Hospital. (page 166) 2 February 2004 Chairman Lord Sutherland of Houndwood KT FBA PRSE Lecture The Value of the Performing Arts: An Illustrated Lecture. Professor John Wallace OBE FRSE, Principal, The Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. (page 120) 1 March 2004 Chairman Professor Andrew Walker VPRSE Election of Fellows (see list on page 231) Scrutineers Professor Roland Paxton MBE FRSE and Professor Vincent Bruce Proudfoot OBE FRSE Formal Admission to Fellowship Dr Malcolm Kennedy and Professor Stuart Reid. Lecture Electricity Supply in the New Century. Dr Malcolm Kennedy CBE FREng FRSE, Consultant, PB Power. (page 130) 5 April 2004 Chairman Professor John Coggins VPFRSE Formal Admission to Fellowship Professor Paul Bishop, Professor Callum Brown, Professor Graham Caie, Professor Alan Hood, Professor Anne Magurran, Dr Karl Oparka, Professor Lindsay Paterson.
Review of the Session 2003-2004
Lecture Frank Fraser Darling 1903-1979: Ecologist, Conservationist, Prophet. Professor Palmer Newbould, Emeritus Professor of Environmental Science, University of Ulster. (page 138) 10 May 2004 Chairman Professor Andrew Walker VPFRSE Formal Admission to Fellowship Professor Asen Michaylov Asenov, Professor John Alan Dawson, Professor Roderick Allister Mcdonald Galbraith, Professor Richard Milne Hogg, Professor Andrew Peter Mackenzie, Ms Agnes Lawrie Addie Shonaig Macpherson, Professor Stephen McLaughlin, Professor Philippe George Schyns, Sir John Ward KB CBE, Professor Alan Jeffrey Welch. Lecture Broadband Access Technologies: Reality and Myth. Professor Steve McLaughlin FRSE, Professor of Electronic Communication Systems, Institute of Digital Communications, The University of Edinburgh. (page 144) 3 June 2004 Chairman Professor Andrew Walker VPFRSE Formal Admission to Fellowship Professor Brian Ashcroft, Miss Frances Anne Cairncross, CBE,
Professor Deborah Howard, Professor Elizabeth Ann Moignard, Dr Mark Robert Shaw, Professor David Tollervey, Professor David John Webb, Professor Bonnie Lynn Webber, Professor Eric George Wright. Lecture The Coming Century Ten Trends to Back. Miss Frances Cairncross, CBE, FRSE. (page 146) 6 September 2004 Chairman Lord Sutherland of Houndwood KT FBA PRSE Formal Admission to Fellowship Professor Susan Jocelyn Bell Burnell, CBE FRS, Professor Oscar Peter Buneman, Professor Stuart Malcolm Cobbe, Professor David John Cooke, Professor David Alexander Syme Fergusson, Professor Bruce Philip Lenman, Professor Andrea Mary Nolan, Professor Murray George Hornby Pittock, Professor John Arthur Swaffield, Professor John Richard Underhill, Dr Christiaan Richard David Van der Kuyl. Lecture (Bruce Preller Prize Lecture) The Threat of Terrorism: The Place of Science. Professor Sir Keith ONions FRS, Director General of Research Councils, Office of Science and Technology. (page 77)
PROCEEDINGS OF THE STATUTORY GENERAL MEETING

Minute of the Statutory General Meeting held on 25 October 2004, ending the 221st Session
The Annual Statutory Meeting took place in the Societys Wolfson Theatre on Monday 25 October 2004 at 5.30pm. Lord Sutherland of Houndwood, KT, FBA, FRSE, President, took the Chair. Minutes The Minutes of the Annual Statutory Meeting held on Monday 27 October 2003 were taken as read, approved by those Fellows present and signed by the President as a correct record. Election of Officers and Council for the 222nd Session. It was agreed that Professor P M Grant and Professor R N Ibbett would act as Scrutineers for the ballot to elect the Officers and Council of the Society for the 222nd Session. The ballot papers were then collected and examined and following presentation of the Officers Reports (following pages), the Scrutineers reported to the President that Council and Office Bearers had been elected unanimously, as follows : Council President Lord Sutherland of Houndwood KT FBA Vice-Presidents Professor Gavin McCrone CB, Professor John Coggins Professor John Mavor.
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General Secretary Professor Andrew Miller CBE Treasurer Mr Edward Cunningham CBE Fellowship Secretary Professor Colin Bird, CBE Ordinary Members Professor Ron Asher Mr Ewan Brown CBE Professor Tariq Durrani Professor Rona M MacKie CBE Dr Ian P Sword CBE Executive Board General Secretary Professor Andrew Miller CBE Treasurer Mr Edward Cunningham CBE Curator Dr Brenda E Moon International Convener Professor Rona M MacKie CBE Programme Convener Professor Ian H Stevenson Research Awards Convener Professor David H Saxon OBE Young Peoples Convener Professor C A Tickle CBE FRS RSE Scotland Foundation Chairman Professor Andrew C Walker
Annual Review for Fiscal Year 2003-2004. The President commented that, in addition to producing the formal Trustees Report and Accounts for 2003-2004 in accordance with Charity Regulations, an illustrated Annual Review of highlights of the year (with a summary financial review) was again produced, and this had been widely circulated to all Fellows, as well as to many others interested in the Society. This publication was well received and it was agreed this arrangement should continue. The President then invited Professor Andrew Miller to present the following report: General Secretarys Report to the ASM There are two different annual reporting cycles at the Society, viz: - The fiscal year from April to March, and - The Session beginning and ending on the last Monday in October. Reports on both these periods come to the Annual Statutory Meeting (ASM) which concludes each Session. The overlapping nature of both these cycles could be a source of confusion and duplication, which we strive to minimise. Hence, you were sent an illustrated Annual Review, summarising the highlights from the more detailed Trustees Report
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and Accounts for the fiscal year 2003/04, which we are required to produce to comply with charity legislation. The General Secretarys report to the ASM is traditionally an oral report on the Session and will appear in full in the Review of the Session published annually and will be sent to all Fellows early next year. Significant developments during the current Session include. Changes in Governance and Management - following implementation of a re-organisation of the staff structure prompted by a review by Dr Chris Masters, the Council put forward plans for significant reshaping the way the Society is managed. These proposals were subject to detailed consultation with the Fellowship, including two wellattended Fellows meetings held on 31 May and 20 September. The level of interest shown by Fellows and the many constructive comments received was most gratifying. At the meeting on 20 September, the many changes to the Societys Laws necessary to implement the changes in governance and management were approved unanimously, after lively debate. These changes take effect from todays ASM. The principal changes are: - The Trustee membership of Council has been reduced from
Proceedings of the Annual Statutory Meeting
25 to 12, in order that Council can concentrate more on governance issues and increase the delegation of management issues to a largely separate Executive Board, consisting of Office Bearers and senior staff. - The Council will consist of seven Office Bearers, viz: the President, General Secretary, Treasurer, three Vice- Presidents and the Fellowship Secretary, and five Ordinary members, who normally will not be Office Bearers. - The existing offices of Curator, International Convener, Programme Convener and Research Awards Convener will continue with largely unchanged roles, except for the Curator, whose responsibility for ensuring building upkeep and maintenance will pass to the General Secretary. All these Office Bearers will cease to be members of the Council but will be members of the new Executive Board. - The Executive Board will replace the Business Committee and will be chaired by the General Secretary (not the President). In addition to the Office Bearers no longer members of Council, its voting members will be the Treasurer, Convener of the RSE Scotland Foundation Trustees, the Executive Secretary (to be
retitled Chief Executive) and the Director of Finance. - The other members of the senior staff management group will normally attend the Executive Board, but will not be voting members. - The roles of Secretaries to Meetings will cease and their duties re-allocated to the Fellowship Secretary and the Programme Convener. - The election of all Council members and Office Bearers will take place annually, normally at the Annual Statutory Meeting in October, but will be by postal ballot of all Ordinary Fellows (i.e. the vote will not be restricted to those at the Annual Statutory Meeting). Similar voting arrangements will be introduced for the election of New Fellows. - All Office Bearers and members of Council will continue to serve up to three years (subject to annual re-election) except the General Secretary, Treasurer and Programme Convener who can serve up to four years. The Annual Statutory Meeting (ASM) will be held on the first Monday in October (not the last). It is intended that the ASM will be arranged to allow more detailed consideration by Fellows of the Trustees and Office Bearers Reports, and
hence will not be followed by a public lecture. - A new independent Audit Committee will be created to replace the Treasurers Committee. I am sure that these extensive changes will serve us well and I should like to record my profound gratitude to the President for so skilfully piloting us through these changes and, especially, for doing so in a way which has not proven divisive within the Fellowship. Corporate Plan just as it is essential to be able to satisfy those who fund the Societys various range of activities, that there are robust systems of governance and management in place, so too we need to articulate clearly what the Society wants to achieve. The Corporate Plan first produced in 2001 was thoroughly reviewed. This demonstrated that far from being a wish list as some feared, the Society was able to meet almost all of the ambitious targets it had set. Against this background, the main strategic objectives of the new Corporate Plan for 2004 to 2007 are: - Consolidating core activities, with improved integration of delivery. - Seeking new resources to develop specific new activities to
expand the range of the Societys activities. - Encouraging greater involvement by the Fellowship. I hope we will be able to develop the latter aspect later during the ASM. Research and Innovation two of the six core activities of the Society shown in the Corporate Plan are: - supporting and enhancing excellence in the Scottish research base. - supporting the commercialisation of research and innovation. These are now important areas of activity for the Society, with over 60% of last years expenditure being on research awards, prizes and grants. The funding for these comes from a broad range of supporters as demonstrated by the following new appointments made during the Session: - 12 Enterprise Fellowships, funded by Scottish Enterprise - 2 Enterprise Fellowships funded by PPARC - 3 Scottish Executive Personal Fellowships - 3 Scottish Executive Support Fellowships - 2 Lloyds TSB Personal Fellowships - 2 Lloyds TSB Studentships
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- 1 BP Fellowship - 6 Cormack Vacation Scholarships - 6 Lessells Travel Scholarships - 7 Caledonian Research Foundation Visiting Fellowships These and other awards were announced at the Annual Research Awards Reception on 2 September 2004. Having been a research scientist myself, I am particularly pleased that the Society and its funding partners are able to offer so much to Scottish-based researchers and potential entrepreneurs working here today. I should also like to express my thanks to Professor David Saxon, who chairs several of the Selection Panels for our academic awards and to Dr Ian Sword, who chairs the selection process for Enterprise Fellowships. Processing so many diverse applications is not only time consuming, but requires astute perceptive judgement. Also presented in September were the Royal Medals for 2004. This is our most prestigious award conferred with the approval of the Societys Patron, Her Majesty The Queen. Maintaining the high standard of outstanding achievement, these Medals were awarded to:
- Professor Sir Philip Cohen FRS FRSE, for his outstanding contribution to Life Sciences. - Professor Sir Neil MacCormick FRSE FBA QC, for his outstanding contribution to academic life in Scotland and internationally, particularly in the field of legal philosophy, and - Professor Robin Milner FRS FRSE, for his outstanding contributions to software engineering. The Societys other major award is the Gannochy Trust Innovation Award which was presented to Dr Ian Underwood FRSE, for his work in light emitting polymers in miniature displays. This was awarded at a splendid event in the Royal Museum of Scotland on 1 October. Other Prizes were: The Makdougall Brisbane Prize, to Dr James Wright of the University of Edinburgh; the BP Prize Lectureship in the Humanities, which was awarded to Dr Rebecca Kay University of Glasgow; the Gunning Victoria Jubilee Prize Lectureship, awarded to Professor Peter Bruce FRSE, of the University of St Andrews. Evidence and Advice - this is now a high-profile activity for which I have direct responsibility, and I am pleased to be able to
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acknowledge the support given by Dr Marc Rands. The Societys multi-disciplinary Fellowship helped provide authoritative advice on a diverse range of public consultations. There were 25 submissions mainly in response to Government requests on both sides of the border. The Society also undertook an independent Inquiry into the future of the Scottish Fishing Industry. This major inquiry, independently funded, was Chaired by Sir David Smith with Vice-Chair Professor Gavin McCrone. It resulted in a comprehensive report which was widely welcomed and which received positive media coverage. In preparing the report the committee visited fishing communities throughout Scotland to take evidence, and listened to those affected by the decline in key fish stocks. Our thanks to Sir David, Professor McCrone and all of the committee for all their hard work and an excellent report. This continues an annual series of major Inquiries into controversial topics, where a broadly multidisciplinary approach gives new insights. Inevitably, some will not be pleased or agree with the conclusions reached in these Inquiries, but the feedback we have had from those with responsibility for implementing our recommendations is that they
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have found our reports most helpful. This encourages the Council to continue and we are actively considering options for our next Inquiry in 2005. The Scottish Parliament Science Information Scheme was established in 2003 in collaboration with the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Scottish Parliaments internal Information Service. This scheme provides rapid, reliable information on science-related matters for MSPs. The pilot phase of this has gone well and we are looking at ways to continue and improve this service for the future. International Activities in fulfilling our role as Scotlands National Academy, our programme of International Activities and links has continued to grow significantly over the Session, thanks both to the enthusiasm of our International Convener, Professor Rona MacKie, and the helpful partnership we have with British Council Scotland through the secondment of Michael White. Not only has there been a steady stream of distinguished overseas visitors, particularly from China and Taiwan, Poland, Ireland, Australia, the EU and the USA, but the Society has also funded 29 international exchange visits by Scottish researchers going to the USA, Australia, Armenia, Sweden, France and Argentina, as well as to China, Poland and Taiwan,
where we have bilateral agreements. Another important activity is the organisation of international events including: - Sino-Scottish Science: sharing ideas - a team of 10 from Scotland travelled to Beijing in March to take part in a workshop with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, as well as visits to a number of institutes. - Crossroads for Ideas - a UKwide initiative to welcome the eight new EU member states from East and central Europe by bringing together young professionals from the new member states and young professionals from the UK. - Scotland in the Netherlands 2004: Brain Science Event - the RSE was invited to arrange the science element of this season of promotional activities run by the Scottish Executive. Professor Richard Morris FRS, FRSE gave a public lecture in Amsterdam in late September and the following day 30 scientists from the Netherlands and Scotland had a productive high-level scientific meeting. - European Enlargement - During a year which saw Enlargement of the EU to 25 Member States, representatives of the RSE have participated in several related events, including hosting a dinner during the conference,
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Scotlands Role in the Enlarged Europe. - EU Framework 6 - a meeting hosted with the UK Research Office enabling researchers from Scotland to discuss the implications of consent agreements and intellectual property rights within consortia involved in EU Framework 6 research projects. An area of growing importance in the Societys international programme is the promotion of Scottish research and science abroad. The RSE has been involved in two new projects: the first was the publication of a magazine called Science Scotland funded by the Scottish Executive. It features the best of science and technology in Scotland and aims to raise the profile of Scotlands scientific excellence to an international audience. An Editorial Board has been set up, chaired by Professor John Coggins. The Society also had a key role in managing a pilot project called Voyages of Discovery involving Scottish Development International and Universities Scotland. This attracted research managers from large multi-national companies to come to Scotland with the aim of encouraging stronger research links. Two successful tours took place on Energy and Life Sciences. Events the Society has continued to organise a busy varied
programme of events aimed at the general public, young people and specialist audiences. These attracted large, lively audiences often filling the lecture theatre to capacity. There were 17 Public Lectures, 3 Prize Lectures, 10 Conferences and 3 Discussion Forums. Topics ranged from Heavy Quark Physics to the Value of the Performing Arts. Events of particular interest were: The Coming Century: Ten Trends to Back by Frances Cairncross FRSE Scotland and the Media: A Question of Trust, chaired by James Naughtie. The presence of Alastair Campbell attracted widespread interest. The Threat of Terrorism: The Place of Science by Professor Sir Keith ONions FRS, Director General of Research Councils, Office of Science and Technology Scotland and the Origins of Modern Art by Professor Duncan Macmillan, Curator of Talbot Rice Gallery, The University of Edinburgh Wind Energy - Powering the Future by Dr Ian Mays, Managing Director, Renewable Energy Systems Ltd. The Reliability of Fingerprint Identification by Mr Bruce Grant, Head of Fingerprinting, Scotland Yard; Professor James Starrs, Law and Forensic Sciences, George Washington University, Washing-
ton DC and Dr James Thorpe, Director, Forensic Unit, Strathclyde University The Young Peoples Programme has continued to grow. Amongst its activities were: The 2003 Christmas Lecture, Black Holes and White Rabbits, by Professor John Brown, FRSE, Astronomer Royal for Scotland was held at Inverness Royal Academy. A Discussion Forum for S5/6 students on how we should tackle the problem of Scotlands Future Energy supply. Maths Masterclasses for P6/7 students in Glasgow, Kirkliston and Dundee. Annual Road-show, held on the Isle of Skye, as part of National Science Week. This included a sell out public talk by BBC Meteorologist, Heather Reid. A further Road-show was held in Arbroath in October 2004. Start-up Science hands on Saturday morning masterclasses for S1/2 students at universities all over Scotland. Most classes were oversubscribed. Summer School - talks and workshops for S5/6 students, were held in partnership with Heriot-Watt University. Finally, Talk Science lectures lively talks were held at schools all over Scotland, from Wick and Tobermory to Selkirk
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Each year the Young Peoples committee presents awards to individuals who have made a particular contribution to this. In 2004 awards were presented to: - Dr Greig Chisholm, Ciba Specialty Chemicals - Dr Chris Baddeley, University of St Andrews - Dr Hilary-Kay Young, University of Dundee - Dr Lyndsay Fletcher, University of Glasgow - Dr Allan Jamieson, The Forensic Institute Publications were issued throughout the year. In addition to the scheduled volumes of our highly-regarded journals, Transactions and Proceedings A, and the usual Fellows publications and newsletters, we produced reports of RSE events such as the Discussion Forum on Stem Cells held in Brussels in October 2003 and the Young Peoples Discussion Forum on obesity in June 2003. Continuing to publish our highly regarded journals and providing useful and timely reports of our various activities, to further disseminate knowledge and understanding, will be a key focus of our activities in the coming year. Scottish Science Advisory Committee - the SSAC completed the first phase of its work in April and most of its members, having originally been appointed for two
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years, were replaced. The Society is very grateful to those who have contributed to the work of the Committee. The Committee began its second phase under the continued Chairmanship of Professor Wilson Sibbett and with a, largely, new membership appointed from August 2004. During the Session the following reports were published and these provide independent advice to the Scottish Executive on: - Science Education Matters: Supporting and Improving Science in Scottish Schools - Science Matters: Making the Right Connections for Scotland, - Knowledge Transfer: Science to Scottish Businesses - Investing in Scientific Talent Conclusion and Thanks This is by no means a complete account of all that has been achieved during the Session but it will be evident that we have made good progress on many different fronts. This reflects the enthusiastic and dedicated contributions made by many Fellows and the support we have had from the Societys staff. In particular, I would like to thank Sir Laurence Hunter who has been a most able Treasurer during a difficult financial quinquenium, when his clear thinking and cool head has served us particularly well as we
have faced and overcome serious financial challenges without having to abandon or curtail key activities. I would also like to thank Professor Andy Walker for his support as Vice-President during the past three years. I am delighted he has agreed to succeed Professor Robert Donovan as Chair of the Trustees of the RSE Scotland Foundation. Finally, there are eight other members of Council whose term of office finishes today and I am most grateful for their support. The President invited comments on the General Secretarys report, before it was warmly approved. The President then invited Sir Laurence Hunter to present the following report. Treasurers Report to ASM At this time last year I was able to report the first signs of a recovery from the difficult years of 20012003, and a prospect of a return to a positive outcome in the financial year 2003-04, with a commencement of the process of rebuilding our depleted reserves. I am pleased to be able to report to you this evening that this has indeed proved to be the outcome, in what has been a year that exceeded our expectations. This is my last report as Honorary Treasurer and I am delighted to be able to pass on to Edward
Cunningham, the Treasurer-elect, a satisfactory base from which to begin. Fellows will have the summary report provided in the Annual Review, and copies of the full report and accounts are available this evening and on the Societys website. I hope that this combination of summary and full detail continues to be acceptable. I have three tasks this evening: - to provide some detail on the outcome for 2003-04 - to comment on financial reporting arrangements and controls now in place - to bring Fellows up to date with developments since the end of the last financial year on April. Annual Accounts 2003-04 The headline news is that the Society achieved a surplus of 59k on its operating account during the year and was able to make a significant contribution to rebuilding the General Fund, which stood at 69k. This reflected substantial increases in both income and expenditure, reflecting the increased level of activities, and particularly the promotion of research through research awards and prizes, which rose from 55% to 62% of expenditure. The increase in income included 125k for international activities
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from the Scottish Executive, the Gannochy Trust Innovation Award, and increased support for research and enterprise awards. Some offset occurred in the lower level of Appeal funds from Fellows, though this flow still continues. Investment income held up well. On the expenditure side, grants payable increased by 32%, activities expenditure rose by 5%, while the cost of generating funds decreased by 75k as the first phase of fund-raising came to an end. Management and administration costs declined by 3%, reflecting a lower spend on PR and publicity compared with last year. The surplus on the revenue account was much better than budget. Variances were due firstly to Societys overheads being significantly below budget, offsetting lower contributions from some areas in which activity was reduced, and the waiver of interest from the Foundation; while the RSE Scotland Foundation benefited from the waiver on interest and some saving on overheads. Smaller contributions came from the Appeal budget and other designated funds. The realised surplus for the year after including realized gains on investments rose to 19,000 in the General Fund and 94,000 overall. This improvement from
last year is very welcome and reflects both increased funding levels and the recovery of the investment portfolio, following its realignment last year. The balance sheet shows a recovery from last year, up nearly 5%, due largely to the 15% increase in the investment portfolio value. Continuing progress has been made in working to assist the Foundation to recover from its deficit of net assets, and hopefully that deficit will be eliminated in the next year, with the recent waivers of interest payments becoming unnecessary. Financial Reporting and Controls Considerable progress has been made in recent years in upgrading the financial reporting and control systems to ensure that Council and senior officers are kept aware of financial issues during the course of the year, with a clear schedule of reporting. This has continued during the past year, not least with an eye to the probable changes in Charities legislation in Scotland, which will demand more transparency on the part of Charities and greater accountability on the part of Trustees. The introductory text to the Trustees Report draws attention to the SORP requirement for statements of policy on Investment, Grant-making and Reserves, and outlines the current policies that we operate. Of particular
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importance here is the intention to rebuild the reserves in the General Fund to a level where it could cover 3 to 6 months expenditure on central costs. It is encouraging that we have been able to make a good start in this re-building process this year, and have prospects for continuing the process next year. The arrangement with Speirs and Jeffrey & Co to manage our investments on a discretionary basis appears to be working smoothly and has contributed to economies relative to the use of an investment management company. After a competitive tender, the auditors were also changed this year and a number of useful points came to light as a result of a new set of eyes reviewing our accounting procedure again, with some economy of expenditure. Internally, the audit process will be passed from the Treasurers Committee (which will disappear) to the new Audit Committee, which will be set up under the new governance arrangements now approved. While there is no case for complacency, I believe that the steps taken in recent years have done much to improve the rigour of the Societys financial reporting and management procedures. The implications of new Charities legislation will still have to be considered carefully as it emerges.
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The Future Interim results for the current financial year suggest that the Society is on course to achieve its budget targets of achieving a net revenue surplus and building up the General Fund reserve - though the unevenness of activities and expenditure through the year always leave some uncertainties. The latest report from our investment managers suggests that modest progress is still being made, and the budgetary controls in place ensure that expenditures are closely monitored. It is pleasing to note that (as reported in the Accounts) a new designated fund the Programmes Fund has been established, with some contribution from the Appeal receipts, as a funder of last resort for meetings activities, to underwrite activities that are not otherwise fundable but are viewed as in line with the Societys objectives. In the longer term, the main task will be to secure the additional income that will certainly be needed if the objectives of the revised Corporate Plan to 2007 are to be achieved. That will require a continuation of the careful management of resources that is now in place, but it will also need new sources of income. The second phase of fundraising, to be aimed mainly at the corporate sector, was postponed during the period of general economic
downturn and uncertainty, but steps are now being taken to revive this initiative. This will involve a clearer statement of what funds need to be raised, identification of likely new sources of support, and the organizational arrangements to take this forward. If I may be allowed, I would like to finish on a more personal note. The last five years have been difficult and challenging, not least due to the substantial loss of income from our former tenants in 26 George Street. But they have also been very rewarding, with the development and implementation of the first Corporate Plan and the associated Business Plan and Fundraising Appeal, leading on to the second Corporate Plan. Finance has been central to all these developments, in the course of which I have greatly enjoyed working with my fellow-officers and a cross-section of the Fellowship more generally. But above all I am very aware of the considerable debt I owe to Kate Ellis and William Duncan, who have provided me with invaluable support throughout, and encouragement when things were not proceeding as one would have wished. I could not have wished for better support and my sincere thanks goes to them both for all their efforts. The President asked if there were any queries on the Treasurers
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report, which was well received without dissent. The President invited Professor Colin Bird to present the following report. Fellowship Secretarys Report to ASM This year Council approved some changes to the structure of the Sector Groups. The reasons behind these changes will be communicated in detail to Fellows when the list of candidates is distributed. The selection process is reviewed every year to ensure it remains an equitable and transparent process. The current changes were implemented by Council following an analysis of the distribution of candidates going forward to Sectional Committees over the past two years. In March this year the Society elected 55 Ordinary Fellows, eight Corresponding Fellows and three Honorary Fellows. With respect to the age of the Fellowship we have seen a positive trend towards electing younger Fellows for Ordinary Fellowship and this year the average age at election of the Ordinary Fellows was down to 49 (in 2003 it was 53). Nine of the Ordinary Fellows this year were female. Currently the Fellowship is composed of 68 Honorary Fellows, 24 Corresponding Fellows and 1267 Ordinary
Fellows. The discipline balance of the Ordinary Fellowship remains the same as last year with 38% from the Physical, Engineering and Informatic Sciences, 34% from the Life Sciences, 19% from the Arts and Humanities and 9% represent Economics, Business and Administration. In the Arts and Humanities and in Business and Industry, this represents an increase of around 2% since 1999 when the Working party on the Fellowship reported on the balance of the Fellowship. We have also seen an increase of around 2% since 1999 in the numbers of female Ordinary Fellows. Currently they make up 6.8% of the Ordinary Fellowship with the majority representing the Life Sciences. This year will see the introduction of the first postal ballot to elect Fellows. The ballot list as approved by Council will go out to all Fellows in December and the result will be announced at the Ordinary meeting on the first Monday in March. This will make it easier for all Fellows to engage in this process if they so wish. Finally, the Fellowship Office is moving towards a completely electronic method of distributing
the large amount of papers that have to go out to Sectional Committees. The first year of this process proved successful and will be built upon in the future. The President invited comments on the the report, which was warmly approved. Appointment of Auditor The President confirmed that, subject to negotiations over fees, Council intended to re-appoint Henderson Loggie as Society auditors. Following a brief discussion on achieving greater involvement of the Fellowship in RSE activities, the President concluded the meeting by thanking the Office Bearers for their comprehensive reports, and the Fellows for attending. It was generally agreed that the new format of the Annual Statutory Meeting, which allowed greater time for Officers reports and the opportunity for Fellows to discuss these, had been successful and should continue.
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TRUSTEES REPORT TO 31 MARCH 2004

The Council of the Society as Trustees of the Society present their report for the financial year ended 31 March 2004. Statement of Councils Responsibilities Under the Laws of the Society, the Council has the responsibility to manage all matters concerning the affairs of the Society. The Treasurer, a member of the Council, has a duty under the Laws of the Society to present to the Fellows at the Statutory Meeting the Accounts for the preceding financial year to 31 March. Under Charities legislation, the Council is required to prepare accounts for each financial year which give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the Society at 31 March and of its financial activities during the year then ended. In preparing these accounts, the Council should - select suitable accounting policies and apply them consistently - make judgements and estimates that are reasonable and prudent - ensure that the recommendations of the Statement of Recommended Practice (Accounting by Charities) have been followed - prepare the accounts on a going concern basis unless it is inappropriate to assume the Society will continue its activities. The Council has a responsibility for keeping proper accounting records which disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the Society and which enable it to comply with the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1990 and the Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 1992. It has general responsibility for taking such steps as are reasonably open to it to safeguard the assets of the charity and to prevent and detect fraud and other irregularities. Investment Powers and Policy The Council has power under the Laws to control the investment of the Funds of the Society. The management of the investments is carried out by Speirs & Jeffrey & Co on a discretionary basis. The objectives set by the Council of the RSE are first to stabilise a sufficient level of income to meet the target set annually by Council and thereafter to invest for capital growth potential. The Council has delegated the detailed monitoring of performance to the Investment Committee, which makes comparisons against a composite benchmark reflecting the mix of
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assets held and the WM Median index. As a consequence of the restriction being placed on the total return available from the portfolio by the high income requirement, the Council has agreed in principle to realise part of the overall capital gain to make up a proportion of the targeted return for the year subject to no more than 2% of capital value being drawn out of capital. This has not yet been drawn down. The income targets for the year have been met and the total return values have outperformed the average charity index and the UK market. Representatives of the Investment Committee meet annually with the investment managers to discuss their compliance with the constraints set by the Committee and risk environment. In the year under review no compliance issues arose which required to be reported to the Committee. Operating Policies - Grant Making The RSE makes grants to individuals in higher education institutions in support of research activities in the categories of postdoctoral research Fellowships, support research Fellowships, post graduate studentships, undergraduate vacation scholarships and Enterprise fellowships. Each of these categories is specifically funded from various sources
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including the RSEs restricted funds. The basis of eligibility and selection varies according to the detailed scheme regulations, which are published on the RSEs Web site (www.royalsoced.org.uk). Grants are also made in support of research activities of Fellows of the RSE including support for travel connected with research or scholarship, small scale specialist meetings, to assist research visitors to Scotland to undertake collaborative research work with a Fellow, to assist a visiting lecturer to come to Scotland to assist research collaboration between two institutions in Scotland or between universities and industry and to assist in the publication of books written by Fellows. These grants are funded by the RSE designated Grants Fund. The Grants Committee is responsible for making awards in accordance with the detailed rules set out by the Council of the Society for the disbursement of the Grants fund. Details of committee membership are to be found in the Societys annual directory and on its website. Reserves Policy and Funds The Society holds a number of restricted funds resulting from bequests for particular purposes, details of which are set out in note 2c) to the financial statements. The Council has also created designated funds, where
Trustees Report to 31 March 2004
the Society has set aside sums from its unrestricted funds, the purposes of which are set out in note 2b) to the financial statements. The General Fund represents the balance of unrestricted funds arising from past operating results, which are not invested in fixed assets or designated for a specific purpose. As a result of a review of the level and purpose of each of the Designated funds, the Council has created a new Designated fund, the Programme Fund, by transfer from the Grants fund and the Development Appeal fund. This Fund, which will also be increased by any legacies which are received for general purposes, is intended to act as a funder of last resort for meetings activities and events which could not otherwise be funded but that would be consistent with the Societys objectives. The Council has examined the requirement for free reserves, and concluded that whilst the present
level of reserves gives adequate working capital for core costs that it would be desirable to have a General Fund reserve in the range of three to six months expenditure on central costs. They have also concluded that the Society should maintain a Development fund to give flexibility to respond to new initiatives on a timely basis without the need for specific fundraising. Risk management The Treasurers Committee remit includes examining the major risks faced by the Society and formalising, and extending where necessary, existing systems established to monitor and control these risks to mitigate any impact that they may have on the Society. The Council believes that the existing systems and the structure of decision taking and reporting through Business Committee and Council continues to provide assurance that risks are carefully managed.
21
The Year 1 April 2003 - 31 March 2004
The Society has continued to thrive, thereby serving the interests of a wider community in Scotland, delivering the RSEs Royal Charter for the advancement of learning and useful knowledge in a twenty first century context. It has maintained and developed new strategic partnerships because working together with key public and private bodies, it can contribute more to the social, cultural and economic wellbeing of Scotland and beyond. The year to 31 March 2004 has seen changes: the staff structure has been reorganised; a revised Corporate Plan and a related management plan have been developed; and the governance structures and management of the Society have been looked at afresh. It has been an extremely dynamic and productive year in which the Societys resources in time, expertise and funding have been carefully managed, and put to good effect. The Corporate Plan In 2001 the Society produced its first Corporate Plan, which set a wide range of activity and programme targets through which the Society could make an effective contribution to a Scotland facing the challenges of devolution. It was intended to review and develop the 2001 Plan
22
after some experience had been built up and this has now been successfully completed. In order to provide further public benefit consistent with its Royal Charter, the Society has set three strategic objectives for 2004-2007. These are: - to continue to deliver its existing range of core activities, thereby maintaining existing arrangements with funders and partners; - to prioritise selected action areas and, where necessary, seek the resources needed for development; and - to encourage wider Fellowship and public participation, and better integration in the delivery of Society programmes. These strategic objectives will be achieved through a broad range of specific activities and programmes, each with defined targets. The outcomes depend on on the efforts of the Society staff and the Fellowship, all with their own expertise and skills. Fellows and staff are pivotal to the delivery process and achievements against targets will also be the subject of regular monitoring. All Fellows and staff have had the opportunity to contribute to the content and presentation of the Corporate Plan. Staff have also participated
in the setting of the operational agenda in the associated Management Plan. Research Awards, Excellence and Enterprise The Society continues to recognise, celebrate and promote excellence. The invaluable relationships with key funding partners, which enable us to award over 1.5 million annually, continued to grow due to the outstanding calibre of awardees and prize winners. In the period 2003-2004 the Society awarded fifteen Enterprise Fellowships, funded by Scottish Enterprise and one PPARC Enterprise Fellowship, one BP Fellowship, one Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland Personal Fellowship and two Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland PhD Studentships. With additional funding from the Scottish Executive now in place, the Society was able to award a larger number of Personal and Support Fellowships this year, awarding five Personal Fellowships and three Support Fellowships. Six Cormack Vacation Scholarships, seven Lessells Travel Scholarships, six CRF European Visiting Research Fellowships (four from Scotland to Europe and two from Europe to Scotland) and three Wellcome Trust Research Workshops were also awarded. As the result of an important new partnership with the Gannochy Trust, the Society was delighted to present the inaugural Gannochy
23
Trust Innovation Award of the Royal Society of Edinburgh to Dr Barbara Spruce, Department of Surgery and Molecular Oncology, University of Dundee for her innovative technology for the treatment of cancer. This award was presented by Sir James Black OM, FRS, Hon FRSE, at a ceremony held in Scone Palace on 21 June 2003. Individuals who have made outstanding achievements in their field which have been of benefit to people in Scotland and abroad continued to set the standard for the prizes awarded by the Society. HRH The Duke of Edinburgh honoured the Society greatly by presenting the Royal Medals at a ceremony held in the Societys rooms on 27 October 2003, to Professor Sir Paul Nurse FRS HonFRSE, for his outstanding contribution to genetics research, to Sir Michael Atiyah OM, FRS, HonFRSE, for his profound and beneficial effect on the development of mathematics and science in the UK and Europe, and to Lord MacKay of Clashfern PC, KT, QC, FRSE, for his outstanding contributions to Scots Law and his international reputation both in law and public service. The CRF Prize Lectureship in Biological Sciences was awarded to Professor Joan Steitz of Yale University, USA. The Bruce Preller Prize Lectureship was awarded to Sir Keith ONions FRS, Professor of
the physics and chemistry of minerals, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford and the new Director General of the Research Councils. The Henry Duncan Prize Lectureship was awarded to Professor Duncan Macmillan, Professor of the History of Scottish Art, University of Edinburgh. Events The Society organised a wide range of public events, involving a spectrum of speakers, of interest both to the specialist and the general public, offering a neutral platform for debate on matters of national and international importance. Attendance has continued to rise with full houses a regular occurrence. Feedback has on the whole been positive from audiences consisting of Fellows and non-Fellows including members of the public across the age range, individuals from business, academia, politics, the media, private and public bodies Examples of successful events held during the year include: Do we approve of a Jury System for Complicated Trials? - a debatestyle event between The Rt Hon Lord Penrose, Senator of the College of Justice in Scotland and Professor Gerry Maher, Commissioner of the Scottish Law Commission; The Cause of Eating Disorders: the Individual, the Culture, or Both? by Dr Chris P.
Freeman, Consultant Psychiatrist, Royal Edinburgh Hospital and Dr Harry R. Millar, Consultant Psychiatrist, Eating Disorder Service, Royal Cornhill Hospital, and Electricity Supply in the New Century, Dr Malcolm Kennedy, CBE, FRSE, Former Chairman, PB Power and of The Institution of Electrical Engineers. Other notable events included: A joint two-part conference with the British Academy: England and Scotland in Union from 1603 Anglo-Scottish Relations - Past, Present and Future (one held in London at the British Academy, one in Edinburgh); The Value of the Performing Arts - An illustrated Lecture, Professor John Wallace, OBE, FRSE, Principal, The Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama; Scotland and the Media - A Question of Trust a spirited conference which brought media managers, journalists, politicians, and other key stakeholders together; and Scotlands Drug Problem, a highly regarded conference in which a national and international perspective was applied to policies including legalisation. Links with Young People It has again been a busy year which has seen expansion for the ever-popular programme of activities for young people held throughout Scotland:
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A Discussion Forum (Supported by the Darwin Trust of Edinburgh and the Rowett Research Institute) on Scotlands Obesity Epidemic took place at the Rowett Research Institute, Aberdeen in June 2003. Senior school students heard the facts from the experts and held group discussions as to how society should proceed. A weeklong, non residential Summer Camp based at and in conjunction with the University of Edinburgh on the theme of Science in Our World was held in July 2003. It included talks, workshops and educational trips. Talk Science lectures (previously known as Schools Lectures), which aim to enthuse secondary school pupils about science, engineering and technology, were held at Culloden Academy, Brechin High School, Grangemouth High School, Inverurie Academy, James-Watt College (Greenock and Kilwinning Campuses), Preston Lodge High School, Torrie Academy, Springburn Academy, Stranraer Academy, Thurso High School, Tobermory High School and Wick High School. The RSE Roadshow was held on the Isle of Skye, as part of National Science Week in March 2004. Startup Science Masterclasses at the University of St Andrews (2 series), University of Dundee (2 series), University of Glasgow (2 series), Heriot Watt University (2
25
series) and Satrosphere/University of Aberdeen have continued to be very popular and often oversubscribed. The long-running primary Maths Masterclasses were held; at Kirkliston Primary School, Glasgow High School and the University of Dundee. The Physics Masterclasses, run in conjunction with the University of Glasgow, were held successfully in August/ September 2003. The 2003 Christmas Lecture, Black Holes and White Rabbits was given by Professor John Brown, FRSE, Astronomer Royal for Scotland at Inverness Royal Academy on 8 December 2003. Professor Browns accompanying public lecture in Inverness also received a warm reception from a sizeable audience. Young Peoples awards were presented for the first time to those who have made an extraordinary voluntary contribution to the Young Peoples Events. In August 2003 these were presented to: Dr Lesley Glasser MBE FRSE, Satrosphere; Dr Martin Hendry, University of Glasgow; Ms Heather Reid, BBC Scotland; Mrs Monica Lacey, University of Dundee and Dr Bruce Sinclair, University of St Andrews. Policy, Evidence, Advice & Comment The expertise of the RSEs multidisciplinary Fellowship was harnessed to provide authoritative
advice in response to 24 public consultations including: - CAP Reform: Opportunities for Scotland. Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department - Inquiry into Renewable Energy in Scotland. Scottish Parliament Enterprise and Culture Committee - The Future of Higher Education. Department for Education and Skills. - The Scottish Human Rights Commission. The Scottish Executive Justice Department. In response to concerns expressed within and outwith the Fellowship about the plight of the Scottish Fishing Industry, the Council instigated an independent inquiry into how a sustainable future could be achieved for this important national industry. Independently funded and chaired by the distinguished biologist, Professor Sir David Smith, FRS, FRSE with Vice Chairman, Professor Gavin McCrone, CB, FRSE, this major report was launched in March 2004, after almost a full year spent considering the many issues involved. The expert inquiry concluded that a secure and sustainable future for the Scottish Fishing Industry is achievable, but not without a long-term view being taken and important changes being made
both to policy and management. The report made 35 key recommendations covering the operation of the Common Fisheries Policy, the science of fish stock assessment and the management of fisheries policy. It also outlined measures to help the industry and the fishery dependent communities. It was widely welcomed. The Scottish Parliament Science Information Scheme was set up collaboratively by the RSE, The Scottish Parliament, The Royal Society of Chemistry, in association with The Institute of Physics and The University of Edinburgh. This innovative scheme, which was created to help Members of the Scottish Parliament to have access to reliable, rapid and impartial information on science, engineering and technology-related issues in order to support parliamentary work, has dealt with a number of queries from MSPs including: alternatives to fishmeal for feeding farmed salmon; wind farms; effectiveness of ventilation to extract toxins in tobacco smoke and Broadband coverage in Scotland. The Society also participated in the following Foresight/Commercialisation forums: - Scottish Executive Foresight Forum, developing a mechanism for examining future
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thinking between the ITIs, SSAC and DTI. - Scottish Executive National Innovation Systems working group undertaking a case study examination of innovation in Scotland, from the perspectives of different sizes and backgrounds of organisation. International Activities The Societys growing programme of international activities has attracted much positive attention during the year, with the result that the Society is increasingly being approached to participate in major projects, both within the UK and overseas. After a slow start, mainly due to travel restrictions to Asia, applications to the International Exchange Programme, launched in early 2003, are steadily increasing. Funding for the following visits has been granted: four weeks to/ from China under the bilateral agreement with the Chinese Academy of Sciences; nine weeks to/from Poland under the bilateral agreement with the Polish Academy of Sciences; five weeks to/from Taiwan under the bilateral agreement with the National Science Council; and 19 weeks under the Open Programme. A Stem Cell Discussion Forum was held on 15 October 2003 in Brussels. A full report of this successful event, which has stimulated new ongoing national
27
and international collaboration, is available from the International Office, and from the RSE website. A Voyages of Discovery programme was developed with Universities Scotland and Scottish Development International. This showcased Scotlands research excellence and capabilities in a range of disciplines to senior business executives, with the aim of creating stronger research links, and has completed its pilot stage. Two successful tours were run in November 2003 and January 2004 on the respective themes of Energy and Life Sciences. The Society hosted an EU Framework 6 meeting with the UK Research Office to discuss the implications of consent agreements and intellectual property rights within consortia involved in EU Framework 6 research projects. The RSE and the Chinese Academy of Science, with which there is a Memorandum of Understanding, organised a two-day seminar in Beijing in March 2004, entitled: Sino-Scottish Science: Sharing Ideas. It was followed by visits to key institutes to identify areas where there was potential mutual benefit in developing bilateral collaboration. The Chinese Academy of Sciences were among the Societys distinguished overseas guests, when a delegation led by its Vice-President visited in August 2003.
The President of the French Academy of Sciences delivered a lecture entitled European Science in Difficulty at the Annual Statutory Meeting - October 2003. Other international visitors included: The Chinese Academy of Forestry November 2003; The President of the Royal Irish Academy - December 2003; Senior Management from the Technical University of Lodz, - January 2004; the Polish Minister for Europe (and subsequently nominated European Commissioner), Professor Danuta Hbner - to deliver a lecture entitled New Europe: World Views - January 2004; and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences March 2004. The National Science Council of Taiwan (Taipei Representative Office in the UK) met RSE delegates in Edinburgh in September 2003 and March 2004. Science Scotland is an electronic and print publication created by the Society, in partnership with the Scottish Executive, British Council Scotland and Scottish Development International, which features the best of science and technology in Scotland, with the objective of raising awareness in an international audience. The first issue of Science Scotland was launched at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, held in Seattle in February 2004.
Publications The Society published the following titles during the year. ReSourcE (formerly called RSE News) - issues were published in April 2003, October 2003 and January 2004. (ISSN 1473-7841); The Fellows Directory 2004, December 2003 (ISSN 14764334); Review 2003 (review of Session 2001-2002), Spring 2003 (ISSN 1476-4342); Annual Review 2003, September 2003 (ISSN 1742-1810); and the Trustees Report 2003, September 2003. Transactions - volumes 93.3, 93.4 and 94.1 and Proceedings A volumes 133.2 to 133.6 and volume 134.1 were also published. The following publications reporting RSE events were produced and are available from the Society: Diet and Obesity: Report of Young Peoples Discussion Forum (ISBN 0 902 198 83 1) I, Cyborg: the 2003 RSE/Royal Academy of Engineering Joint Lecture (ISBN 0 902 198 68 8) Scotlands Drug Problem: Report of an RSE Conference (ISBN 0 902 198 73 4)) Stem Cell Research Opportunities and Challenges: Report of Discussion Forum (ISBN 0 902 198 88 2)
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The A-Z of Oral Cancer: An Holistic Route: Report of Oral Health Workshop (ISBN 0 902 198 63 7) The Future of the Scottish Fishing Industry: Inquiry Report (ISBN 0 902 198 09 2) Value of the Post-Mortem Examination: Report of an RSE Conference (ISBN 0 902 198 78 5) Fellowship In March 2004 the Society elected 55 Ordinary Fellows, eight Corresponding Fellows and three Honorary Fellows. The average age at election of the Ordinary Fellows was 49 (last year it was 53). Nine of the Ordinary Fellows were female. At September 2004 the Fellowship comprises 71 Honorary Fellows, 24 Corresponding Fellows and 1278 Ordinary Fellows. The discipline balance of the Fellowship remains the same as last year - 34% of the Ordinary Fellowship represent disciplines in the Life Sciences, 38% in Physical, Engineering and Informatic Sciences, 19% in Arts and Humanities and 9% in Economics, Business and Administration. The majority (77.6%) of Ordinary Fellows are resident in Scotland, 17.4% in England, 4.8% overseas and 0.2% either in Wales or Ireland.
Staffing Matters We were pleased to welcome the following to the staff team: - Ms Christel Baudere, Personnel Assistant - Ms Emma Faragher, Education Assistant - Ms Jean Finlayson, International Assistant - Mrs Rebecca Gibson, Receptionist/Telephonist - Mr Gary Johnstone, Accounts Assistant - Mrs Sheila Stuart, Administration Assistant The following members of staff left during the year. - Miss Cathy Crawford, Receptionist/Telephonist, - Mrs Elizabeth Bigelow, Receptionist/Telephonist - Mrs Sharon Jesson, PA to President and General Secretary - Mr Colin Nelson, Facilities Assistant Sandra McDougall, latterly Special Projects Manager and formerly Programme Manager, retired after 29 years service, in June 2003. A well-attended reception was held to mark her service to the Society.
29
Financial review 1 April 2003 - 31 March 2004 After the difficult financial circumstances of the last two or three years, it is pleasing to be able to report a successful outcome in my last year as Treasurer. Result for the Year The overall result at the net incoming resources, or revenue, level was a surplus of 59,000, with the General Fund result contributing 18,000 of this sum. The realised surplus for the year after including realised gains on investments rose to 19,000 in the General Fund and 94,000 overall. This improvement from last year is significant and reflects both increased funding levels and the recovery of the investment portfolio, following its realignment last year. The result is in line with the expectation set out last year, which was for a balanced budget and a contribution to the rebuilding of the General Fund. Income and Expenditure Total incoming resources of 2.9m have increased by 19% or 0.46m over last year. The increase has come from both donations and grants and support for our charitable activities. The increase in Donations and grants of 15% or 0.15m includes 125,000 of new money for international activities from the
30
Scottish Executive and a donation from the Gannochy Trust for the prestige Gannochy Trust Innovation Award. These new sources are offset by the expected lower level of Appeal receipts from Fellows, although a pleasing stream of annual donations is continuing. The support of charitable activities has increased by 19% or 0.27m. The majority of the increase comes from increased support for research and enterprise awards. Income for the latter has almost doubled as the appointment of a further fifteen Scottish Enterprise Fellows during the year flowed through to income and expenditure. Close to half the total expected numbers of appointments have now been made in this very successful scheme, which commenced in 2002 and is scheduled to run until 2007-08. In addition there continues to be a steady flow of PPARC Enterprise Fellows. The income from Scottish Executive for post doctoral Research Fellowships has also risen in line with a rise in the number of postholders to be funded. Income for other activities has shown some decreases, not due to a fall in general activity levels but due to the impact of some one off projects in 2002-03.
Investment income has held up well at 92,000, despite the final removal of the transitional tax relief on dividends. The total of this category is boosted by interest received on cash, which is mainly held in the designated funds, and interest of 30,000 received on the loan to the RSE Scotland Foundation. Resources expended As would be expected from the increase in income, the total resources expended have increased by 17% or 0.41m from last year. This mainly reflects the increase in support for research and Enterprise awards discussed above. Expenditure categorised as Cost of Generating funds has decreased this year by 75,000, as the formal and very successful first phase of fundraising came to a close. In the present economic climate there has been little activity in the second phase, corporate fundraising, and this is shown by the decline in expenditure. This heading does not include the costs of ongoing negotiation with, claims from and reconciliations for funders of continuing activities. These costs are regarded as support costs for the activities concerned. Grants payable of 1.76m have increased by 34% or 0.45m. This includes the costs of the first Gannochy Trust Innovation Award
31
as well as the disbursement of the increased funding for research and enterprise awards. Expenditure on Activities has increased by 5%, mainly in the area of international activities where, with funding from Scottish Executive and in partnership with the British Council, the Society has established a substantial programme of activity. This is co-ordinated by Michael White, who has been seconded on a part-time basis from the British Council. Management and Administration costs have decreased by about 6,000 or 3% overall, but this is mainly due to a lower spend on PR & publicity, as compared to the previous year. The management component of this category has increased by 5,000 or 6%, in line with the overall increase in central costs of 5.8%. It is pleasing to note that some elements of central costs have decreased as a result of careful management, offsetting the rise in salary cost as a result of increased staffing. Worth noting are the 10,000 reduction in professional fees as a result of the transfer of the investment management to Speirs & Jeffrey and a 20% reduction in audit fees obtained by the change in auditors from KPMG to Henderson Loggie. As is explained in the policy on reserves on page 3, the Council
undertook a review of the level and purpose of all the Designated Funds. The transfers shown in the Statement of Financial Activities represent the release from the Capital Asset Reserve of a total of 101,000 to match the write down of buildings and the capital repayment of the loan to the Foundation, of which 47,000 is passed to General Fund, net of a transfer of 8,000 to the Staff Development Fund. Balance Sheet Net assets have recovered somewhat from the decline last year, being up 4.7% overall to a total of 7.0m; the major reason being the 15% increase from 1.73m to 1.98m in the investment portfolio. The loan to the RSE Scotland Foundation continues to decrease annually by 47,000, the amount of the capital repayment, despite the partial waiver of interest payments, required to assist the Foundation to recover from its deficit of net assets. As can be seen from note 23, continuing progress is being made in this direction. Net current assets have increased by 41% to 551,000. Of the total cash balance, 591,000 is allocated to Designated funds, the major part of which is the cumulative receipts from the Appeal; a further 209,000 relates to restricted income; cash is favoura32
bly affected where restricted income is received in advance of the committed expenditure. In this case a deferred income balance is held in creditors - this has increased by 81,000 this year. The net assets are allocated to the funds they support as set out in note 20. As the General Fund balance is much improved, it now has a proportionate share of the investment portfolio as well as the share of the current assets and liabilities. In addition the extent to which the General Fund is funded by cash balances held in the Designated Funds is much reduced. Fundraising As mentioned above, the second phase of fundraising, aimed largely at the corporate sector, has not yet got properly under way, due to the continuing uncertainties in the industrial and commercial worlds. It is hoped that in the coming year a positive start will be made in identifying possible sources of support and additional finance for new development. In the longer term, success in fundraising will be essential to enabling the Society to achieve its strategic intentions in the new Corporate Plan. Conclusion and Future Prospects After two or three years of real difficulty, my hope that we would turn the corner in 2003-2004 has been fulfilled. While still
maintaining an expanded programme of activities, the Society has achieved a modest surplus, the investment portfolio has continued its recovery, the rebuilding of the General Fund has begun, and initial provision has been made to establish a new (designated) Programme Fund to support some events and meetings activities that are desirable but require internal financial support to make them happen. These are very welcome developments, which are due in part to additional funding from a variety of sources, including the first phase of the Appeal, but also to improved housekeeping in the form of tight financial management, budgeting and planning. Hopefully, the procedures now in place will continue to deliver benefits, though there is a continuing need for prudence in expenditure plans and for a watchful eye on staffing and administrative costs. Experience suggests that the unexpected will surely happen at some point, and it is for this reason that the General Fund needs to be re-built towards the target level of 3-6 months expenditure on central costs. This has to be seen as a medium term objective but it is important that we continue to make progress towards it, as a key feature of our risk-management policy.
The next phase of the Societys Corporate Plan has now been prepared and in the current year is being implemented successfully. To a large extent, the intention is to consolidate the growth in activity over the last five years, which is consistent with the present financial situation. But there are some new aims also, and if these are to be delivered in full, additional funding will be required. It is necessary to underline the fact that without supplementary funding support, progress towards these new targets may be very limited. This is my final Report as Treasurer. Looking back over the last five years, I am delighted at the progress that has been made by the Society in achieving a more active - and indeed proactive role, both in Scotland and further afield, particularly in international relationships. Finance has been a key factor in enabling these developments, and I am very conscious of, and grateful for, the contributions of Fellows in the Appeal; not only for the intrinsic benefits these bring, but also as they have encouraged greater support from the Scottish Executive and other donors and supporters of mutually beneficial activities. But my biggest debt is to Kate Ellis and William Duncan for their unfailing support and excellent advice on the financial and administrative management
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AUDITORS REPORT AND ACCOUNTS

We have audited the financial statements on pages 37-54. These accounts have been prepared under the historical cost convention as modified to include the revaluation of investments and in accordance with the Statement of Recommended Practice: Accounting by Charities and applicable accounting standards. This report is made solely to the Societys Trustees, as a body, in accordance with regulation 7 of The Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 1992. Our audit work has been undertaken so that we might state to the Societys Trustees those matters we are required to state to them in an auditors report and for no other purpose. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we do not accept or assume responsibility to anyone other than the Society and the Societys Trustees as a body, for our audit work, for this report, or for the opinions we have formed. Respective responsibilities of Council and Auditors The Council is responsible for preparing the Trustees Report and, as described above, the financial statements in accordance with the Laws of the Society, relevant United Kingdom legislation and accounting standards. Our responsibilities, as independent auditors, are established in
35
the United Kingdom by statute, the Auditing Practices Board and by our professions ethical guidance. We report to you our opinion as to whether the financial statements give a true and fair view and are properly prepared in accordance with the Laws of the Society, the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions)(Scotland) Act 1990 and the Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 1992. We also report to you if, in our opinion, the Trustees Report is not consistent with the financial statements, if the Society has not kept proper accounting records, if we have not received all the information and explanations we require for our audit, or if information specified by The Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1990 and The Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 1992 is not disclosed. We are not required to consider whether any statement in the Trustees Annual Report concerning the major risks to which the charity is exposed covers all existing risks and controls, or to form an opinion on the effectiveness of the charitys risk management and control procedures. We read other information contained in the Trustees Annual Report and consider whether it is consistent with the audited
financial statements. We consider the implications for our report if we become aware of any apparent misstatements or material inconsistencies with the financial statements. Our responsibilities do not extend to any other information. Basis of audit opinion We conducted our audit in accordance with Auditing Standards issued by the Auditing Practices Board. An audit includes examination, on a test basis, of evidence relevant to the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements. It also includes an assessment of the significant estimates and judgments made by the Trustees in the preparation of the financial statements, and of whether the accounting policies are appropriate to the Societys circumstances, consistently applied and adequately disclosed. We planned and performed our audit so as to obtain all the information and explanations which we considered necessary in order to provide us with sufficient evidence to give reasonable
assurance that the financial statements are free from material mis-statement, whether caused by fraud or other irregularity or error. In forming our opinion we also evaluated the overall adequacy of the presentation of information in the financial statements. Opinion In our opinion the financial statements give a true and fair view of the state of the Societys affairs as at 31 March 2004 and of its incoming resources and application of resources including its income and expenditure for the year then ended and have been properly prepared in accordance with the Laws of the Society, The Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1990 and the Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 1992.
Henderson Loggie Chartered Accountants Registered Auditor Edinburgh September 2004
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ACCOUNTS
BALANCE SHEET 31 MARCH 2004
Note No. Fixed Assets Tangible fixed assets Fixed Asset Investment Investments at market value Historical Cost :1,862,114. (2003-1,816,974)) Loan to RSE Scotland Foundation Current Assets RSE Scotland Foundation current account Debtors Cash at bank and in hand Money Market and other term deposits - designated funds - General fund 13 14a 2004 2,475,829 1,989,023 2003 2,531,269 1,732,239
AT
14b
2,031,560 6,496,412 -) 86,588) 74,259) 591,045q 208,955q 960,847q 63,125q 73,000q 118,326q 464,945q 36,185 755,581q
2,078,368 6,341,876
15
Current Liabilities Creditors : Amounts falling due within one year Net Current Assets Net Assets Funds General Fund Designated Funds Restricted Funds 16 (409,611) 551,236 7,047,648 17 18 19 20 Approved by the Council on 20 September 2004 69,103 5,764,491 1,214,054 7,047,648 (365,681)q 389,900 6,731,776 1,142 5,677,421 1,053,213 6,731,776
Laurence C Hunter Sir Laurence Hunter, CBE Treasurer
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STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES (INCORPORATING THE INCOME AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT) YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2004
Note No. General Fund Designated Funds Restricted Funds 2004 Total 2003 Total
Incoming resources Donations , grants and similar incoming resourcess Activities in furtherance of the Societys objectives Investment income Total incoming resources Resources Expended Cost of generating funds Charitable expenditure: Grants payable Activities in furtherance of the Societys objectives Buildings, management and administration Total resources expended Net incoming resources before Transfers Gains/(losses) on investment assets Realised gains Realised losses
4 5 6
706,333 73,437 46,264 826,034
56,558 49,716 106,274
315,604 1,590,238 58,552 1,964,394
1,078,495
933,881
1,663,675 1,394,109 154,532 112,558 2,896,702 2,440,548
7 8 9 10
9,119 13,872 571,467 213,502 807,960 18,074x
22,117 38,138 9,719 69,974 36,300
1,726,785 232,894 1,959,679 4,715v
9,119
84,257
1,762,774 1,310,936 842,499 223,221 801,603 229,404
2,837,613 2,426,200 59,089 14,348d
1,649 (118) 1,531
13,206 (942) 12,264d 48,564d (38,713) 77,219 87,070 5,677,421 5,764,491
23,040 (1,642) 21,398 26,113 134,728 160,841 1,053,213 1,214,054
37,895 (2,702) 35,193 94,282 221,590 315,872
29,308 (380,496) (351,188) (336,840) (163,988) (500,828)
Realised Surplus/(deficit) for the year Transfers between funds 18 Unrealised gains /(losses) Net Movement in Funds Balance brought forward at 1 April 2003 Balance carried forward at 31 March 2004
19,605. 38,713 9,643. 67,961. 1,142 69,103
6,731,776 7,232,604 7,047,648 6,731,776
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Auditors Report and Accounts
CASH FLOW STATEMENT YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2004
2004 Cash flow statement Net cash outflow from operating activities Returns on investments and servicing of finance: Interest received Dividends received Capital expenditure and financial investment: Purchase of tangible fixed assets: Proceeds from sale of investments Purchases of investments Loan to RSE Scotland Foundation (2,730)
2003 (23,835)
58,230 96,388 154,618 (451) 262,552 (262,552) 46,808 46,357
13,794 91,123 104,917 (421) 1,101,180i (1,087,384) 46,808i 60,183i 141,265 182,877 324,142
Net cash flow before financing Financing Appeal receipts Increase in cash in the year
198,245 56,558 254,803
Reconciliation of net cash flow to movement in net funds (note 25) Increase in cash in the year Net funds at beginning of year Net funds at end of year
254,803 619,456 874,259
324,142 295,314 619,456
Reconciliation of net movement in funds to net cash outflow from operating activities Net incoming resources before Transfers Appeal receipts Dividends receivable Interest receivable Depreciation (Increase)/Decrease in debtors (Increase)/ decrease in RSE Scotland Foundation current account Increase in creditors Net cash outflow from operating activities
59,089 (56,558) (92,636) (58,230) 55,890 (17,340) 78,455 28,598 (2,730)
14,348) (182,877) (94,783) (13,455) 56,529) 9,184) (7,062) 194,281) (23,835)
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NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2004

1 Accounting basis The accounts have been drawn up to comply with the provisions of the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1990, the Charity Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 1992 and follow the recommendations of the revised Statement of Recommended Practice for charities (SORP) approved by the Accounting Standards Board in October 2000 and applicable accounting standards. The accounts have been prepared under the historical cost accounting rules as modified to include the revaluation of investments. The accounts comprise three primary financial statements: the Statement of Financial Activities, which incorporates the Income and Expenditure Account, the Balance Sheet and the Cash Flow Statement. Funds The Societys funds are classified in accordance with the definitions in the SORP into Restricted funds, where there are restrictions placed by a donor as to the use of income or capital, Designated funds, where the Council of the Society has set aside sums from its unrestricted funds for a particular purpose, and the General (unrestricted) Fund. The classifications made are as follows: a) General Fund a discretionary Fund available to Council to meet the ordinary activities of the Society. b) Designated Funds Staff restructuring fund In July 2000 Council resolved to create a Staff restructuring fund, to be used at its discretion to provide flexibility in staffing arrangements and in developing future operations. Development Appeal Fund an appeal to provide development finance to implement the Societys Corporate plan Capital Asset Reserve Fund representing the book cost of the rooms at 22-24 George Street, and 26 George Street and an allocation in respect of funding of the refurbishment of 26 George Street. Building Maintenance Fund a reserve to support the future maintenance of the fabric of the Rooms. Dr James Heggie Fund income from this fund supports the Societys activities with young people. Grants Fund a fund created by contributions and legacies from Fellows and used to provide grants to support research activities of Fellows. Programme Fund a fund created in 2004 by transfer from the Development Appeal fund and surplus funds in the Grants fund to act as a source of funding for meetings activities. C H Kemball Fund income from this fund is used to provide hospitality for distinguished visitors from other learned societies and academies. c) Restricted Funds Robert Cormack Bequest to promote astronomical knowledge and research in Scotland Lessells Trust to fund scholarships abroad for engineers Auber Bequest to fund research in Scotland and England by naturalised British Citizens over 60 years of age Prizes Fund to fund various prizes Dryerre Fund to fund postgraduate research in medical or veterinary physiology Piazzi Smyth Legacy Fund to fund high altitude astronomical research CASS Fund to fund academic/industrial liaison Retailing Seminar Fund to fund a programme of seminars on retailing Accounting Policies Incoming resources a) Donations grants and similar incoming resources Subscriptions are accounted for on the basis of the subscription year to October 2004 and include income tax recoverable on subscriptions paid under Gift Aid. Revenue grants are credited to income in the period in which the Society becomes entitled to the resources. Donations of a recurring nature from other charitable foundations and one-off gifts and legacies included in other income are taken to revenue in the period to which they relate. b) Incoming resources for charitable activities Incoming resources for activities are accounted for on an accruals basis. Publication income receivable in foreign currencies is converted into sterling at rates of exchange ruling at the date of receipt. c) Investment income Interest and dividends are accounted for gross in the year in which they are receivable, tax deducted being recovered or recoverable from the Inland Revenue. Resources expended d) Expenditure and support costs All resources expended are included on an accruals basis and where directly attributable allocated to the relevant functional category. Central costs, which include support costs, are allocated to categories of resource expended in proportion to staff salaries e) Tangible Fixed Assets, Depreciation and repairs The Societys principal assets are its buildings in George Street, Edinburgh, which are stated at historical cost. Under FRS 15 the Society depreciates the buildings assuming a 50 year life. It is the policy of the Council to maintain the buildings to a high standard and a provision is made for upkeep of the buildings through a designation from General Fund. Any permanent diminutions in value are reflected in the Statement of Financial Activities. Costs of repairs and maintenance are charged against revenue. Minor equipment is written off to Income & Expenditure Account in the year of purchase. Computer and audio-visual equipment is depreciated on a straight-line basis over four years. f) Investments Investments are stated at their market value at the balance sheet date. Gains and losses on disposal and revaluation of investments are charged or credited in the Statement of Financial Activities and allocated to funds in accordance with their proportionate share of the investment portfolio. g) Pensions The Society participates in defined benefit pension schemes which are externally funded. The cost of providing pensions is allocated over employees working lives with the Society and the Foundation and is included in staff costs.
40

Note No. 4a Donations, grants and similar incoming resources Fellows subscriptions Scottish Executive Grant - international activities Scottish Executive Grant other activities Scottish Executive Grant re Scottish Science Advisory Committee Gannochy Trust Other grants and donations Gifts in kind - (value of secondment of staff) Appeal receipts 2004 145,741 125,000 369,087 156,224 104,111 58,774 63,000 56,558 1,078,495 4b Subscriptions Contributions from Fellows Admission Fees Annual Subscriptions Income tax recoverable under gift aid 2003 133,422 14,467 328,000 150,000 75,240 49,875 182,877 933,881
4b
24a 4c
13,340 114,638 17,763 145,741
13,200 103,158 17,064 133,422
4c Other grants and donations Fleck additional receipt Lessells Trust additional receipt Legacy Donations for Foot & Mouth Disease Inquiry Donations for Fishing Disease Inquiry Sales of ties (net) Sales of sundry publications Other income
1,722 9,948 45,321 585 183 1,015 58,774
3,207 12,291 13,563 44,155 285 584 1,155 75,240
In addition to the donations set out above the Society receives donations made specifically in support of meetings which are included in meetings income (see note 24c) 5a Activities in furtherance of charitable objects incoming resources Promotion of research Meetings Educational activities Academic / Industry links International activities 5b 2004 1,560,490 84,884 6,268 3,000 9,033 1,663,675 5b Promotion of research receipts Scottish Executive grant Research fellowships Teaching fellowships British Petroleum Research Fellowships Trust Caledonian Research Foundation Scottish Enterprise PPARC Enterprise Fellowships Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland 2003 1,202,183 133,230 41,700 16,996 1,394,109
538,690 25,124 143,909 30,979 591,216 28,332 202,240 1,560,490
476,086 24,059 148,497 27,863 312,830 25,840 187,008 1,202,183
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Note No. 6 Investment income Dividends (Net) Income tax recoverable on dividend income Interest arising on deposits (Gross) Interest receivable from RSE Scotland Foundation (note 23) 2004 92,636 3,666 27,905 30,325 154,532 2003 94,783 4,319 13,456 112,558
Cost of generating funds Fundraising costs Proportion of central costs (note 11)
2,174 6,945 9,119
51,078 33,179 84,257
8a
Grants payable Promotion of Research Prizes and Grants
8b
1,625,549 137,225 1,762,774
1,273,657 37,279 1,310,936
8b
Promotion of Research Direct Costs : Restricted Funds SEELLD Research Fellowships - Support SEELLD Research Fellowships - Personal SEELLD Teaching Fellowships BP Research Fellowships CRF European Fellowships Enterprise Fellowships (Scottish Enterprise) Enterprise Fellowships (PPARC) Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland Fellowships Robert Cormack Bequest John Moyes Lessells Scholarship Auber Bequest Awards Henry Dryerre Scholarship Direct costs : Designated Funds D S McLagan Travel Grant Direct costs : General Funds Library Proportion of central costs (note 11)
99,698 377,203 19,145 496,046 133,039 27,632 510,445 23,291 181,615 3,957 22,810 4,000 11,040 1,413,605 900 1,414,505 363 1,414,868 210,681 1,625,549
77,629 344,920 18,144 440,693 137,172 22,297 285,059 20,090 170,733 6,804 32,249 3,100 1,118,197 1,517 1,119,714 454 1,120,168 153,489 1,273,657
9a
Charitable activities Publications Meetings Educational activities Academic / Industry links Fellowships Office International activities Evidence Advice and Comment Scottish Science Advisory Committee
9b
20,583 240,470 64,988 9,754 48,908 186,304 115,268 156,224 842,499
22,152 282,243 78,815 9,796 45,386 119,103 94,108 150,000 801,603
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2004 9b Publications Editorial & management costs of journals Less surplus onf journals published by RSE Scotland Foundation Other publications Proportion of central costs (note 11) 17,132 (7,137) 9,995 10,588 20,583 2003 19,290 249 44 19,583 2,569 22,152
The RSE Scotland Foundation became publisher of the Societys journals and Year Book with effect from the 1997 volumes. The Society retains copyright and incurs editorial costs in respect of these publications. The Society has received a donation from the RSE Scotland Foundation equivalent to the Foundations net surplus on publications. 10 Buildings, Management and administration Buildings and Maintenance 22-24 George Street - depreciation 26 George Street - depreciation 22-24 George Street - expenditure from designated funds Management and secretariat Publicity 2004 13,518 22,061 32,949 4,101 72,629 85,074 65,518 223,221 2003 9,238 22,061 32,949 4,457 68,705 79,780 80,919 229,404
11 Central Costs Total Payroll: Less paid by Scottish Science Advisory Committee Less paid by RSE Scotland Foundation Salaries (note 12) Value of secondments Staff training, agency and recruitment costs Total staff costs Other Costs: Establishment expenses (22-24 George St) Establishment expenses (26 George St) Computer and equipment costs Communication, stationery and printing costs Travel and subsistence, hospitality Miscellaneous Professional fees Audit fee Depreciation Total Central Costs
685,796 (62,704) (81,816) 541,276 63,000 17,815 622,091
619,061 (59,347) (90,529) 469,185 49,875 25,610 544,670
31,822 93,743 3,888 43,159 19,318 2,778 8,346 5,795 880 209,729 831,820
23,930 105,545 4,432 55,906 21,683 2,066 18,562 7,344 1,519 240,987 785,657
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11 Central Costs (Continued) In addition to direct costs incurred, central costs have been apportioned to expenditure on functional activities, as follows: General Fund Cost of generating funds Fundraising Support costs - charitable activities Publications Meetings Educational Activities Academic/Industry links Fellowships Office International links Evidence, advice & comment Promotion of Research Prizes and Grants Management and administration Buildings and Maintenance Management and Secretariat Publicity 6,945 10,588 152,077 27,677 6,945 48,906 83,774 69,946 2,667 3,218 13,518 79,457 50,060 555,778 Designated Funds Restricted Funds 2004 Total 6,945 10,588 161,865 54,321 6,945 48,906 83,774 74,508 210,681 24,635 13,518 85,074 50,060 831,820 2003 Total 33,179 2,569 167,864 48,113 10,474 45,386 62,789 94,403 153,489 15,127 9,238 79,780 63,246 785,657
9,788 26,644
5,362
4,562 208,014 16,055
5,617 37,623 238,419
Total 2004 12 Employees Wages and salaries Social Security Costs Other pension costs (note 21) 566,960 43,415 75,421 685,796
Paid by SSAC (52,907) (4,644) (5,153) (62,704)
Paid by Foundation (67,694) (5,175) (8,947) (81,816)
Paid by Society 446,359 33,596 61,321 541,276
Paid by Society 2003 398,746 24,743 45,696 469,185
The average number of employees of the Society including those employed under joint contracts with the RSE Scotland Foundation during the year was 26(2003 25). Of these two were employed in respect of the Scottish Science Advisory Committee. One member of staff earned over 50,000 per year in respect of duties with the Society.
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22-24 George St. 13 Tangible Fixed Assets Cost At 1 April 2003 Additions Disposals At 31 March 2004 Depreciation At 1 April 2003 Charge for the year At 31 March 2004 Net Book Value At 31 March 2004 At 31 March 2003 26 George St. Equipment Computer Total
1,103,038 1,103,038
1,647,468 1,647,468
68,348 451 68,799
40,036 40,036
2,858,890 451 2,859,341
88,244 22,061 110,305 992,733 1,014,794
131,796 32,949 164,745 1,482,723 1,515,672
67,990 436 68,426 373 358
39,591 445 40,036 445
327,621 55,891 383,512 2,475,829 2,531,269
Value at 1 April 2003 14a Fixed Asset Investments Managed Funds 350,623 Fixed interest 613,394 UK equities 743,099 Overseas equities (managed funds) 25,124 Cash deposits 1,732,239
Investments made at cost
Proceeds on Gain/(loss) sale of on sale Investments
Revaluation
Market value at 31 March 2004
68,047 175,256 (243,303) -
(40,315) (73,473) (120,521) (28,243) 262,552 -
11,415) (2,702) 23,361) 3,119) 35,193
104,500 (11,400) 128,490 221,590
426,223 593,866 949,685 19,249 1,989,023
The gain on sale of investments measured against their historical cost was 45,140 (2003 deficit 313,187). Investments comprising more than 5% of the portfolio were as follows: Treasury 5 3/4 stock 2009-112,657; Treasury 5% stock, 2012-132,899; Treasury 5 1/2 % loan 2008/12-134,574; Treasury 5% stock 2014-133,185; Murray International Trust-107,088; Scottish Mortgage Trust - 103,700. 2004 14b Loan to RSE Scotland Foundation Due within one year Due after one year 46,808 1,984,752 2,031,560 2003 46,808 2,031,560 2,078,368
The Loan initially bears interest at 4% per annum, capped at the amount of rent received by the Foundation, and is repayable over the period to 30 June 2047, the expiration of the lease of 26 George Street. On 23 June 2003 Council agreed to waive part of the interest payment due for the year ended 31 March 2004 and interest paid was restricted to rental received from the third floor letting. The capital repayment for the year of 46,808 was paid at the end of the financial year as normal.
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2004 15 Debtors General debtors Stock of ties Prepayments and accrued income Income Tax Recoverable 59,752 2,442 6,630 17,764 86,588 2003 64,262 3,492 5,246 73,000
16 Creditors: Amounts falling due within one year General creditors RSE Scotland Foundation current account Accruals and deferred income University of Glasgow (note 19) Symposia income deferred
60,715 15,330 301,709 17,737 14,120 409,611
102,398 220,991 16,632 25,660 365,681
17 General Fund At 1 April 2003 Net movements in funds for the year from Statement of Financial Activities At 31 March 2004
1,142 67,9610 69,103
73,593) (72,451) 1,142)
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Capital Asset Reserve Building Staff Development Maintenance Restructuring Appeal Fund Fund Fund Prog. Fund C H Kemball Grants Dr James Fund Fund Heggie Fund Total
18 Designated Funds At 1 April 2002 4,608,834) 155,866) Investment income -) 5,001) Other income Less Direct expenditure RSE admin and staff costs Surplus/(deficit) for the year
33,255 1,067 -
275,823 10,090 56,558
-) -
14,627) 424,616) 164,400)) 5,677,421 812 23,606) 9,140 49,716 56,558
(4,101) -
(5,617)
(828) -
(16,754) (5,363)
(10,668) (26,643)
(32,351) (37,623)
-)
900)
1,067
61,031)
-)
(16)
1,489)
(28,171)
36,300
Transfers between funds Re building depreciation (55,010) Re loan repayment (46,808) Re Programme Fund from General Fund (101,818) Net gains on investment assets Realised -) Unrealised -) At 31 March 2004 4,507,016)
55,010 55,010
8,095 8,095
(33,688) (33,688)
72,737 72,737
-)
(39,049) (39,049)
(46,808) 8,095 (38,713)
-) 211,776)
42,417
-) 303,166)
72,737)
297 1,872 16,780)
8,627 3,340 54,317 21,030 450,000 160,599)
12,264 77,219 5,764,491)
As described in note 2, the Development Appeal Fund comprises the receipts from the Appeal launched in 2001 to raise funds to finance developments in implementing the Societys Corporate Plan. The Programme Fund is a new fund created by the the Council to provide support for meetings activities.
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Robert Cormack Bequest 19 Restricted Funds At 1 April 2003 Donations and Grants Income from activities Investment income Less Direct Expenditure RSE Admin and staff Surplus/(deficit) for year 82,841) -8 -8 4,605) (3,957) (1,603) (955) Lessells Trust Auber Bequest Prizes Fund Dryerre Fund Others Restricted Income Total
292,507) 252,742) 9,9480 -8 -8 -8 16,262) 14,051) (22,810) (5,659) (2,259) (4,000) (4,890) 5,161)
54,537) 344,931) -8 -8 -8 -8 3,032) 19,176) -8 (11,040) (1,055) (6,674) 1,977 1,462
25,655 - 1,053,213) -8 305,656 315,604) -8 1,590,238 1,590,238) 1,426 58,552) (1,600) (1,677,853) (1,721,260) (497) (218,041) (238,419) (671) 4,715
Net gain on investment assets Realised 1,683 Unrealised 10,597 At 31 March 2004 ) 94,166
5,943 37,418 333,609
5,135 32,331 295,369
1,108 6,976
7,008 44,124
521 3,282 28,787
21,398 134,728 1,214,054
64,598 397,525
Prizes Fund comprises The Keith Fund, The Neill Fund, The Makdougall-Brisbane Fund, The Gunning-Victoria Fund, The James Scott Prize Fund, The Bruce-Preller Lecture Fund, The W.S. Bruce Memorial Fund, The Dr D.A. Berry Fund, The Henry Duncan Prize Lecture Fund and The BP Prize Lecture in the Humanities Fund. Others comprise the PiazziSmyth Legacy Fund, the Retailing Seminar Fund and the CASS Fund. The Retailing Seminars Fund arises from the donation of the surplus from an earlier series of meetings that publicised research in the retailing sector. The fund is to be used to support meetings in this area. Under the terms of the Lessells Trust the University of Glasgow is entitled to 10% of additional amounts received by the Society from the Trust. The balance included in Creditors at 31 March 2004 represents the total sum apportioned but not yet paid over to the University (note 16).
Unrestricted Funds 20 Analysis of Assets between Funds Fund balances at 31 March 2004 are represented by : Tangible fixed assets 373) Investments 108,539) Loan to RSE Scotland Foundation - m) Current assets 86,588) RSE Scotland Foundation current account (15,330) Deposits - m) Bank overdraft less cash (54,788) Current liabilities (56,279) 69,1031
Designated Funds
Restricted Funds
2004 Total
2003 Total
2,475,456 666,430 2,031,560 - m) - m) 591,045 - m) - m) 5,764,491
- m)) 1,214,054) - m)) - m)) - m)) 208,955) 129,047) (338,002) 1,214,054)
2,475,829) 1,989,023) 2,031,560) 86,588) (15,330) 800,000) 74,259) (394,281) 7,047,648)
2,531,269) 1,732,239) 2,078,368) 73,000) 63,125) 501,130) 118,326) (365,681) 6,731,776)
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21 Pension Costs a) USS The Society participates in the Universities Superannuation Scheme, a defined benefit pension scheme which is externally funded and contracted out of the State Second Pension (S2P). The assets of the Scheme are held in a separate trustee-administered fund. The fund is valued every three years by a professionally qualified independent actuary using the projected unit method, the rates of contribution payable being determined by the trustee on the advice of the actuaries. In the intervening years the actuaries review the progress of the scheme. It is not possible to identify each institutions share of the underlying assets and liabilities of the scheme and hence contributions to the scheme are accounted for as if it were a defined contribution scheme. The cost recognised within the deficit for the year is equal to the contributions payable to the scheme for the year. The latest actuarial valuation of the scheme was at 31 March 2002. The most significant assumptions, those relating to the rate of return on investments and the rates of increase in salary and pensions, are as follows: Past Service Liabilities 5% 3.7% 2.7% Future Service Liabilities 6% 3.7% 2.7%
Investment return Salary Increase Pension Increase
At the valuation date the market value of the schemes assets was 19,938 million and the value of past service liabilities was 19,776 million leaving a surplus of assets of 162 million. The value of the assets represented 101% of the benefits that had accrued to members, after allowing for expected future increases in earnings. The contribution rate payable by the Society was 14.0% of pensionable salaries. The actuary has confirmed it is appropriate to take the pension charge to be equal to the actual contribution paid in the year. b) Lothian Pension Fund The Society also participates in the Lothian Pension Fund, a defined benefit pension scheme established under local government pension fund regulations. This scheme has determined that it is possible at a cost to ascertain the share of assets and liabilities relating to individual admitted bodies. The assets of the Scheme are held in a separate trustee-administered fund. The fund is valued every three years by a professionally qualified independent actuary using the projected unit method, the rates of contribution payable being determined by the trustee on the advice of the actuaries. In the intervening years the actuaries review the progress of the scheme. The latest actuarial valuation of the scheme was at 31 March 2002. The major assumptions used by the actuary were that, over the long term, the return on the schemes assets would be 6.2% per annum, salary increases would average 4.1% per annum and present and future pensions would increase at a rate of 2.6% per annum. At the valuation date the market value of the schemes assets was 1,792 million and the value of past service liabilities was 1,866 million. The value of the assets represented 96% of the benefits that had accrued to members, after allowing for expected future increases in earnings. The contribution rate payable by the Society was 285% of employees contributions of 6% of pensionable salaries, amounting to 17.1%. The actuary has confirmed that it is appropriate to take the pension charge to be equal to the actual contribution paid during the year. Whilst the Society continues to account for pension costs in accordance with Statement of Standard Accounting Practice 24 Accounting for Pension costs, under FRS 17 Retirement benefits the following transitional disclosures are required: The valuation at 31 March 2002 has been updated by the actuary on an FRS 17 basis at 31 March 2004; the major assumptions used in this valuation were: 2004 2003 Rate of increase in salaries 4.4% 4.0% Rate of increase of pensions in payment 2.9% 2.5% Discount rate 5.5% 5.4% Inflation assumption 2.9% 2.5% The assumptions used by the actuary are the best estimates chosen from a range of possible actuarial assumptions which, due to the timescale covered, may not necessarily be borne out in practice.
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21 Pension Costs b) Lothian Pension Fund (Continued) Scheme assets The fair value of the scheme assets, which are not intended to be realised in the short term and may be subject to significant change before they are realised, and the present value of the schemes liabilities, which are derived from cash flow projections over long periods and thus inherently uncertain, were: Expected Value at Expected Value at return 31 March 2004 return 31 March 2003 000 000 Equities 7.7% 1,441,947 8.0% 1,029,900 Bonds 5.1% 117,334 4.8% 125,000 Other- Property 6.5% 156,085 6.0% 153,187 Cash 4.0% 124,888 4.0% 37,100 1,840,254 7.4% 1,345,100 Whole scheme assets 7.2% 000 345)) (429)) (84)) 000 99) (308) (109)
Of which RSE share Present value of scheme liabilities Deficit in the scheme Net pension (liability)
The amount of this pension deficit would have a consequential effect on reserves. The movement in the net pension asset/ liability during the year comprised: 000 Deficit at 1 April 2003 (109) Current service cost (49) Employer contributions 60) Net return on assets Expected return on employer assets 18) Interest on pension scheme liabilities (19) (1) Actuarial gains Actual return less expected return on pension assets 48 Experience losses on Scheme liabilities (1) Changes in assumptions underlying present value of scheme liabilities (32) 15 Deficit at 31 March 2004 (84) If FRS 17 had been fully adopted the movements would have been recognised in arriving at net incoming resources other than the actuarial loss which would have been included in unrealised losses. c) Pension Charge The total pension charge for the year was 66,274 (2003 45,696) 22 Transactions with Council members No member of Council received any payments other than reimbursement of expenditure on travel and subsistence costs actually and necessarily incurred in carrying out their duties as Councillors and Officers. The aggregate of such reimbursement amounted to 3,418 (2003 5,893). 23 RSE Scotland Foundation RSE Scotland Foundation is a charitable trust, recognised in Scotland as Scottish charity number SCO24636. It was created in March 1996 with the object of advancing the education of the public in Scotland in science and engineering and in so doing to conserve the scientific and cultural heritage of Scotland. The President, General Secretary, Treasurer, Curator and a Vice President of the Society are ex officiis Trustees of the Foundation, which draws on the resources of the Society in carrying out its objects. The Foundation also has five nominated Trustees. The Foundation became publisher of the Societys journals under a Publications Rights Licence effective from 1 January 1997. The Foundation has also carried out work in support of the Societys involvement in the Scottish Science Trust and the implementation of the Technology Ventures Strategy. On 1 July 1997 the Society granted to the Foundation a 50 year lease over 26 George Street carrying an obligation to refurbish the building within a three year period. The Council of the Society agreed to make funding of up to 2.3 million available to the Foundation in support of the refurbishment. The agreed terms of the loan are as described in note 14 b. A waiver of interest was agreed for the years ending 2002, 2003 and a partial waiver in 2004 to assist the Foundation in extinguishing its deficit of net assets.
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23 RSE Scotland Foundation (Continued) At 31 March 2004 the financial position of the RSE Scotland Foundation was as follows: 2004 Net Liabilities Fixed assets Current assets Current liabilities RSE Current Account Loan from Royal Society of Edinburgh Other Creditors over one year:-Loan from Royal Society of Edinburgh Represented by Income and Expenditure Account 2,013,615) 91,853) -) (46,808) (144,537) (1,984,752) 2003 2,061,700) 58,624) (63,125) (46,808) (130,298) (2,031,560)
(70,629)
(151,467)
The Statement of Financial Activities for the year ended 31 March 2004 was as follows: Incoming resources Donations, grants and similar incoming resources Charitable activities Publications Licence fees Conference Facilities letting ( net ) Activities for generating funds Rental and service charges receivable Fundraising event Investment income - bank interest 2004 -) 93,480) 91,400) 63,760) 196,800) -) 216) 445,656) 2003 249) 98,470) 100,417) 74,343) 118,140) 33,146) 479) 425,244)
Cost of generating funds Building management Net incoming resources available for charitable application Charitable expenditure Conference facilities hire Publications Building costs recovered) Donation to RSE Development Appeal fund Management and secretariat Depreciation on leasehold improvements Total Charitable expenditure Total resources expended Net incoming resources and movement in funds for the year Balance brought forward Balance carried forward
52,153)
45,371)
393,503) 53,571) 93,480) 91,400) -) 29,747) 44,467) 312,665) 364,818) 80,838) (151,467) (70,629)
379,773) 46,477) 98,718) 100,417) 33,146) 38,493) 44,446) 361,697) 407,168) 18,076) (169,543) (151,467)
The Council of the Society has confirmed to the Trustees of the Foundation that they will continue to support the Foundation and will not call for the repayment of the current account balance in the foreseeable future.
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24 Supplementary Information ; grants, donations, receipts a) Scottish Executive Grants Income Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Department Promotion of Research Scottish Science Advisory Committee Activities grant International activities Other departments support for meetings GM Gene Flow Scotland in Sweden 2004 2003
563,813 150,000 369,087 125,000 1,207,900
500,145 150,000 328,000 14,467 2,000 18,096 1,012,708
Allocated to Functional Activities Scottish Science Advisory Committee Meetings office Educational activities Publications office Promotion of research 496,046 Evidence advice and comment International activities 100,607 Management and secretariat Buildings - Establishment expenses - Maintenance
Direct Costs 150,000 9,410 67,767 25,000 756,063
Staff and other costs 126,062 27,677 10,588 563,813 69,946 125,607 79,457
2004 Total 150,000 126,062 27,677 19,998 500,145 69,946 14,467 79,457
2003 Total 150,000 81,787 40,335 18,623 94,403 79,780
31,822 31,822 23,930 13,518 9,238 13,518 451,837 1,207,900 1,012,708
The Scottish Executive provides grant-in-aid under the powers of S.23 National Heritage (Scotland) Act 1985 to meet the costs of SEELLD Research Fellows, and costs of activities including the cost of maintaining the Societys premises and a share of the Societys staff and other costs. In addition to the cash grants set out above, the Society benefited from a staff secondment from the Scottish Executive, which has been included in the accounts at its value to the Society of 36,750. Expenditure in relation to the Scottish Science Advisory Committee comprised: 2004 b 95,504 15,079 4,302 4,767 6,734 10,918 14,351 4,569 156,224 (7,919) 1,695 150,000 2003 b 92,225 19,689 6,445 8,174 6,214 1,280 4,091 3,963 142,081 7,919 150,000
Chairmans fee, salaries and other staff costs Establishment Office costs Travel and subsistence Committee and working groups PR and publicity Printing Professional services Less balance brought forward Balance carried forward
This includes amounts paid to the Society for use of office space and services.
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BP Research Fellowship Trust 24 b) Donations Income Promotion of research receipts Transferred to deferred income Meetings Income Caledonian Research Foundation Scottish Enterprise Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland Wellcome Trust
143,909 143,909
30,979 26,193 57,172
591,216 591,216
273,750) (71,509) -) 202,241)
3,556 3,556
Costs Promotion of research133,039 Conference Workshops RSE administration and staff costs
27,362 10,870 143,909
510,445 17,394 12,416 57,172
181,615) 80,771 591,216
2,567 -) -) 20,626) 202,241)
989 3,556
The BP Research Fellowship Trust supports postdoctoral fellowships in Scottish HEIs. The Trustees of the Trust are the President, General Secretary and Treasurer of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. The Caledonian Research Foundation supports postdoctoral fellowships in biomedical sciences and European visiting fellowships, a prize lecture and an international conference. The Wellcome Trust sponsors a series of research workshops. The Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland supports postdoctoral Fellowships, postgraduate studentships and lectures and conferences to fund and disseminate research aimed at improving the quality of life for an ageing population. c) Donations in Support of Meetings The Society gratefully acknowledges all those who make donations in support of meetings. The companies, trusts and other bodies that made donations of 1,000 or more in the year ended 31 March 2004 are as follows: Archibald Campbell & Harley WS The Binks Trust British Neuropathological Society The Darwin Trust Food Standards Agency Scotland Historic Scotland Pathological Society of Great Britain Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh Scottish Executive Health Department Sir Walter Gibley Memorial Company Limited
25 Analysis of net funds At 31 March 2004 74,259 208,955 591,045 874,259 Cash flows (44,067) 172,770) 126,100) 254,803) At 1 April 2003 118,326 36,185 464,945 619,456
Cash at bank Deposits re restricted funds Deposits re designated funds
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26 Main Activities Meetings Lectures Symposia/Conferences/Seminars Debates Workshops International activities Exchange visits - bilateral (weeks) Exchange visits - open (weeks) Seminars and discussion forum Voyages of discovery - visits by overseas industrialist Science Scotland international magazine (issues) Visitors from overseas institutions Young Peoples events Science Masterclasses Maths Masterclasses Schools Lectures Christmas Lectures Discussion Forum RSE Roadshow Physics Masterclasses Science Summer Camp Publications (issues) Proceedings A Transactions Directory & Review ReSourcE (RSE News) RSE Fellows Number of Fellows Candidates for Fellowship Research Fellowships and Scholarships Postdoctoral Research Fellows in post Support Research Fellows European Visiting Research Fellows Enterprise Fellows in post Applications for Research Fellowships Studentships appointed Prizes and Grants Royal Medals Prizes awarded Grants awarded Gannochy Trust Award Central Administration Major inquiries Submissions to Government and public agencies External events held at RSE 22-26 George Street 2003/04 Number 22 10 1 3 18 19 3 2 1 9 32 12 13 2 1 1 4 1 6 3 2 3 1385 216 15 5 7 23 119 2 3 3 23 1 1 24 130 2002/03 Number 27 9 2 5 2 20 8 7 2 1 1 4 1 6 4 2 3 1333 249 16 3 6 10 117 4 3 4 19 1 34 175
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Royal Society of Edinburgh Schedule of Investments- movements at valuation. Year Ended 31 March 2004
Closing No Value Value Market Cost Proceeds on Sale for Year Market Opening Purchase Sales Gain/(Loss) Revaluation Closing
Investment
Current Holdings
Gilts 105,000 130,000 130,000 130,000 113,670 22,538 114,490 23,961 114,722 21,548 (3,371) (3,877) (3,023) 114,712 (2,055) 112,657 132,899 134,574 133,185
Treasury 5.75% 2009
Treasury 5% 2012
Treasury 5.5% 2008/12
Treasury 5% 2014
Other Fixed Interest 0 70,000 79,625 76,175 73,473 (2,702) 0 926 0 80,551
SCHEDULE OF INVESTMENTS
55
70,000 10,000 57,000 27,600 0 34,000 45,000 79,730 44,100 25,124 80,868 28,243 75,525 57,800 56,700 40,315
HBOS 9.25% IRPF
R B of Scotland 7.387% 2010/49
Managed funds 15,750 11,415 16,900 21,660 26,220 3,119 0 23,970 6,638 72,450 45,800 97,185 107,088 0 103,700 50,738
Aberforth Geared Cap & Int Trust
Aberforth Smaller Co Trust plc
Dunedin Income Growth Inv Trust
Murray International Trust
CF Odey Euro Trust Accum
Scottish Mortgage & Trust
UK Balanced Property Trust
Closing No Value Value Market Cost Proceeds on Sale for Year Market Opening Purchase Sales Gain/(Loss) Revaluation Closing
Investment
Current Holdings
Equities 5,400 1,750 8,000 9,500 3,000 8,500 5,300 7,700 3,100 3,350 0 5,000 4,500 68,000 4,500 8,400 0 0 32,550 31,713 40,879 9,166 47,260 22,834 32,962 32,450 38,970 32,629 34,503 22,042 46,843 5,727 7,873 18,441 34,397 34,106 0 23,196 34,675 0 39,287 37,747 6,406 1,913 10,854 3,819 4,654 3,180 2,214 (1,395) 8,778 0 8,000 16,088 17,170 (2,572) 3,570 0 0 23,957 1,963 25,920 44,153 41,200 45,529 27,015 38,760 37,577 20,655 33,108 25,092 0 40,450 49,050 64,430 20,262 36,120 0
Associated British Ports Holdings
AstraZeneca
BAA
Barclays
56
BOC Group
BP Amoco Ord US$0.25
Diageo
Firstgroup
Glaxo Smith Kline Ord 25p
GUS
HBOS Stock 25p
HSBC Holdings Ord US$ 0.50
Land Securities Group
Legal & General Group Ord 2.5p
Lloyds TSB Group
National Grid Transco
Pearson
Closing No Value 4,800 14,200 6,700 7,500 2,350 14,900 0 5,200 9,200 9,100 7,142 41,852 34,807 34,592 0 32,873 10,162 10,756 32,780 594 33,487 20,737 0 33,109 33,370 14,808 6,672 14,200 (848) 8,138 5,476 6,072 0 2,877 437 (2,456) (3,357) Market Cost Proceeds on Sale for Year Opening Purchase Sales Gain/(Loss) Revaluation Closing Market Value 21,480 47,570 32,261 28,875 38,963 38,852 0 35,750 35,029 32,351 38,495
Investment
Current Holdings
Prudential
Rank Group
Reed Elsevier
Rotork Ord 5p
Royal Bank of Scotland Ord 25p
57
1,035,692 1,732,239 243,303 262,551
Sainsbury (J) Ord 25p
Scottish & Newcastle
Scottish & Southern Energy
Scottish Power
Shell Transport & Trading Org 25p
Unilever Ord 1.4p
Schedule of Investments
TOTALS
35,192
221,591
1,969,774
PRIZE LECTURES
CRF Prize Lecture Professor Joan Steitz Yale University 24 and 26 May 2004 PRE-mRNA SPLICING: THE TIE THAT BINDS The title of my talk emphasises that pre-mRNA splicing is in fact a very central process in the pathway of gene expression. Let me go on to the next slide. I would like to start with a diagram that I have taken from a review article that was written by Tom Maniatis and Robin Reed several years ago. What it shows is all the molecular connections that had been uncovered at the time between splicing and other steps in gene expression. You see that splicing not only is connected to other steps in RNA processing like capping and polyadenylation, but it also talks to the various stages of transcription. We have known for a long time that splicing is necessary for export of the messenger RNA to the cytoplasm. That makes sense because, of course, you need to remove the introns before you send the mRNA out to be translated by the ribosome. A relatively recent realisation is that proteins that associate with the messenger RNA during the process or after the process of splicing are also very important for things that happen to it once it gets to the cytoplasm. Specifically, they play a role in surveying the message to see if it has any mistakes in it, and they appear to play a role in localising messages in particular parts of the cell for their translation. Just recently we have realised that even the efficiency of translation is linked somehow to the fact that introns have been removed from the messenger RNA in the nucleus. So since all of these things involve RNA-protein interactions, what we are really thinking about is interactions in the remodelling of RNA-protein interactions in a dynamic way, as we proceed through the pathway of gene expression. I would like to start out with a couple of slides that illustrate the diversity of RNPs in the universe. Here is an RNP. These slides were taken in India a number of years ago, and this RNP is clearly very large and very utilitarian; you can think of it as being like a ribosome. There we also saw other RNPs. This one is smaller, much more exotic, but clearly the same sort of functional theme. We also saw small RNPs but more modernlooking and streamlined. In fact, this one dates from about the time that molecular biologists began to appreciate that there
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were a lot of different kinds of small RNPs in cells doing various things in gene expression. My talk today is going to be divided into four parts. I would like to start out by indulging in history, and going back about 25 years to the time when we stumbled across the fact that there were these things called snRNPs (small nuclear ribonucleoproteins) in cells and that they were involved in the process of splicing. As you will see when I tell you the story, it is a very typical story in science in that there is a lot of serendipity involved. But it is also an atypical story in biomedical science in that it is not at all a bench to bedside story. It is more a bedside to bench story. It is a case, an unusual case, where tools provided by clinical medicine, namely autoantibodies from lupus patients, provided a way of beginning to dissect what was going on in the basic biology of higher cells. After I talk about that, I want to go on and mention briefly two surprises connected with mRNA splicing that have happened subsequent to making the connection between snRNPs and splicing. At the end, I will tell you a current story from the lab about investigations that illustrate the previous slide, where you saw the many connections between splicing and other steps in gene expression.
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Let me begin by saying a bit more about lupus. Systemic lupus erythematosus is perhaps the best known of a group of diseases that could be categorised as rheumatic diseases or autoimmune diseases. Other diseases in this group are things like scleroderma, mixed connective tissue disease, dermatomyositis, polymyositis, and some kinds of rheumatism. These diseases are not uncommon in the US. They afflict about one in a thousand people, and I think the numbers are pretty much the same in the UK. They are more common in women than men, and they are more common in blacks than in whites. What all these diseases have in common is that in the sera of patients are circulating autoantibodies, antibodies against ones own cellular components. To start out here very simply, everybody knows that the immune system makes protein molecules called antibodies, which are designed to defend us against foreign invaders like bacteria, viruses and sometimes cancer cellswhich can have on their surfaces things that appear foreign. Our immune systems learn very early in life, and this is currently being worked out, how to discriminate between self and foreign. Sometimes this discrimination goes awry and people begin to make antibodies against their own cellular components,
Prize Lectures
autoantibodies. If you have autoantibodies, the problems, the diseases, the pathogenesis are not caused by the autoantibodies getting into cells in high enough numbers to interfere with the normal functioning of their cellular targets, but rather because cells are lysing and dumping their contents into the blood stream. What then form are immune complexes; these build up and cause various problems. For instance, when they lodge in the fine capillaries they cause the red rash from which lupus got its name, or they can lodge in your hair follicles and make your hair fall out, or in your joints and give you joint problems. They affect all the internal organs and cause inflammatory responses. So these are really systemic diseases, and they are not nice diseases. One of the most interesting aspects of autoimmunity is that the cellular components that tend to be targeted, and this isnt understood at all, are components of cells which are very abundant and very highly conserved, namely the components which are involved in the central dogma of molecular biology. What we are looking at here is bacterial DNA being transcribed to make RNA, and ribosomes attaching to translate the RNA into protein. Many lupus patients, the majority, make antibodies against DNA, anti-DNA antibodies. Some make
antibodies against ribosomes, and many make antibodies against snRNPs. But snRNPs, small nuclear ribonucleoproteins, arent in this picture because this is a picture of the central dogma in bacteria, not in higher cells. SnRNPs are specific to higher cells. At this point I need to go back, to tell you about snRNPs, to the fact that as a graduate student, as a postdoc and as a beginning faculty member at Yale, I worked on RNA structure and function, but all in bacteria and its phages. When our first sabbatical leave from Yale was coming up in 1976/ 77, it was a good time to start thinking about something new. A lot of people at that time were turning their attention from working things out in bacteria to thinking about how they happened in higher cells. Everybodys presumption was that the basic features of gene expression were going to be the same, just more complicated in higher cells. As you all know, this has turned out not to be the case. I decided I would like to jump on the bandwagon, but I also didnt want to stray too far from RNA. The problem I decided to investigate is illustrated here. Again we are looking at DNA, this time from a eukaryotic organism. The RNA transcripts are decorated not with ribosomes, because this is all happening in the nucleus and ribosomes are in the cytoplasm,
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but rather with RNA-binding proteins. The curious fact had emerged that in higher cells there was a huge turnover, a huge wastage, of RNA. A lot of the RNA that was synthesised in the nucleus simply got decayed and maybe only in the order of 10% of it ever made it out to the cytoplasm to become messenger RNA. I thought if the nuclear RNA gets decorated with proteins and a little bit more was known about these proteins, maybe the proteins that bind are deciding which of the RNAs survive and which of the RNAs get decayed. I decided it would be awfully nice to have antibodies against these RNAbinding proteins. We were in the lab of Klaus Weber and Mary Osborn in Gttingen, where they are good at making antibodies. So I spent seven months isolating these proteins, injecting them into various animals trying to get antibodies that could be used as tools to study this phenomenon. But I completely failed because these proteins are very highly conserved and very non-immunogenic. Thus, I ended up doing something else for the rest of my sabbatical. Of course, 1977 was the year that evidence came together from labs in all different parts of the world that told us that our genes are quite different from the genes in bacteria. Namely, they are interrupted by introns, bits of apparent
junk in the genes. In order for expression to occur, the RNA that is made has to get spliced, removing these junk regions. So, that did a lot towards explaining the huge RNA wastage, because the introns are usually much larger than the exons. On the other hand, it raised the question of what could be the cellular machinery that would very precisely remove the introns and join the exons back together so that the message would be able to be read and read absolutely in frame so that it could be translated into proteins. When I returned to Yale in the fall of 1977, since we were an RNA lab, everybody was very excited about working on splicing. However, I admit we were not too clear about what we should do and where we should go. Then, the first bit of serendipity came in January of 1978, when a new issue of the journal Nature arrived, and at the back was an article with an obscure title. I have underlined the salient sentence here that says: Patients with MCTD have high titres of antibody to nuclear ribonucleoprotein (RNP) which also gives a nuclear speckled pattern on cell substrates in direct immunofluorescence. The reason that this caught my eye is because when I was trying to make antibodies and was failing, several people had said that they had heard of some diseases where
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Prize Lectures
patients made antibodies against something that was nuclear and had RNA and protein in it. But at that time I didnt know any clinicians to ask about how I could get such patient antibodies. When the article arrived, I had a new MD/PHD student in the lab named Michael Lerner. He had just been to all his medical school courses. I asked Michael, Do you know anybody here at Yale that might have patients with MCTD? He said, Sure, Ill go and see Hardin. Hardin turned out to be John Hardin, head of the Rheumatology Section in the Department of Medicine. Michael went across the street and that very afternoon came back with a couple of vials of sera from patients with lupus and other related diseases. We began to work with them. I want to inject here a rather sobering thought. What we did was possible 25 years ago. But if that happened today, before you can even think about working with human materials, you have to fill out all sorts of forms and go through all sorts of committees. We probably never would have proceeded, but we did at that time. We started working with the autoantibodies and very quickly found out they were not directed against the large RNPs that I had tried to make antibodies against previously. However, since the
antibodies were targeted against something that was small, was very abundant, and was very highly conserved, we decided to keep working. It was very frustrating. For about a year Michael kept trying to fractionate the antigen and it kept disappearing. We later realised that RNase was chewing up the RNA component. The second piece of serendipity was when Joan Brugge came to Yale to give a seminar and talked about a new reagent called Pansorbin that had just come on the market. It was basically a preparation of Staphylococcus aureus cell walls, which has a protein in it called protein A, which binds to the constant region of antibodies. She was using Pansorbin with S35-labelled extracts of virus-infected cells to which there were antibodies to pull out the immune complexes and examine what proteins were there. So what we decided to do, as you see fractionated here, was to label Hela cells with P32, which labels all small RNAs from tRNA size (about 70 nucleotides) up to the size of U2, less than 200 nucleotides, and use the same trick to try to pull out these complexes. In this lane what you see is Michaels own serum; happily he didnt have any autoantibodies which precipitated any RNA-protein complexes. But with the various patient sera that we had accumulated, we saw
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very distinct patterns. When we looked at the RNA molecules, we realised that one was a molecule called U1 and one was a molecule called U2, which had previously been characterised as small nuclear RNAs in the labs of Busch and Weinberg and Penman. There were three other RNAs that we named U4, U5 and U6 in this lane. This is the RNP pattern, precipitating U1 RNA, that was mentioned in the Nature article. We knew from the medical literature that Sm was a related and overlapping autoantibody specificity. You can do the same experiment by labelling cells with S35 to look at the proteins. There was lots of evidence that the antibodies were directed not against the RNAs themselves but against proteins that bound to the RNAs. I am not going to show you the data but instead a cartoon that gives our conclusions. Namely, there were some proteins in common between the particles containing the U1 small nuclear RNA and the U2, and then there were some proteins that were specific to each of these particles. We then called these particles small nuclear ribonucleoproteins, snRNPs, or snurps for short. If you possess antibodies against something and you want to try to figure out what its function might be, there are several things you can do. We immediately realised
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that the sequence at the five prime end of the U1 RNA was complementary to the five prime ends of introns, whose sequences were beginning to be determined. So we suspected that perhaps that at least this particle might be involved in splicing. You can also use antibodies to localise things in cells. Here we see an autoantibody against ribosomes, showing that they occupy the cytoplasm and the nucleolus, which is the locus of ribosome biogenesis in cells. With the anti-RNP serum directed against the U1 particle, you see the converse pattern. It tells you that the U1 particles are in the nucleoplasm, which, of course, is where the chromatin is and where pre-mRNA is being made and spliced, but not in the cytoplasm nor in the nucleoli. We also did a number of experiments where we put pre-mRNA substrates into an extract and allowed snRNPs to bind and asked by protection methods where did they bind. Were able to deduce that U1 indeed bound to five prime splice sites and U2 bound to what was at that time becoming recognised as the branch site, a very important locus (Ill get to that in a moment) for the splicing reaction. One of the nice things we were able to rationalise even just at the time that in vitro splicing systems became available, was that the minimum size of introns was
Prize Lectures
dictated purely by putting the different snRNPs on the premessenger RNA. This slide shows how much of an intron is protected from digestion by the binding of each of the snRNPs. If you add them up it comes to about 65 nucleotides, which is in fact the smallest size of our introns. Making an intron even smaller means you cant get all the snRNPs on. So, obviously, you cant splice out an intron that is smaller. What I have told you so far is that gene expression in higher cells, in contrast to bacteria, involves a whole other class of RNAs, the socalled snRNAs. They are part of the snRNPs that assemble to make up the spliceosomes. They are, of course, necessary for the exact removal of introns from the premessenger RNA before you send the message out to the cytoplasm to be translated. The next slide is a picture of the people in my lab at that time. This is Michael Lerner, whom I particularly wanted to point out. On the day this picture was taken, we were being visited by my colleague Sid Altman of catalytic RNA fame. That was because for a while we thought maybe the U2 snRNP might be his RNase P activity in higher cells. We had no idea initially what U2 was doing. It later turned out, of course, to be involved in splicing.
So let me flash forward a bit. Today we have beautiful pictures of the spliceosome in action. This is from Ann Beyers lab in Virginia. We see here Drosophila chromatin being transcribed into RNA molecules and particles building up at the five prime and three prime splice sites. Here is an assembled spliceosome with the intron looped out. Thus, what one pictures from test tube experiments is in fact happening when visualised in the electron microscope. Work from many different labs achieved in vitro splicing reactions, from which we put together a picture of what is happening during the spliceosome cycle. It starts with recognition of the three prime splice site by protein factors. There are probably on the order of 100 different protein factors involved in splicing, in addition to the proteins which are already tightly bound to the snRNAs. After the U1 and U2 particles bind, the U4/U5/U6 snRNP joins. It is a tri-snRNP. The next step is the nucleophilic attack of the two prime hydroxyl of the branch-site A residue on the five prime splice site to form the lariat intermediate. Then, in the second step, the two exons are ligated, and the intron is degraded and the snRNPs recycled. I want to point out that by the time of the first step, already the U1 and U4 snRNPs are less tightly
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associated. Thus, the focus is on the U2,U5 and U6 particles as perhaps being part of the catalytic machinery of the spliceosome. Also, I want to emphasise that ATP hydrolysis is needed for both steps of splicing. This is not because the phosphates enter either the intermediates or the products, but because energy is needed for all the dynamic changes that take place during the process of splicing and probably also for the fidelity of the splicing process. What is going on catalytically hasnt been proven, but everyone in the field suspects that a spliceosome conducts RNA catalysis assisted by proteins. Part of that comes from looking in a number of different organisms at the structures of the snRNAs that are at the core of the spliceosome. Although the snRNAs can vary in length and in secondary structure, each one has a short region that is almost absolutely conserved from yeast to man. Those regions have been localised as being right where the action is in the spliceosome during either the first or the second step. For instance, I have already mentioned that the five prime end of the intron base pairs with the five prime end of U1 snRNA, which is conserved from yeast to man. There is a region in U2 that base pairs with the branch site, bulging out the branch-site A residue. That is also very highly
conserved. A loop in U5 is also very highly conserved. It has been shown in a number of experiments that it helps align the two exons for the second ligation step of the reaction. Finally, there is a sequence in U6 that is very highly conserved that replaces the five prime end of U1 at the five prime splice site before the catalytic steps occur. U6 is the most highly conserved snRNA, contributing to the belief that it is part of the catalytic core. U4, which you see paired to U6, is a sort of chaperone that brings U6 into the spliceosome. It is then released and U6 refolds, this time associating with U2. The remarkable thing about the spliceosome I have described to you is its versatility. It can splice introns of greatly different lengthshuge ones as well as small ones. It somehow manages to find the right splice sites in the pre-mRNA sequence. Also, it can splice pre-mRNAs that have many different exons and introns. It manages to do this in an orderly fashion and also manages at different times of development or in different states of differentiation to combine the exons in different ways to give rise to alternative splicing. This is one of the great current challenges in splicing understanding how the spliceosome, under some conditions, ignores the existence of an exon and splices in a different way
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Prize Lectures
to give rise to a different protein isoform. Given this versatility, it turned out that it was a huge surpriseat least to methat our cells and the cells of most other higher eukaryotes contain a second spliceosome. The second splicosome is in much lower abundance. It is absolutely necessary to remove a subset of our introns. I want to tell you a little bit about it at this point. The evidence that there might be another spliceosome first began to emerge in the early 1990s when databases were accumulating to the extent that people could line up the boundaries between exons and introns and look at the consensus sequences. What was realised that there were a few genes that instead of starting with the nearly invariant GU and ending with AG, like most introns do, appeared to start with AU and end with AC. At the DNA level this is ATAC, and so they were called ATAC introns for short. I list the first ones to be recognised here, and you can see that there is no particular theme holding their genes together. There would be just one of these introns in a gene; not very many of them, just a few. The ATAC intron wouldnt be either the first intron or the last intron, or the biggest intron or the smallest intron. Just one of the introns
would have these peculiar consensus sequences. It was Rick Padgett at the Cleveland Clinic who first pointed out that low abundance snRNPs of the same class as the splicing snRNPs might be involved. These had been discovered by a graduate student in my lab, Karen Montzka Wassarman, several years prior. She had called them U11 and U12, which turned out to be prescient because U11 is the U1 analogue and U12 is the U2 analogue. She could have named them the other way around, in which case it would have been hopelessly confusing. Padgett pointed out that like U1 base pairs to a five prime splice site and U2 base pairs to the branch site, there are sequences in U11 that could potentially base pair with the different ATAC five prime consensus sequence and in U12 that could potentially pair with the different branch point sequence. After that, a very talented postdoc in my lab, Woan-Yuh Tarn, managed to put together an in vitro splicing system that would in fact splice an intron containing the minor intron consensus sequences. She was able to show that U12 associates with the branch point by several means and that U11 is also part of the second spliceosome.
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At first our thinking was that since U6 was believed to be part of the catalytic machinery, and U4/5/6 were sort of a core particle, maybe you just used U11 and U12 to recognise the intron ends and then pulled in the core machinery. When Woan-Yuh tried to look for U4, U5 and U6 in the second spliceosome, she didnt find U4 or U6. It turned out that in fact there are low abundance counterparts. Here again we are talking about 1/ 100th of the amount. Two additional RNAs called U4atac and U6atac again can base pair with each other. U4atac brings U6atac into the spliceosome, thus contributing a corresponding function to the second spliceosome. One of the very interesting things about U6atac from human cells is that its sequence is more divergent from the regular U6 than the yeast and human U6s are from each other. This is quite divergent, but you can draw the same sorts of structures. What then turned out to be the case was that one snRNP is in fact utilised by both spliceosomes. That is the U5 snRNP, but somehow the minor class introns are recognised by four distinct snRNPs. Many of the protein components of the two spliceosomes turn out to be the same. This has been established in Reinhard Luhrmanns lab. It is still a mystery as to why the two systems dont get mixed up, with
the minor spliceosome on the order of 1/100th the abundance of the major class snRNPs. One of the most pleasing things about the minor spliceosome has been what it tells us about models for the catalytic core of the spliceosome. Here you see a picture, derived mostly from work in Christine Guthries labgenetic suppression experiments suggesting that U6 and U2 come together to form an elbow-like structure. Nearby are sequences that base pair with the five prime splice site and with the branch site. In this way, the branch-site A residue is juxtaposed for attack on the five prime splice site during the first step of splicing. Although only some of the sequences are conserved, the fact that you can draw the same types of structures lends credence to the idea that the model might be more or less correct. We now know that minor class splicing is not determined by the terminal intron di-nucleotides. More often they are GU and AG, just like major class introns. Instead, it is the longer sequences at the five prime end and the branch site that are determining. We also know that these introns and the second spliceosome must be at least a billion years old because they are found both in higher plants and in us. About one in three hundred of our introns are of this second sort.
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Prize Lectures
There are some current eukaryotic species, the yeasts and worms, that dont have these introns. The phylogentic tree suggests that they might have had them at one point, and then lost them over evolutionary time. So the biggest question (I just want to leave you with this about the second spliceosome) is where did it come from. Here Phil Sharp and his colleagues have proposed an idea that I actually quite like: maybe there was a progenitor spliceosome that then diverged in separate lineages into what we now know as the major spliceosome and the minor spliceosome. At some later point the two came together, fused and mixed. Because the requirements for the minor spliceosome are more definitive, what has been happening since was that we have converted many minor class introns into major class introns to be used by a spliceosome that is more flexible. That then could acccount for what we see in current-day genomes. Next you must ask, why do minor class introns continue to exist with their corresponding spliceosome. What we do know, because of experiments done by Abhi Patel and an undergraduate in the lab, is that these introns are spliced more slowly. You can increase protein production by exchanging the splice-site sequences and thereby switching the spliceosome
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the cell uses. Therefore, potentially minor class introns could be regulatory for the splicing process and for the pre-mRNAs in which they occur. We dont yet know. Let me go on at this point and talk very briefly about small nucleolar RNPs, or snoRNPs. This will be an introduction to the last little story I want to tell you about the connections between splicing and other steps in gene expression. We need to go on an excursion to the nucleolus. What you see here is just a part of the nucleus. The nucleolus is not membrane bound but rather where the repeated genes encoding ribosomal RNA are collected together and transcribed by RNA polymerase one into precursor rRNA molecules. Processing then happens in the fibrillar component, and in this larger granular component of nucleolus, the ribosomal proteins that have been made in the cytoplasm come in and assemble together with the newly synthesised ribosomal RNAs. The subunits then go back out to the cytoplasm to make proteins. One way of looking at the nucleolus is by where its not. That is what you see here: again we are looking at where the splicing snRNPs are and you see them in the nucleoplasm and also the Cajal bodies that Angus Lamond has done so much lovely work on. They are not in the nucleoli. The same cells are here
stained with anti-fibrillarin antibodies. Fibrillarin is an abundant protein component of the fibrillar parts of the nucleolus. As you shall see in a moment, fibrillarin turns out to be a nucleolar (sno)RNP protein. Thus, you see the nucleoli and also slightly the Cajal bodies. The main business in the nucleolus, as I have already mentioned, is to make a pre-ribosomal RNA. About half of the sequences in the pre-rRNA get thrown away in the process of releasing the mature RNAs, which are found in ribosomes. One of the things that happens very early to the prerRNA is that a number of nucleotide modifications are introduced. As you see here, they are introduced not into the spacer regions that get thrown away, but only into the parts of the prerRNA that are going to become mature molecules. As indicated, there are two sorts of modifications: two prime Omethyl groups and pseudo U groups. Youll see the latter in just a moment. It turns out that for each and every one of these modifictions, the position is guided by a small RNAa small nucleolar RNAin the form of an RNP. Because there are so many of these, there is in fact a huge machinery in our nucleoli that is designed to put in these rRNA modifications. We are still struggling with what the modifications
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actually do for the ribosome, but the machinery is large. There are two classes of small nucleolar RNAs (snoRNAs) and small RNPs (snoRNPs): one for introducing two prime O-methyl groups and one for the pseudo U groups. I am going to be telling you a bit more about the former class. These small RNAs have conserved sequence boxes called C and D, and internal copies that are similar called C prime and D prime. What happens is that the ribosomal RNA can base pair, usually perfectly, for 1020 nucleotides upstream of either Box D or Box D prime. If you count 5 base pairs along this helix, that is where the methyl group is introduced into the ribosomal RNA. The two prime Omethylase turns out to be fibrillarin, which I already mentioned. It is an autoantigen that is often the target of autoantibodies in scleroderma patients. The most remarkable thing, however, about snoRNAs is how they are encoded in our genomes. It turns out that they are not in their own transcription units. Rather, they are encoded within introns, usually of protein-coding genes, as you see here. Instead of introns being all junk, there are some fragments of introns that are in fact released, go to the nucleolus with bound proteins and have a second life. They do something in the nucleolus,
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namely guide the modification of ribosomal RNA. You see here that the intron is spliced out, is debranched, and exonucleases chew from both ends as the snoRNA assembles together with proteins. At the time this slide was made (it is an old slide), we didnt know what the snoRNA function was. We now know that U15 is one of the RNAs that guides two prime O-methylation of a particular site in the large ribosomal RNA. Most of the snoRNA genes, as I mentioned, hide in the introns of protein-coding genes. Interestingly, they tend to be genes for ribosomal proteins, as you just saw, for translation factors, or for nucleolar proteinsall things that have something to do with protein synthesis or the biogenesis of the protein synthesis apparatus. That makes sense. But there are some very unusual genes in our genomes where almost every single intron has a snoRNA in it. When these genes are spliced, the spliced RNA doesnt have a long open-reading frame. It doesnt appear to be translated, but just very rapidly degraded. So these are sort of inside-out genes, where its the intron pieces that are long lived, and splicing seems only to be a device for releasing the introns so that they can be processed into snoRNAs. As far as we know the spliced exons dont have any
function in cells except to turn over. With that I would like to move to the last part of my talk, where I want to talk about one particular connection between splicing and another step in gene expression that we have been working on recently. That is the assembly of snoRNAs with proteins into snoRNPs. Since the snoRNA sequences reside within introns, one might expect that this assembly process would be coupled to splicing. What I will be telling you about is the work of Tetsuro Hirose, who was a Human Frontiers-supported postdoc in the lab and recently went back to Japan, and Mei-Di Shu, a technician who worked with him. I will be telling you about the splicingdependent assembly of intron-encoded Box C/D snoRNPs. There is also a small component of splicing-independent assembly that I shall mention. First, I need to tell you a little bit more about the protein composition of the particles in the Box C/D snoRNP class. I already mentioned fibrillarin. Cross-linking experiments were done by a graduate student, Niamh Cahill, who introduced 4-thioU residues into each of the U positions in the conserved boxes, which were believed to bind proteins. From her work, we think there are probably two molecules of fibrillarin, which makes sense
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because there are potentially two sites that guide two prime Omethylation. There are two proteins, Nop56 and Nop58, which are related, but noninterchangeable, that bind to different distinct places. Both Niamhs work and the work of Lara Szewczak, a postdoc who used nucleotide analogue interference mapping to study RNA functional groups required for the assembly of snoRNP particles, came up with evidence that the 15.5 kDa protein is binding to the terminal stem. That conclusion was also reached by several other labs, notably Nick Watkins in Reinhard Luhrmanns lab. I also need to tell you a little bit about the terminal stem structure, which some of you will know a lot about as it has been worked on in David Lilleys lab. It is believed that the terminal stem forms a new RNA motif, a newly-recognised RNA motif, called a kink turn. We have crystallographic data on what this RNA motif looks like from structures of the ribosomal RNA in the ribosome and also from Luhrmanns lab, where the 15.5kDa protein has been cocrystallised with a piece of the U4 snRNA that forms this structure. Whats seen in these structures are two base-paired regions and then two sheared GA base pairs, which extrude a nucleotide that makes very close contact with the 15.5
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kDa protein. Although we dont have structural evidence for the Box C/D snoRNAs, they do have the potential for forming the sheared GA base pairs. Laras evidence indicates that this particular U residue assumes a very unusual geometry within the structure. The question that I posed is, when do the snoRNP proteins, and particularly the 15.5 kDa protein, initiate the assembly of the snoRNP particle? Does it occur before the intron is spliced? Does it occur at some particular step during the splicing process? Does it occur after the intron has been released and de-branched? What we did know is that assembly has to occur before the exonucleases go to work because, at least for most of the snoRNP proteins, if they are not present the snoRNA disappears. It just gets completely chewed up. The first indication that Tetsuro Hirose had that the two processes of assembly and splicing might be mechanistically linked came when he examined about 60 sequences of introns containing snoRNAs from the human genome and plotted where the snoRNA sat within the intron relative to the five prime and three prime splice sites. What you see here is that they very much prefer to sit about 70-80 nucleotides upstream from the three prime splice site. The distance from the five prime splice
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site is much more variable. This suggested that there was something important in the positioning. What Tets first did were deletion experiments to look at snoRNA production in transfected cells. He concluded that there was no specific sequence required but that it was the distance between the snoRNA and the branch-point A residue that was criticalnot the distance between the snoRNA and the three prime splice site. That made sense in terms of what we know about splicing. If you try moving the snoRNA closer to the branch point, you simply dont see it ever being released and assembled. If you move it farther away, the efficiency of synthesis simply just drops off. On the other hand, the snoRNA doesnt have any effect on the splicing process. Again, all these data indicated some sort of synergy between the splicing process and snoRNP assembly. To look at this further, Tets set up an in vitro system where he could use a splicing substrate with an intron and snoRNA within the intron. He got both the splicing, the snoRNA trimming process and assembly to work in a test tube. Here we see the pre-mRNA and the lariat product, the spliced intron product, and the intermediates the two-thirds lariat and the excised five prime exon. Here we see that the snoRNA has
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extended sequences at its three prime end and gets trimmed down to the mature-sized snoRNA. Again the requirements for Boxes C and D and for the correct spacing were all apparent in the in vitro system, as in the in vivo system. One of the really nice things about lots of work having been done on in vitro splicing is that at this point we know much about the various stages of spliceosome assembly and function. We also have tools with which we can block the process at each of the various stages. As illustrated here, one of the ways of doing this is to use short RNAs, two prime Omethyl oligonucleotides, that interact with a snRNP RNA and block its action at a specific step. For instance, one oligonucleotide blocks the attachment of the U2 snRNP to the branch point. Another blocks the replacement of the U1 snRNP by the U6 snRNP. Yet another blocks the rearrangements that take place when the U2 and the U6 RNAs come together to form the catalytic core. Finally, it turns out that if you replace the AG at the three prime splice site, you block splicing after the first step and before the second step. The idea then was to block the spliceosome at these various stages and ask when do we see that the snoRNP proteins have assembled. Are they assembling
at a particular step? I am going to show you just one piece of data in this slide from such an experiment. What we are looking at here is immunoprecipitation with anti-fibrillarin antibodies. In an unblocked reaction, you can see association of fibrillarin with several different intermediates. But if you block between the first and second step of splicing, you see build-up of the two-thirds lariat intermediate. It is precipitated by anti-fibrillarin, antibodies against one of the snoRNP proteins. If the boxes in the snoRNA sequence are disrupted, you dont see that, so the results correspond to the features you would expect. Knowing that the two-thirds lariat is in fact already binding snoRNP proteins, you can ask whether something about the architecture of this particular intermediate is important. Or, does the lariat have to be generated during the splicing reaction in order to get the snoRNP proteins assembled? What I am going to show you in my next slide is an experiment where Tets ran a splicing reaction, cut out the two-thirds lariat intermediate, and simply put it back into a splicing reaction. He asked whether it would pick up snoRNP proteins. Here we are looking at a different substrate, so things are running differently and we are using a tagged 15.5 kDa protein to do the immunoprecipi-
tation. What you see is that if you throw the two-thirds lariat intermediate back into the reaction, it is not precipitated by association of the 15.5 kDa protein. However, if the lariat is generated during the course of the reaction, it is. This says something active is happening during the splicing process. So, the conclusions to this point are that assembly of the snoRNP (and there are lots of data that I havent shown you) does seem to occur at a particular step in the splicing reaction. If the snoRNA is too close to the branch site, assembly cant occur properly. Thus, you never get the snoRNP assembled and released, again arguing that there is synergy. How does it occur? One possibility is that the spliceosome serves as a chaperone and helps the formation of the kink turn so that the 15.5 kDa protein can recognise it and seed the assembly of the rest of the snoRNP proteins. Other possibilities are that there are direct protein interactions between the 15.5 kDa protein and something in the spliceosome. There are actually two versions of this possibility. One is that something interacts and actually deposits the 15.5 kDa protein on the snoRNA at this particular stage of spliceosome function. Another possibility is that only at a particular stage of splicing is the intron
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cleared of non-specific RNAbinding proteins that prevent the snoRNP proteins from getting on. Only at that point do the sequences at the termini become available for the binding of the 15.5 kDa protein. At the end, I want to quickly mention an alternative mode of snoRNP assembly. If I have convinced you that splicing is necessary for snoRNP assembly, some of you will have noticed in the graph I showed you earlier that there are some snoRNAs which sit very far away from the three prime splice site. So how do they get assembled? What Tets realised when he looked at one of our favourite multi-snoRNA host genes was that the snoRNAs that sit at the optimal distance have short terminal stems. In contrast, for the one that is far away, he could at least draw a longer stem in the vicinity. That also seemed to be the case for other snoRNAs which are located far from the three prime splice site of their host introns. In order to test this hypothesis, what one wants to do is to destabilise the stems. Various mutants were made that progressively destabilise the stem. One also wants to be able to move the snoRNA from its distant position to the optimal position and then ask what happens. Here are some in vivo experiments. What you see is that in the distant position, as you lower the stability
of the stem, the efficiency of production of the snoRNA drops off. If the snoRNA is instead in the close position, the optimal position, the stability of the stem doesnt matter too much until it gets to be quite unstable. We think there are other reasons why this particular snoRNA is not well expressed. Finally, the nail in the coffin experiment to ask whether this idea is right or not, is to take a snoRNA that is in the optimal position and move it far away. You expect to see its efficiency of production drop, but then by adding a stem you expect to recover it. The final bit of data shows that is in fact what happens. If you move the snoRNA to a distant position, its efficiency of synthesis drops way down, whereas if you include a long stem in the flanking sequences, you can up the efficiency of production to a pretty good level. What I have told you would suggest that for most snoRNAs that are located at an optimal distance, there really is a mechanistic link between splicing of the host intron and the assembly of the snoRNP. For those that are located far away, having an external stem that perhaps helps the kink turn to form so that the 15.5 kDa protein can bind, enables assembly. A somewhat more colourful version of the story is shown here, with splicing75
dependent assembly occurring at the C1 stage of the spliceosome reaction, and independent assembly occurring earlier. I would like to point out that at about the time we found this, there came a beautiful paper from Angus Lamonds lab which talked about the unusual trafficking of the 15.5 kDa protein to the nucleolus. Namely, it goes through the nucleus by transiting through speckles. Getting to the nucleolus moreover was dependent on RNA polymerase two transcription. Of course, this all fits very nicely with the idea that the 15.5 kDa protein is getting on to the snoRNA co-transcriptionally and co-splicing. It then moves from the speckles, where the snoRNP has been mostly assembled, to the nucleolus for the snoRNP to function. I am looking forward to discussing more of this with Angus tomorrow. To give credit for the data that I have shown you, I again would like to thank Tetsuro Hirose and Mei-Di Shu and Human Frontiers, as well as HHMI and NIH. I would like again to return to the slide I started with, for there are lots
more challenges here. There are many more interactions that need to be understood on the molecular level. A lot of fascinating biology is going to come out of such studies. What I find so remarkable is that a process that doesnt even exist in bacteria, the splicing process, has become so central to the whole gene expression pathway in our cells. I will leave you with that idea, and remind you that we started a long time ago with patients who had autoantibodies with various specificities against proteins that interact with small RNAs to form RNPs in cells. I want to end by saying thank you not just to the people that I mentioned specifically, but to all the wonderful students and postdocs that I have had in the lab over the years. They were the ones that made this story possible. Here are a few of them that turned up at a recent Halloween party. Each one of them is a different snRNP, and you see they are connected with exons. They have five prime caps and three prime polyA tails. The whole story is there. I thank you for your attention.
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The Bruce Preller Prize Lecture Professor Sir Keith ONions FRS Director General of Research Councils, Office of Science and Technology 6 September 2004 The Threat of Terrorism: The Place of Science Sir Keith ONions is one of the most distinguished and eminent geoscientists that the UK has produced. He is internationally recognised as one of the most important figures in geochemistry of the past 30 years, leading and contributing seminal research that has had a major impact on our understanding of the Earth. His research area can be broadly summarised as the development of isotopic windows on Earth and Planetary processes. His innovative research in this field has been at the heart of the major conceptual and technical advances in isotope geochemistry and its application to understanding the origin and evolution of the Earth and evaluating the nature and time scales of processes operating both within and on it. Sir Keith pioneered the use of the Sm-Nd isotopic system to quantify the rates of formation of the continents and timing and scales of depletion of the mantle. He integrated this with other isotopic systems to provide rigorous constraints on the nature and scales of chemical variability and cycling in the crust-mantle system of the Earth. More recently, and using novel material and instrumental methods, he has distinguished isotopic reservoirs in the oceans and ocean current systems and so traced the history of key oceanic circulation patterns. With Sir Ron Oxburgh he developed quantitative methods for determining the flux of He from the Earth, applying this not only to assessment of the rates of crust production at mid ocean ridges and recycling at convergent zones but also to evaluating the energy resource potential of hot rocks at depth. Sir Keith has also made telling contributions to Scottish geology through his long-term research programme on the age and crustal history of the ancient Lewisian gneisses of NW Scotland. In his role as the Chief Scientific Adviser to the Ministry of Defence from 2000 to 2004, he turned his attention to the science of nuclear warheads. In this role he drove the development of simulations and models that ensure the functional quality of the weapons stockpile without the need to verify them by underground testing - an essential element of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. His role with the MOD and involvement with the science of nuclear detection and weapons monitoring, as well as his deep understanding of
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isotopic, chemical and physical processes in the Earth, inevitably led to his strong role in the scientific assessment and analysis of the threats of terrorism, the topic of his talk today. Sir Keith has now moved from the MOD to take up his new and critical position as the Director General of the Research Councils of the UK. In this pre-eminent position with the Office of Science and Technology he will play a major role in guiding, facilitating and promoting high-quality research in the UK. This citation can provide but a flavour of the scope, breadth and importance of the scientific research produced by Sir Keith ONions. Through his many high-level administrative, committee, advisory and chairperson roles he is also one of the most influential and important figures in UK Earth Sciences. The RSE is proud to award Sir Keith ONions the Bruce Preller Prize Lectureship in the field of Earth Sciences.
Over the five years that Ive been in defence Ive inevitably had to take an interest in areas of science beyond the ones I know - to become a jack of all trades and master of none. The lack of my depth in a number of areas will become exceedingly evident to specialists very quickly in this talk. Since 9/11, inevitably one has thought about terrorism and the role of science. So I took this as an opportunity to put a few observations together. No answers, but a few observations. I give you a couple of health warnings at the beginning. Its a subject in which the dividing line between things that are too sensitive to talk about and things that ought to be spoken about is difficult to find. But this is on the light side of the fence I can assure you.
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The other thing is any views expressed here should not be construed as UK Government policy or anyone elses policy. They are my personal observations, which are collated for this lecture and for your benefit, if not my own. Let me say something at the beginning about science in the UK. The first point I want to make is that the UK and many other governments have nowadays a very clear view as to why they support science. Take science in quotes, I mean science, technology and the broader research base they have very clear outcomes for investing in science and research. And these, quite simply, are economic benefits to the societies and countries in which we live, and public good. And my job at the moment in the Office of
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Science and Technology, in effect is to work that interface and to make the arguments to Ministers and the Treasury of the economic and public good benefits of science and enable distribution of funds to the scientific community, transparently, following the criteria of scientific excellence and world class research. These are not incompatible objectives. Within that, public good obviously includes national security and that is the area that I am moving towards. The standing of the UK in science and research in general is world class, by any yardstick that you invent. We are exceedingly fortunate in that regard. We have a very open and receptive research tradition. In many areas we are second only to the United States in pure output of excellent research and we rarely fall below number three in the world in others, so we have a very very strong tradition. With regard to the threats of terrorism which the events of the last days [Russian school kidnappings - September 2004] have made us all too aware of, I must say its one of the saddest things that I have ever experienced but I feel, and hope you will concur with me, that a very high quality world class research base is a prerequisite for dealing with the enormously complex problems of security.
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To move on then, advances in science and technology are taking place at enormous speed and a much greater proportion of work today takes place in a global context. Because so much of our research is global, research carried out in universities and institutes here in Scotland can be made available and disseminated around the globe very quickly with modern information systems. By the same token, research carried out elsewhere in the world is available here in Scotland to appropriately skilled people. Yet at the same time it does offer terrorists new capabilities in communications in rapid access to information and indeed new weapons. I will concentrate quite significantly on the potential threat of new weapons, or the weaponisation of technical advances. Noting in rather a sober manner that in the case of the awful events of the recent past in Russia or of 9/11, that the technical advances that have given the greatest impetus or ability to terrorists have probably been communications and information. The ability to communicate - the technology that we use to do very effective work, I think, has given great impetus to this, yet probably we are a little bit more preoccupied with the potential for new weapons. But I will be talking
about potential weaponisation of new technology. The next point is that these rapid advances in science and technology are not so strongly dependent on pure government research as they were. Nor do governments really have the ability to control the dissemination of technology. Rather they are driven by global enterprise and one should say, encouragingly, with great global benefit. But some perceive us to be in an era, living in an era, moving to an era, of much elevated societal risk from the rapidity of technical advance. and are concerned at our possible inability to cope with it in a regulatory sense and mitigate the risk. Sir Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal has written on this topic. Inevitably we have to balance the reality of that against the huge good and necessity for these advances. The terrorist exploits dissimilar values to our own. Employs strategies that we would not contemplate; organisations and capabilities that have the habit of taking us by enormous surprise regardless of how much deep thinking we do; capitalises on perceived weaknesses in our society, our structures and the way we go about business. And gains often massive and disproportion-
ate advantage from that asymmetric approach. I will be talking quite specifically about what in shorthand is called the CBRN (Chemical Biological Radio Nuclear) threat. The principal reason is that there is really quite a focus on that threat and a much greater awareness of the potential of that threat following 9/11. Albeit that, as Ive said, probably advances in communications provide the greatest capability gained so far. We have had, and continue to have, a real focus on the threat of the weaponisation if you like of CBRN. And this, coupled with rapid scientific progress in biological and biotechnology areas is sufficient to cause many people to focus on this point. Id like to say a little bit about this area in some of the observations that I make, but I dont want give out the message that I necessarily view this as a threat that is vastly greater than other sorts of threats or opportunities that terrorists might seize. Going back in time, biological attacks and biological terrorism dont appear to be terribly new. Mankind has been pretty dastardly over the years and probably the earliest record of a biological attack took place at the siege of Kaffa (Camp Constantinople) in 1346 when Mongols catapulted remains of plague victims into the
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city and started a plague epidemic - pretty low-tech. The current list of perceived CB threats will be well known to you all and includes things that have been used in a threatening manner in the recent past - the chemical agents, mustard gas which has been known for a very long time, Sarin gas, which was produced in the 2nd world war the substance used in the Tokyo Underground, various others and the biological agents : Anthrax, of course; plague, nothing new there; Smallpox, weve all read about this. And the list is, of course, much longer but these are ones that are relatively easy to talk about. The reason why these appear to be so threatening, not only to the general public and governments, but also to most scientists, is the scientific and technical backdrop - the pace of change - the sheer rate that technical and scientific change is taking place. In the biological area, mapping of entire genomes, and in particular the human genome, is probably the biggest scientific advance in the last 50 years. Genomes of all sorts of organisms are now extremely well known leading to increasing knowledge, mostly to the good of our health and so on, but admittedly offering opportunities elsewhere. The technical rate of progress rings alarm bells. Can we cope?
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Will we be able to regain enough control to keep ahead of those that want to use these advances in a malign way? So today where are we? Science and Technology is advancing rapidly. Results are available globally with increasing speed its a sort of self-sustaining system. The further we go, the easier it is to distribute the information. This is probably most evident in biomedical research where probably also levels of concern are highest. Without question, there is potential for misuse. There is particular concern over weapons of mass destruction - whether they be chemical, biological, or radiological. And this rate does raise certain questions which have yet to be clearly answered. These are questions of scientific regulation - Is it a good thing? - Is it a bad thing? - Is it sensible? - Is it naive? and accountability - whether researchers or research institutions or funders or the DGs of research councils, should or shouldnt be accountable in some way for the research thats being supported. as well as the ethical issues.
These are questions that are still not fully answered, which are I think of importance to the scientific community. I said I was going to stick around the biological area, not to give it a heightened importance in terms of a threat, because I dont necessarily believe it is, but it is certainly an area where we have a very high level of attention. And its an area where the excellence of our research in the UK gives us a very good ability to predict, understand and mitigate. So to the current threat. Where do you start? We have to start with intelligence and answers. Without these - nothing. Theres no point putting a vast research effort into some potential pathogen if theres no evidence anybody knows how to make it, use it, or deploy it. So intelligence is where you start, and you will see this is the point of all aspects of terrorism. How do we meet those threats that intelligence today would say are realistic threats now, or within a reasonable timescale? Let me give you an example of the process involved in the biological detection of pathogens - most of this research has really been done in defence, primarily with the thought of protecting deployed forces, but its also applied more generally and I think it gives you the flavour for how biological
detection of pathogens, both in the urban environment and also in the military environment takes place. In principle a pathogen could be distributed in an area of conflict or indeed, closer to home, from a ship, plane or truck, to produce an aerosol cloud. These are things that military people have worried about for many decades and this is mostly where this research comes from. Basically you ask a series of questions - a hierarchy of questions. In essence this means making or obtaining some sample of the atmosphere within a region of interest. In a technical sense the first question is do the particles have the correct physical characteristics to be biological?. The non-specific question. After collection of airborne particles, which are then put into an aqueous suspension, it becomes possible to ask the generic question, are they biological. And then, through laboratory analysis, comes the specific question is this biological material, x. y or z?. This is important in any environment, not just a military environment. Because its rather like an earthquake. If somebody can tell us theres going to be an earthquake in Edinburgh next Wednesday we may be prepared to lock up and move. People will change their
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behaviour if theyre confident of the predictions. But youve got to be pretty confident about a prediction of a biological material before you leave your home or shut up your windows, or find the recent booklet from the UK Government. Using surface plasma resonance spectroscopy in the laboratory, we can identify pathogens linked to specific antibodies and obtain a quantitated estimate of the density. The challenge in this area is in avoiding false alarms. Again its like the earthquake. Theres no point saying well we think theres a 10% chance of something nasty. False alarms have got to be very low. Weve got to have a very high level of confidence. The aim is obviously to move to unattended, real-time operations - if it takes you three months in the lab to analyse it, its not terribly useful. And the further challenge is to try and develop technologies for standoff detection and also for detecting the unknown. At the moment its easy to say that it could be this, could be that - but what if someone makes something we havent seen before? Vaccination is an immensely important area. And the key to all this, as an observer rather than a practitioner, is in the progressive and improved understanding of
the immune system overall in the human body - and particularly the role of dendritic cells. They have various functions. But one of them is to latch onto bacteria and other things. 1) they can destroy them and 2) they can, if you like, educate other cells - t cells and b cells - by imposing a memory into the system that this stuff is bad and if you see it, go get it. And the vaccine, of course, is stimulating the host defences to enable the host to react. But the rate at which vaccination against these horrid things is developing is sort of in concert with the huge progress thats being made in understanding of the immune system. There are people here in the audience that will really be quite expert on these sort of things. In terms of vaccines and storing vaccines, the challenges are clearly to obtain fewer doses. Those of you who remember anything about the Gulf conflict in 1991 will know that all participating troops had very large numbers of vaccines for this, that, and the other - quite large numbers of doses. Although theres no proof that there were adverse effects, there is still a debate as to whether some of the gulf illnesses were related to that. So fewer side effects and rapid immunity are requirements. Its not much use if its going to be six
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months before we develop immunity. And also simultaneous protection against several pathogens. Progress is very substantial in this area within the UK, to the point that improved plague vaccines, 100 times more effective than previous generations have now been developed. The challenges here could eventually be in trying to vaccinate against something which is unknown, some engineered species, and whether a vaccine could be developed for that. As we enter the future, some of the concerns individuals have had is the potential for generating a micro organism from scratch, or indeed enhancing the virulence or survivability in the atmosphere of existing organisms. Thats really all I wanted to say on that subject, only to highlight that if one casts ones mind over some of the more recent terrorist activities they have been extraordinary low-technology in terms of weapons, and as I say, more capability has probably been gained from the ability to communicate, plan, acquire information, collate it, and so on. Scientists face some new challenges as a result of rapid advances and increasing potential for misuse. There has been some debate, mainly in the US over whether there should be some imposed regulation and accountability, be that institutional or individual.
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Another question is whether self regulation and awareness of researchers should be the appropriate way forward. You may remember, not too long ago, a joint declaration in both the journals Science and Nature on the need for awareness at institutional and individual levels of the potential for misuse. Something we have seen in recent years, is a much greater demand from governments for advice from scientists on a wide range of issues, whether it be foot and mouth, whether it be GM, whether it be BSC, whether it be terrorism itself. Advice that Governments can view as independent and which can inform its policy and so on. My sense is that that sort of demand will remain very high, and I can say that from personal experience, having been a researcher for most of my life, and one of those people who really felt that my independent view should never be questioned. Once you move into Government circles you really do lose that independence. Governments become very dependent upon societies such as the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Royal Society of London, the professional societies, for an independent view. I think the demand for this will increase and I think it is much in our interests to engage fully and actively in that. I think that one of
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the most important things that scientists can do, is to have an expectation during their career, probably at an earlier stage in their career than my generation, to engage, to give up a bit of time to advise on regulation early in the event. Just to finish up on biology. I think it unreasonable to take a scaremongering approach, but what can we do. I think the key things are : - intelligence as the key to drive the protection efforts, stay ahead, know more, understand what is going on, and that is where we have a huge advantage in the UK. We have a very literate scientific and technical community. - focus of research spending, not at the blue skies level, not necessarily at the level I am talking about with research councils, but focus spending into security against these threats. If you believe in what intelligence tells you, go at them and focus research effort there. Returning to the debate as to whether there should be codes of conduct and accountability in terms of limiting the proliferation of progress in biotechnology. In my judgement, laissez-faire - No. I think we have very responsible research councils, universities and individuals, I think probably some
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slight reinforcement of that responsibility is important, but I dont think it is possible to prevent the dispersal of these technologies and what to a researcher in a lab may be quite harmless, may be alarming technology ten years down the road. So I think we have to be completely reasonable as to what limitations should be imposed on academic freedom. I want to look at one last example before finishing off - Missile Defence. This is something which has oddly gone out of the news, I just want to use it as an example of a very determined response to a perceived threat from what might be best described as rogue states, rather than individual terrorists, but there is a fair comparison between serious terrorist organisations and a rogue state. At the beginning of next month, the system of intercept missiles in California and Alaska comes on stream. I thought I would spend a moment on this, because technically it is really quite mind-boggling. Missile launch trajectories can be described in three phases. The boost phase, lasting a couple of minutes, a 10-20 minute midcourse phase which takes place outside the atmosphere, and a short landing phase. Were the US to intercept anything, it would be in the so-called mid-
course phase where it is well outside the atmosphere. With both projectiles travelling at about 5KM per second, when these two things collide, or if they collide, with opposing velocity of 10KM a second, the amount of kinetic energy which is disposed of, is absolutely huge and everything is vapourised. That is called the kinetic energy kill-bill - you can see where I did my last year. In technical terms, for the ballistic experts in the audience, it is basically firing your gun or a rifle and someone firing one over there and getting the two bullets to collide and disintegrate. Japan is also investing and moving in that direction, and we sit there and go My God, a bit expensive. I mention that because the cost of the US system is the size of our defence budget. But America is wealthy, feels that this threat is real, demonstrably has the technology to mitigate that threat to a reasonable level, and is prepared to invest very heavily in that. I think in some ways it this is an expression of how seriously the US has been affected and feels affected by these raw terrorist rogue state threats. A nation with enormous technical capacity and belief in what technology can do, scores a very determined response.
Let me sum up. The first concluding statement I would make is the one that I started with.. The key is an excellent science base that can better understand, predict and respond to the broad spectrum of these threats. A very strong scientific and technical base is a prerequisite. In terms of scientific regulation could we regulate, should we regulate? In defence and security research there are clear regulations. Elsewhere responsible behaviour is entirely preferable. Participation of active scientists in informing policy and regulation, is increasingly important, and I sense that young people coming along fully understand that and are fully prepared to do that. What are the risks to society from very rapid technical advances? There is concern that the recognition of risk and regulations cannot keep up with the rapidity of a technical advance, and that this leads to heightened risk with catastrophic outcomes I think it is essential that the UK remains ahead of the curve, and that we understand better, mitigate and regulate before the event rather than after, but actually in this rapid technical and scientific advance, the benefits, in my view, still massively outweigh the risks and threats that I described earlier. That is all I have to say.
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The Henry Duncan Prize Lecture Professor Duncan MacMillan, The Talbot Rice Gallery, The University of Edinburgh 4 October 2004 Scotland and the Origins of Modern Art In 1990, as part of its Purchase of Rooms Appeal, the Society received a donation from the Trustee Savings Bank (Scotland), from which Council created a Prize Lectureship named after the Reverend Henry Duncan, founder of the first Trustee Savings Bank. It is awarded triennially to a scholar of any nationality for work of international repute in Scottish Studies. Past recipients have included Professor Tom Devine FBA FRSE, University Research Professor in Scottish History & Director, AHRB Centre for Irish & Scottish Studies, University of Aberdeen, and Professor David McCrone FRSE, Professor of Sociology, University of Edinburgh. Duncan Macmillan, recently retired from a long and distinguished career in the Department of Fine Art, University of Edinburgh, is the pre-eminent authority on the history of Scottish painting from the Renaissance period to the present day. Through his various books and innumerable articles, he has played a central and pioneering role in bringing Scottish painting to a wider audience, not just within Scotland, but in Britain as a whole and internationally. By raising the general awareness of the centrality of painting to the whole of history of Scottish culture, Professor Macmillan has also provided the inspiration for a whole new generation of scholars in the field.
Czanne is universally regarded as the father of modern art. So what do we see when we look at such classic images as his Man Smoking a Pipe, or Woman with a Coffee Pot? We see certainty and uncertainty, the monumental and the provisional, all somehow combined. These are images that convince us intuitively of the solidity and grandeur of what we see, yet which we cannot capture intellectually. Indeed in human terms they are enigmatic. The
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sitters are present, but we cannot reach them. Their image seems permanent, yet somehow it is not fixed, but is part of a world that is in flux; indeed in all Czannes mature pictures we seem to see an ongoing process, not a state. Nor can we locate pictures like these as portraits. Their human content is important and they are certainly not still-lifes, but nor do they belong in any of the traditional genres of painting whose disappearance was a major part of the
new modernism. Instead, like the still-lifes which were such a large and significant part of Cezannes output, these pictures seem somehow to represent an epitome of the complex and elusive phenomena that make up our visual comprehension of the world. So how did Czanne get to this point? What was he trying to say to us? I cannot claim to give a whole answer, but I do believe that hitherto people have looked for it in the wrong place. I dont mean simply that they should have been looking in Scotland and have not done so, though Scotland is my main subject today. It is more that the place of modern art in the wider history of western thought has been generally misunderstood and the failure to appreciate the Scottish part of the story has contributed to that misunderstanding. I believe Czanne is part of the central intellectual and imaginative project that has shaped the modern West; what we have to call the empirical project, the attempt to understand the world around us by investigation and description. This is the intellectual adventure that has given us modern science and technology, but, I will argue, it has also given us modern art. Looked at that way it is clear that this adventure did not begin somewhere in the late nineteenth century, but much
further back. In the perspective suggested by the history of empiricism, too, it is beyond argument that the Scottish Enlightenment was a key episode in this story. You cannot fully understand the place of the history of art in this without the Scottish chapter that has hitherto been missing and it is my purpose today to provide that part of the narrative. So after starting with Czanne, I will go right back to the beginning and return from there by way of the Enlightenment to that moment at the birth of modernism, a century ago, where I began. This is a drawing of a pelican done from the life by an unknown artist some time around 1620. It is part of a huge collection of some nine thousand similar drawings by many different artists that form the Paper Museum of Cassiano del Pozzo. Cassiano was, like Galileo, a member of the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome. The first great scientific academy of the modern world, its name translates as the Academy of the Lynxes and the lynx is famous for the sharpness of its vision. The academys name therefore stresses the importance of sight, of direct observation as one of the first principles of modern science and at its very beginning. It is in keeping that these drawings, precise visual records, formed the first ever attempt at an encyclo-
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paedia, an empirical description of everything in the known world based on actual observation. It was a moment when the objectives of art and science were indistinguishable and is a witness therefore to the place of art at the heart of the intellectual revolution that was just beginning. The Paper Museum could never have succeeded, but before that could even have become apparent, something else intervened to change the course of history. Rembrandt painted the Blinding of Samson around 1637 as a gift to his patron, the scientifically minded Constantin Huygens. But the picture does in my view represent only its overt subject from the Bible. The importance of sight itself could not be more plainly stated than in this gruesome image and I believe the real subject of this otherwise unexplained gift was the metaphorical (and later also actual) blinding of Galileo, with his telescope the most sharp-eyed of all the lynxes, when in 1633 he was forced by the Papal Inquisition under threat of torture and imprisonment to retract his view that the earth was not the centre of the solar system. It was a view that Galileo had ascertained empirically and so when he was forced to retract, Papal authority overruled the new empirical science. The Italian Renaissance ended abruptly and from that time forward the
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attempt to understand the world empirically fell to the northern Protestant societies which of course included Scotland. Rembrandt was claiming for painting a central place in this succession and artists did remain very much part of this endeavour in Holland especially. You see very clearly with Vermeers painting called the Little Street in Delft how they pursued understanding through description and visual investigation. In Delft, too, Vermeer worked alongside such pioneers of optics as van Leeuwenhoek, inventor of the microscope, and there is a clear analogy between his art and the work of his scientific friends and colleagues. Nevertheless, if you look more closely at Vermeers work, and indeed if you consider the story that Tracy Chevalier has woven around his painting of the Girl with a Pearl Earring, you realise how he makes clear that all observation, however objective it may seem, is nevertheless inescapably coloured by our psychology. This is even more apparent if you consider Rembrandts selfportraits. He was as fully conversant as Vermeer with the new science of optics and clearly from such pictures we can see that the painters had already begun to understand something that is central to my whole topic: that quite simply the ambition of objective description on which
empirical science is based is deeply and permanently flawed. In his later self-portraits especially, Rembrandt looks at himself and asks, how can I be at once both subject and object? How can I describe objectively what I am inseparably part of? Faced with this paradox, scientists have generally had to ignore the uncomfortable questions it raises in order to maintain the fiction of objectivity on which their discipline depends. It is a variation of the literary idea of suspension of disbelief. From the start artists knew no such constraint. Art could ask such questions. It is there that art and science began to diverge to the point where their common pursuit was no longer recognisable. It does not mean that it does not exist, however, far from it. Undeterred by such sceptical speculation, in England Locke and Newton formulated more fully than ever before the principles on which empirical knowledge is based. In doing so they helped lay the foundations of the Scottish Enlightenment, but it is also important to remember here how close Scotland and Holland were at this time. It should be no surprise therefore that it was in Scotland that Rembrandt and Vermeer found their first intellectual heirs and while the Scottish philosophers accepted the central principles of empiricism, that all
understanding stems and can only stem from experience, examining these principles Hume came to the same conclusion as Rembrandt. He asked the same question: how can we describe a world of which we are part? Or as he himself put it, the difficulty is how far we are ourselves the objects of our senses. He then concludes devastatingly, it is absurd to imagine we can ever distinguish betwixt ourselves and external objects. From this he goes on to argue that even when we look within ourselves, we find we are no more than a bundle of different perceptions which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity and are in perpetual flux and movement. If even our own identity is an elusive and uncertain thing, how can we hope to be certain of anything else at all? What Hume did, as George Davie so eloquently puts it, was to uncover, the scandal of the basic epistemological contradictions that made nonsense of all the high claims about the Age of Reason. That is a key observation in this whole story. It is here, I believe, that modern art finds its text. It is founded on a paradox and the search for a way to resolve it and thus to succeed in the ambition to describe the world as we experience it. Art and science still have a common goal. It is only that the
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artists are free to recognise its elusive complexity. The results they have produced naturally reflect this. The continuing community of purpose is apparent here where we see Humes sceptical views reflected directly in the wonderful portrait of him painted by his close friend Allan Ramsay, the second one that he painted dating from 1764. In it we already glimpse something of Czannes position; how certainty and uncertainty must somehow coexist; and as part of this, the enigma of otherness even when we are dealing with those closest to us. And if Ramsay looks forward to Czanne, he also looks back quite deliberately to Rembrandt, pointedly making the link for us between Hume and his greatest predecessor. You see that in the lighting of Humes portrait. You see it even more explicitly in Ramsays companion painting of Rousseau, painted to hang beside Humes portrait, either as a commission from Hume, or as a gift to his friend from the artist; it is not clear which. Hume gives conflicting accounts, but the fact that he does describe it at one point as a gift does suggest the intimacy and significance of the commission. In Rousseaus pose, position and in the way his face is lit against the darkness, Ramsay quotes directly from Rembrandts
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Self-portrait with a Hat, now in Washington. In doing so, I believe, he was taking this argument even further in the direction I am now following. When Rousseau sat for this portrait in the spring of 1766, he had just started writing his Confessions. The book is a great self-portrait, the literary successor to Rembrandts epic of selfexamination and, after Rembrandt, the first modern exploration of the nature of self. The book must have been the subject of conversation when he was sitting for Ramsay who spoke good French. At the very least Ramsays portrait suggests that he knew what Rousseau was writing, for in his picture the painter deliberately equates Rousseau with Rembrandt and thus, implicitly, his exploration of self, and with it the dilemma of the subject/object division at the heart of empiricism on which Hume was so eloquent, with Rembrandts own exploration of self and his contemplation of the subject as object. In portraits like these, in the way that Ramsay paints, lightly, suggestively and never definitely, but coaxing the image out of the shadows, identity is held in place in our perception only by imaginative hints as the painter seeks a way of describing the uncertainty of our knowledge, indeed of our identity; but Ramsay also sug-
gests, by this very technique of suggestion, how, above all with those around us, we overcome that uncertainty through imagination. Here Ramsay also parallels directly, and no doubt consciously, one of Humes key contributions to this debate, the argument that it is the imagination alone which allows us to hold together our fragmented perceptions and turn them into sense. It is here therefore that the term that has become definitive of the nature and purpose of art actually enters the language of art. But the imagination is also more than just a useful tool in making sense of the world. In the philosophy of moral sense as Hume developed it, it is the active agent of our moral natures, the key to the relationships on which society hinges; and Enlightenment thought was above all else social in its frame of reference. Human nature was Humes study and it was also Ramsays and so you can see in his painting how art is still the peer and companion of empirical thought, even at its most penetrating. Ramsays portrait of Margaret Lindsay is the epitome of this, of the imagination as the link between people, the only thing that can resolve that enigma of otherness, the agent even of love itself, for that is what we see in Margaret Lindsays face turned towards her husband as he enters, interrupting her
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arranging flowers. His familiar presence is reflected in her gaze which is open and without any social barrier visible in it. And in Ramsays later, red chalk drawing of his wife looking down, apparently unaware that he is drawing her, we also see him contemplating something else that I am sure he had discussed with Hume and which I will return to, the fragmentary nature of actual perception: how little we need to see in order to understand what we are seeing; how much we imagine in fact, and how above all this is true in our response to the human face; how vision itself is psychological. Here Ramsay is not only working alongside Hume, with whom at just this moment he founded the Select Society here in Edinburgh, but also their mutual friend, Adam Smith. Smith extended Humes interpretation of moral sense to argue that imagination, and, through imagination, sympathy, is the basis of society itself. Gavin Hamilton was a contemporary of Adam Smith at Glasgow University and a fellow pupil of Francis Hutcheson, first champion of the philosophy of moral sense and so of the argument that morality itself is a product not of reason, but of feeling. The realisation that morality itself is psychological, not rational was the crucial breach in the integrity
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of the idea that empiricism and thus reason could describe, understand and also explain all phenomena. We should remember that in the essay that set out this argument, An Inquiry into the Origins of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725) Hutcheson already explicitly makes the connection with art. It is with Gavin Hamiltons six paintings from the Iliad that we see the idea of the role of the imagination expressed for the first time directly in painting. It is implicit in Ramsays work. For Hamilton and also his followers, however, its presence in a painting was a goal. It was a quality to be cultivated. And in his pursuit of that goal, we encounter another of the definitive ideas of modern art: the primacy of the imagination. But with it also came too another definitive idea: the superiority of the primitive and its appropriateness as a model for artists in search of the kind of imaginative authenticity that was essential to the proper working of our moral sense. It is the its claim to be specially equipped in the pursuit of that vital authenticity which allowed art first to claim the special privilege which it is still granted in the modern world. Hamilton turned to Homer for inspiration because Homer seemed to be a witness of the earliest history of mankind when human society was young and still
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unspoiled. He did this in a context shaped not only by Francis Hutcheson, but also by Thomas Blackwell who in his essay on Homer (1735) pioneered the idea of the imaginative and therefore the moral superiority of the primitive, of the original state, long before Rousseau was to do take up the same discussion. It was consistent with the idea of moral sense that Blackwell should see Homer as the recorder of an actual, pre-classical state of mankind when, because the human imagination was not yet cluttered with preconception and prejudice, humanity enjoyed far greater imaginative freedom and transparency than in decadent later times. In consequence, he argued, there was much greater moral clarity. The beginning of history was a time when, as he put it so poetically, So unaffected and simple were the manners of those times the folds and windings of the human breast lay open to the eye; nor were people ashamed to avow passions and inclinations, which were entirely void of art and design. Blackwells revolutionary view of Homer as pre-classical, therefore in the proper sense primitive and that his poetry was in consequence superior and more authentic to anything that came afterwards, is echoed by Adam Ferguson: The artless song of the savage, the heroic legend of the
bard have sometimes a magnificent beauty which no change of language can improve and no refinement of the critic reform. You can also match this sentiment very closely in Andr Bretons first Surrealist Manifesto, incidentally, in case you think I am imagining continuities that do not exist. As doyen of the painters in Rome, Gavin Hamilton was also the leader of an international community of artists and both his art and his conversation, for he kept an open studio, were the vehicle for the wider transmission of these Enlightenment ideas. His circle included some who are recognised as the pioneers of modern art and others who do not yet enjoy that recognition. Davids painting of the Oath of the Horatii, for instance, is universally seen as one of the first icons of modern art, but its model was Gavin Hamiltons painting of the Death of Lucretia. In that picture Lucretia is the heroine. Inspired by her self-sacrifice, her men folk turned to overthrow the Tarquins and establish the Roman Republic. Progress, moral progress, not technical progress, but improvement, the amelioration of society and its progression from the state of barbarism dominated by the masculine warrior code, depended on the actions of a woman undertaken in defence of the virtues of love, hospitality and individual dignity; the virtues in
short of a world governed by true feeling. This, when it is put alongside other works by both Hamilton and David which demonstrate his considerable debt to the older painter, gives a quite different meaning to Davids picture from the conventional one of heroic masculinity heralding the Revolution; a meaning that was also retrospectively imposed on Hamiltons picture by analogy with what Davids was believed to stand for. For years Hamiltons painting was called the Oath of Brutus. Art historians demoted Lucretia, the woman, in favour of Brutus, the man, though in fact he is not the protagonist, but only an agent in the action inspired by her. The next act in the drama in Davids picture was the slaughter, first of the rival Curatii, and then of the Horatiis own sister Camilla who is seen collapsed in despair with the other women in the picture. This is not just feminine weakness. It is real terror. Camilla had been rash enough to fall in love outside the clan. Davids subject is actually a brutal honour killing. There is no reason to suppose that he did not intend us to see it as barbaric. Indeed a contemporary commented on the cruelty of the subject. Davids real point, therefore, is the opposite of the meaning usually given and is once again the superiority of
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feminine feeling, of intuition, over brutal masculine violence and the need for feeling to prevail if society is to advance out of barbarism. But in the work of the Scottish painters in Hamiltons circle, the modern idea of the primacy of the imagination and the place of the primitive as its model were even more directly expressed. Alexander Runcimans Origin of Painting indeed has the primitive, the original, the first state as its actual subject. Derived from Pliny, though rather fancifully, it tells the story of how the very first painting was created when a girl traced the outline of her lovers shadow on the wall as he slept. The shadow is natures own drawing, art in its elemental, natural form. But continuing the previous point about sensibility, the first artist is also a woman and her hand is guided by Cupid, by love. Runciman not only went to Pliny, however. His actual model was what he and his contemporaries perceived as primitive art in exactly the same way as Gauguin, Matisse and Picasso were to regard the art of the Pacific and of Africa nearly a century and a half later. Greek vase painting seemed at the time to be an art contemporary with Homer. This was a mistake we now know, but it was a reasonable one in the state of contemporary understanding and it allowed these vases to be seen
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as also literally primitive, an artistic witness from the first state of mankind. These artists had access to these vases, or at least to the south Italian form of this art, through the collection formed by Sir William Hamilton in Naples, published with a commentary by a rather doubtful connoisseur called dHancarville, in a magnificent series of volumes in the early 1770s. One particular small vase decorated with the head of a girl in profile was identified, with great imaginative freedom and a singular disregard for historical fact, as the work of Debutades, the Corinthian potter to whose daughter Pliny attributes this historic action. Runciman models the strange and distinctive profile of the girl in his painting on that of the girl on this vase. Ossian, when first published by James McPherson in the 1760s, was also perceived as primitive, a voice speaking to us from the first natural condition of mankind. Ossian also the additional cachet of belonging to the non-classical world and specifically to Scotlands own non-classical past, remembering that the Scots piqued themselves on never having been part of the Roma empire. In a drawing done in Rome in 1771 Runciman represents Ossian and his music as at one with the wind in the trees. Here he is the author of spontaneous, natural poetry. Just as he was
described by Hugh Blair as shooting wild and free, as Runciman represents him, Ossian is already the model of the artist as the embodiment of spontaneity and natural freedom, unfettered by rules, a model that has endured to this day. Indeed sometimes now it looks as though that is all we can look for in our artists. Ossians music is seen as wild and untutored as the waterfall that is associated with him, the Falls of Bran near Blair Castle painted by Runcimans contemporary Charles Steuart. A belvedere still stands over the falls that was designed to capture their natural music as though it was Ossians song. This part of the story crosses over to more familiar territory when we look at Runcimans contemporary in Rome and also in Hamiltons circle, David Allan. Allan collaborated with Burns through George Thomson to illustrate the songs that Burns collected and composed. Burns also recognised in Allans work the qualities of primitive, unspoiled simplicity that he found in these songs. Even more striking, however, in this quest for the defining concerns of modernity, indeed of modernism, is Allans Preface to his illustrations of the Gentle Shepherd, Allan Ramsays fathers pastoral play, famous for the naturalness with which it was held to record the lives and loves of unspoiled
country people. In that text, published in 1788 and dedicated to Gavin Hamilton, not only does Allan claim to have followed Ramsays example and recorded the actual places and people about whom he wrote, and therefore that his own art is equally naturalistic, but that his own naturalism also mirrors their simplicity, their lack of sophistication, their naivety even. He makes the remarkable claim that his own command of the new technique of aquatint that he used in his illustrations manifestly lacks skill, but that that lack is a virtue. It was not his intention, he says, to produce expensive smooth engravings, but expressive and characteristic designs. In other words he disclaims skill in favour of expression. That is a very modern attitude indeed, the deliberate assumption of untutored naivety. Thus far we have not yet reached the end of the eighteenth century in this story, but from Hume and the philosophy of moral sense we already have in place some of the key ideas of modern art: the primacy of the imagination, the importance of spontaneity, the disregard of rules, of skill even, the imitation of the primitive and the cultivation of naivety. These are present in the work of these painters and through them are also already being transmitted to their continental contemporaries
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and most notably as we have seen they are reflected in one of the recognised icons of the early history of modern art, Davids Oath of the Horatii. They are also seen even more directly, in fact, in the work of one of Davids pupils and Ingress contemporary, Paul Duqueylar. Not only is Ossian the subject of his enormous picture now in Aix en Provence, but simplicity and even naivety are adopted as a virtue by a painter who actually called himself Primitive. For Duqueylar seems to have been the leader of a shadowy group of Davids pupils who called themselves Les Primitifs. It may seem that in pursuing these ideas I have strayed from the epistemological questions with which I began, but I will now return by a route that I think shows how closely these things are connected. David Allans Penny Wedding is a scene of rustic simplicity. A penny wedding was an exercise in cooperative living. It represents a world where property is held in common and so is not divisive. It is a world recognisably akin to one that Burns often invokes where the poor are happy and carefree and the rich are miserable, weighed down with the cares of possession. The key is harmony and that is represented in Allans picture by the dance and the musicians who lead it. The same image appears in an apparently very different guise
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in Raeburns wonderful portrait of Neil Gow, the greatest fiddle player of his age. Gow was untutored. Nominally therefore he was like Ossian, a naive, natural musician. Raeburn captures that brilliantly as he conveys to us how Gow is turned inward to find the music within himself, it is literally original, and he externalises it for us and for the dancers. He is represented as alone, but he is social too. He is surely not playing for himself, but is leading the dance. He is an epitome of the artist and I think this is how Raeburn wanted us to see, not just Neil Gow, but also himself. He identifies himself with Gow. Raeburn painted directly and spontaneously. He did not draw or prepare for his portraits. He may have learnt this from Alexander Runciman too, but more than that if we look at the detail of how he painted in his double portrait of Sir John and Lady Clerk of Penicuik for instance, or his tremendous portrait of Lord Newton, we can imagine how he saw an analogy between his direct and vivid brushwork and the bow of Gows fiddle. Gows music was strong and simple, never flashy, so is Raeburns art. But more than that, Raeburns approach brings us back to those questions of epistemics and the role in them of intuition, a quality in both Gows music and Raeburns painting.
Raeburn too is a social artist. He simplifies in order to emulate our actual social vision, the way we read a face intuitively, broadly and without analysis. After Hume, the key discussion of these questions was in the philosophy of Thomas Reid. Reid was held to have answered Humes scepticism, his view of the uncertainty of all knowledge, with his philosophy of common sense; with the argument that Hume had missed the point; we do not understand the world of experience intellectually, but intuitively. Intuition is the key and through intuition the external world impacts directly on our senses. There is no intermediary intellectual stage between experience and knowledge. This is how Raeburn describes the faces of his sitters. Thus just as Neil Gow is an intuitive musician, Raeburn is an intuitive painter. Indeed all along intuition has been implicit in this argument. What we have seen in the work of the artists I have been looking at is a search for a way to liberate the imagination from the intellect in order to operate more intuitively and therefore with a purer moral understanding. You can now see Hamiltons argument about the role of the feminine as also about the role of intuition and a century and a half later, when Henri Bergson took up
this discussion in a way that again had a direct bearing on painting, he described intuition as specifically feminine. Thus Reid joins up the ends here to bring intuition back into the argument about epistemics, the nature of knowledge. In his new epistemics Reid recognised that knowledge must have a physiological dimension. There must be a direct medium of exchange between the mind and the external world. Thus he changed completely our understanding of the nature of the mind. But what concerns us first of all here is his explanation of perception. In this he is also radical and his radicalism bears directly on painting because painting is the analogy that he constantly uses to explain how he believes we arrive at our perceptions of the world. He provides a vivid account of the subjectivity of vision; how psychological it is; how it is not a mechanical process of transmitters and receivers, but an intuitive process in which we select what we need from sensations; how it is a language of signs; how they are incoherent and meaningless in themselves, but are the raw material from which the mind constructs perceptions. The painters position in this process of selection, he says, is what sets him or her apart. His business is with the signs, with the incoherent sensations on
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which perception is based, not what they signify, nor the perceptions themselves. These are the result of our intuitive interpretation of those signs. Reid constantly reiterates this distinction, between the sign and what it signifies. This is how he puts it: I cannot therefore entertain the hope of being intelligible to readers who have not by... practice acquired the habit of distinguishing the appearance of objects to the eye from the judgement that we form of their colour, distance, magnitude and figure. The only profession in life wherein it is necessary to make that distinction is painting. The painter hath occasion for an abstraction with regard to visible objects somewhat similar to that which we here require; and this indeed is the most difficult part of his art. For it is evident if he could fix the visible appearance of objects without confounding it with the thing signified by that appearance, it would be as easy for him to paint from the life ... as it is to paint from a copy. Surely Raeburns art echoes Reids view of how painting works? There is no question that he was familiar with these ideas. He not only painted Reids portrait, but he was also a close friend of Reids principal interpreter, Dugald Stewart. The first volume of Stewarts Elements of the Human Mind published in 1804 has
perception as its subject. Nor were these ideas abstruse. Philosophy was the dominant discipline, the matter of ordinary conversation. Hume and Dugald Stewarts monuments together dominate Edinburgh still. In the detail of Raeburns Lord Newton you can see how the image is made up of the painters unmodified record of the raw material of perception. Ideas have no part in it. We reconstruct the meaning from the painters account of his retinal sensations just as if they were our own. Not only did Reid dismiss ideas from painting, and they had been its principal justification since the Renaissance, he had by this time also already located it as a wholly psychological phenomenon. Far from resolving the subject/object dilemma, he pushed art firmly towards the subjective, where it has remained ever since. He has made it the sum of two subjectivities, ours and the painters, and there is no certainty between them. This is already recognisably the modern position. Pursuing that, let us stay with that idea of subjectivity for a moment. Reids epistemics have two sides. Perception is the product of the external world acting directly on the mind. Expression is its compliment, the product of the mind acting directly on the body and so becoming apparent in the external world. Expression - facial expres99
sion and body language - is also the medium of social exchange. It is one of the principal means by which we understand each other. Society is a psychological construct and its proper working depends on such exchanges. Charles Bell was Reids interpreter here and his investigation of the nature of the nervous system was a direct response to the question formulated by Reid and reiterated by Dugald Stewart: that the answer to these epistemological questions must be physiological. Bell provided the physiological answer to this question, but the study of expression was part of the way he reached it. He himself was trained to draw by David Allan and in 1806 he published his Anatomy of Expression for Artists. Wilkie shared Bells interest and indeed contributed to his book. It is a reminder that art and science are still proceeding in close partnership at his point in the Enlightenment. In the directness of his portrait of Mr and Mrs Chlamers-Bethune and their daughter Isabella, you can see already how psychological Wilkies painting is, how vividly, through his account of expression, it records his own subjective experience of a situation. Indeed he is visibly present in the gaze of father and daughter; and he did this in 1804 when he was only nineteen. In the little girl Isabella, we see also the innocent eye, the
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natural untutored critic, intuitive if you will, who clearly warmly admires the artist. In the same year Wilkie painted Pitlessie Fair. It is a rumbustuous picture, but I only want to dwell on one aspect of it, that it is a picture of Wilkies home village. It is local and autobiographical. Again it locates his art in his own personal experience. What is new about that? Surely that is where we expect painting to find its locus? It was not so before this. Here it owes something to Burns and to Archibald Alison (as did Wordsworth). It is also an idea that Wilkie passed on to his friend Constable who thereafter based his art on his own countryside and his own formative experiences. It represents a crucial step towards the modern position that art is and only can be a matter of personal and inescapably subjective experience. There is no place for generalisation. These are also ideas that Wilkie shared with Walter Scott and Scotts vision of history itself as personal, subjective and local had a European influence. Scott had a huge reputation in France where his vision of history had enormous appeal in the reconstruction of the countrys self-image in the decades after the Napoleonic wars. But if Scotts influence was important in French painting, he could hardly provide a direct model. Wilkie could however and
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he did. Among French painters he was equally celebrated. His example helped guide them in the vital shift that took place in the late 1820s and thirties away from the primacy of history painting towards an informal art based on a subjective, psychological vision in which, for progressive painters at least, the classical genres broke down. This was discussed explicitly at the time. Amede Pichot, for instance, dismissed the official tradition of academic art as lart ministeriel, favouring instead an art that was informal and popular in which he explicitly recognised the importance of the example of the Scots painters. The key picture in this process was Wilkies painting of the Chelsea Pensioners reading the Despatch of the Victory of Waterloo. It was as well known in its time as Guernica was in the twentieth century and was so widely imitated that it is hard to see now just how radical it was. The scene is the breaking of the news of Waterloo with the publication of the Gazette Extraordinary on the morning of 22 June. That date is not the date of the battle and so suggests how it is really the subjective dimension of time that is Wilkies subject, not the apparently objective facts of history. In order to capture the sense of time, Wilkie spent a lot of effort getting the daylight right in his painting. It pins down the moment. The
place is specific too. The ultimate measure of time is the sun and the daylight in the picture sets the time of day. History, however grand, takes place under the common light of day. Time does not differentiate. History has no special dispensation. It can claim no privilege. In the picture neither the time nor the place so carefully represented are in fact those of the actual event. The scene is actually taking place four days after the battle had been fought and won. History is elusive. This great event has no permanent presence. Here in this picture, ostensibly a history painting, history is already remote in time as well as place. It only exists as narrative and here Wilkie gives us a cheeky double take, for of course what he portrays is literally a narrative, a picture of someone reading a story. So much for grand events, this is all that history can ever be, an old man reading a newspaper. There is a similar bit of anti-history in Boningtons Quentin Durward at Lige. His most ambitious picture, it was painted when Bonington and Delacroix were sharing a studio. Wilkies inspiration was behind the picture just as much as Walter Scotts. History dissolves as it happens into the infinite multiplicity of individual experiences, once again, all those bundles or collections of different percep101
tions which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity and are in a perpetual flux and movement. And so the specific time and place in Wilkies picture are extended into the detailed identification of individuals, who are, nevertheless, not great men and women, just ordinary people. The change in the status of history painting that Wilkie achieved shaped the art of the nineteenth century and this was not only in true in Britain, but also in France. There the reputation of the Chelsea Pensioners began even before it was completed. Gricault saw it when it was still in Wilkies studio. He praised the picture in glowing terms, but picked out one particular figure for attention. I shall mention to you only the one figure that seemed the most perfect to me, and whose pose and expression bring tears to the eye however one might resist. It is the wife of a soldier who, thinking only of her husband, scans the list of the dead with an unquiet, haggard eye ... Your imagination will tell you what her distraught face expresses. What he describes, at the very centre of the painting, is one anonymous womans anxiety, her personal, individual drama. He was right. This figure above all tells us that the narrative can only ever be a compound of multifarious, subjective individual experiences and they are all ultimately un-
knowable. The great have no priority over the small. There is no grand design. Wilkie takes history, real, actual unfolding history and then turns history painting on its head by gently, but undeniably feeding into it all the uncertainties and subjectivities that Hume had recognised will ultimately confound any proposal to describe the world objectively. Gricault was predisposed to admire Wilkie because his own great painting of The Raft of Medusa was already directly inspired by Charles Bell. It is in fact a response to a key passage in Bells Anatomy of Expression. It is only when the enthusiasm of an artist is strong enough to counteract his repugnance to scenes in themselves harsh and unpleasant, when he is careful to seek all occasions of storing his mind with images of human passion and suffering, when he philosophically studies the mind and affections as well as the body and features of man that he can truly deserve the name of a painter. I should otherwise be inclined to class him with those physicians who, being educated to a profession the most interesting, turn aside to grasp emoluments by gaudy accomplishments rather than by the severe and unpleasant prosecution of science.
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Like Wilkie, Bell had an enormous reputation in France. His first biographer was Amede Pichot, Scotts first translator into French, and whom I have already quoted on the subject of lart ministeriel. There is also much more evidence than I have time for here of Wilkies direct impact on Delacroixs art. For the moment it is enough to note that the same passage from Bell, quoted above, also inspired Delacroix in the Massacre at Chios. So now two more of the icons of the early history of modern art are located in the exchange between France and Scotland which I have been tracing. But that exchange is reflected even more directly in this picture. It is usually given a special status in this story because, it is held, in it we see for the first time a scientific account of aerial perspective, but that brings us back to Thomas Reid. In France after the fall of Napoleon, like Scott, Reid played a central part in the imaginative and intellectual reconstruction of the country and was seen as doing so at the time. He was regarded almost with reverence and his philosophy was taught first at the Sorbonne in 1814 by P. P. Royer Collard. This teaching was then continued by Victor Cousin. In 1818 Delacroix wrote in a letter to a friend: I should be very glad too if we could once again attend the opening of Cousins course. Then
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in his Journal in May 1823 he noted: I decided to paint scenes from the Massacre at Scio. I go to see Cousin tomorrow. Many years later in 1855, remembering this period in his early life and confirming Cousins importance to him, he wrote: When I left College, I too wanted to know everything; I thought I was becoming a philosopher with Cousin. Here is just one example of how close a bearing what Reid wrote had on painting. It is a passage on the subject of aerial perspective, the quality that is held to be so important in Delacroixs painting of the Massacre at Chios, the painting that here he himself associates with Cousins teaching: In an apple tree which stands at the distance of about twelve feet, covered with flowers, I can perceive the figure and the colour of the leaves and petals; pieces of branches, some larger, others smaller, peeping through the intervals of the leaves - some of them enlightened by the suns rays, others shaded; and some openings of the sky are perceived through the whole. When I gradually remove from the tree, the appearance, even to colour, changes every minute. First the smaller parts, then the larger, are gradually confounded and mixed. The colours of leaves, petals, branches and sky, are gradually diluted into each other, and the
colour of the whole becomes more and more uniform. This change of appearance, corresponding to the several distances, marks the distance more exactly than if the whole object had been of one colour. So by 1824 to add to the catalogue of elements of modernity that had already appeared in Scotland and thence in France, we can now add the overturning of the academic hierarchy of the genres and the dethroning of history painting to replace it with a personal, intuitive and subjective vision of the world, but also crucially the appearance in French art of a kind of scientific naturalism, a phrase that was closely echoed in contemporary French accounts of Reids philosophy, described by Royer-Collard as both scientific and naturalistic. But the story does not end there. Perhaps the most celebrated moment in the emergence of the new, modern painting in France was the exhibition in 1849 of Courbets great painting, LAprs Midi Ornans. It should be no surprise now to find that it is a picture that is intimately linked into this story. It is not simply that Courbets composition is based directly on Wilkies The Cottars Saturday Night. But in the picture Courbet makes exactly the same connection as Raeburn had done between the spontaneity and informality of his own painting
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and the music of the fiddle player. As a painter he even claimed to be untutored and thus himself naive. More than that, like Wilkie, he raises a personal, local (and nonmetropolitan) iconography to the level of high art. In doing so he proclaims the primacy of the subjective and intuitive. Indeed, painting LAtelier du Peintre, the largest self-portrait in history, perhaps Courbet is already suggesting that the only answer to the dilemma of trying to find and describe an objective reality is, in spite of Hume, the big I am, the naked ego. Courbets approach was followed by Manet and the Impressionists, but not, I believe, without a further and unexpected intervention from Scottish epistemics. In 1842 Cousin, as in effect Minister of Education, reformed the Baccalaurat making philosophy compulsory and in doing so laid down a syllabus which had at its heart the writings of Thomas Reid. A student edition was produced and so, if it was indeed still on the syllabus, when they were at school Monet and Manet and all the rest had to read Reids discussion of perception. As we have seen, he made it extraordinarily vivid and relevant to painters. I believe this may be part of the reason why there seems to be such a close affinity between Manet and Raeburn for instance. Both also owed much to Velasquez and it
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may be a coincidence, therefore. Nevertheless it is striking that we also find at just this moment, above all with Monet, the emergence of a scientific approach to the description of perception in painting that does match very closely what we read about the processes of perception in Reid: how it is the painters business to put down the unmodified sensations, leaving the viewer to reconstruct perceptions from them. This is not the whole story of course, but it is a part of it which I believe has not been told before and which seems to locate this whole thrilling episode in the history of painting in the much wider story of the history of Western thought and the exploration of the nature of knowledge. And so that brings us back to Czanne. It may again be coincidence and it is certainly not simply cause and effect, but I think his painting does also fit into this interpretation of events. He cultivated a rather illiterate image of himself, but I was intrigued to find that at the Lyce in Aix, far from being the backward boy sent to do carpentry and to join the art class because incapable of more literary pursuits, he won all the prizes. He was a scholar and so as philosophy was compulsory, presumably he too may have studied Thomas Reid. It certainly would seem that there is at least
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an affinity between this kind of description by Reid and what Czanne actually does in his painting. The visible appearance of things in my room varies almost every hour according as the day is clear or cloudy, as the sun is in the east, or south or west, and as my eye is in one part of the room or another: but I never think of these variations otherwise than as signs of morning, noon, or night, of a clear or a cloudy sky. A book or a chair has a different appearance to the eye, in every different distance and position of the body of which its visible or perspective appearance is a sign and an indication. It is the painters job to describe and make sense of all this. The rest of us need not trouble our heads with it. But to add into that complex the recognition of the indivisibility of time from all the rest of our subjectivity and perhaps it does become possible to understand Czannes intellectual position as shaped, if not directly by Thomas Reid, at least by a far longer debate than conventional art history can offer. His approach is intuitive, informal and direct. The image is held together by the imagination. These are all the things that had entered painting over the last century and a half, or even longer, for it aligns him not only with Hume, but with Rembrandt before
him. The reason why he is rightly regarded the father of modern art is perhaps that with him we reach the watershed, the dividing of the streams, or indeed he is a mountain peak high above the watershed. Certainly he looks both ways. He summarises and draws to a conclusion so much that has gone before and in doing so he opens the way to the future. And so, before I conclude, what happened next? Does the apparently radical departure that we see in the subsequent emergence of Modernism invalidate this whole argument? Initially at least things continue as before, Cubism in its purest form can be seen as a direct response, not only to Czanne, but also to Bergsons account of time and space. You might also say Bergson himself began with Reid. An early publication was on Common Sense, Le Bon Sens et les Etudes Classiques. He also certainly set intuition at the centre of his own philosophy, and indeed the fragmented vision that Picasso offers us could equally easily illustrate Humes account of the fragmentary nature of perception and of the subjective self at its heart. But it was Nietzsche who cut the Gordian knot of the empirical paradox. If we can never resolve the question of the indivisibility of subject and object in our attempt to describe experience, then abandon the search and celebrate
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the purely subjective, the individual will, for its own sake. It is no longer a matter of the imagination struggling to make sense of the fragments of experience. All that is needed is an act of will. Picasso made this the starting point for a career of nearly inexhaustible creativity: the artist as net creator is remade in a divine image. It was unsustainable, even by Picasso himself, however. His own sexual impotence was the constant a theme of his old age. His art was so personal and subjective, the artistic urge and the sexual urge were conflated. Nevertheless, in an action that has been more widely imitated than any other in the century since he made it, Duchamp demonstrated the power of Nietzches idea. Art is an exercise of the will. It is simply what you say it is. No doubt it was intended to mark the end, the abandonment of the ambition to describe experience that had driven the evolution of progressive art for three centuries. In spite of Duchamp you can see the art of the twentieth century as a search for new goals and new agendas. In this search artists were liberated by the new freedom. Nevertheless the old goals were not abruptly abandoned. Surrealism which proved to be one of the most fertile movements of the midcentury took its text from the eighteenth century as I suggested
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earlier. Indeed if you consider Freud an empirical scientist, Surrealism could be seen as a renewal of an old partnership. It is only in the last few decades that Duchamps position has become the dominant one, but it is nevertheless ultimately sterile. It is little more than an aphorism. Leading everywhere, it leads nowhere. It offers no goal. But happily if you consider our contemporaries, such as Eduardo Paolozzi or Ian Hamilton Finlay, you see that the attempt to make sense of the world, to find order in it for us, is still their inspiration.
Indeed it is their theme. And imagination is still the key, a point that brings the artists back alongside the scientists. More than ever we need them to work together. On his great sculpture outside the Royal Bank of Scotlands offices at the Gyle in Edinburgh, and which appropriately he called The Wealth of Nations, Paolozzi has inscribed a quotation from Einstein that is effectively a summary of Hume: Knowledge is wonderful, but imagination is even better. And so the story goes on.
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Sir Tony Hoare FRS Senior Researcher, Microsoft Research Ltd. 10 November 2003 Grand Challenges for Computing Research Sir Tony began by stating that the tradition of grand challenges has been a spur to accelerated progress in many branches of science. He advised that if you want to know whether a challenge qualifies for the title Grand, compare it with some familiar earlier challenges: - Prove Fermats last theorem (accomplished) - Put a man on the moon within ten years (accomplished) - Cure cancer within ten years (failed in 1970s) - Map the Human Genome (just accomplished) - Map the Human Proteome (too difficult for now) - Unify the four forces of physics (under investigation) - Hilberts programme for mathematical foundations (abandoned in the 1930s) In the relatively short history of computer science, the following examples may be familiar to the specialist: - Determine whether P is not equal to NP (open) - The Turing test (outstanding)
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- The verifying compiler (abandoned in the 1970s) - A championship chess program (completed) - A GO program at professional standard (too difficult) - Literary translation from English to Russian (failed in the 1960s). The success of a Grand Challenge project is a major milestone in the advancement of scientific knowledge or of engineering technology or of both. It is celebrated throughout the world, not only by the scientific teams who have been engaged in the project for many years, but also by the general scientific community and (just as important) by the general public. An outstandingly successful recent example has been the Human Genome project, completed earlier this year. This project has been taken as a model by scientists in many other disciplines, who have intensified their search for an opportunity to advance their own discipline by collaborative undertaking of a Grand Challenge on a similar scale and duration.
Computer Scientists in this country, Sir Tony explained, are currently engaged in such an exercise, under the sponsorship of the recently constituted UK Computing Research Committee. The exercise has the support of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, the British Computer Society, the Institute of Electrical Engineers (both representing the computing profession) and the Council of Heads and Professors of Computing (representing the academic research community). There has been general agreement on the stringent criteria that would justify conferment of the title of a Grand Challenge on a project proposal. The exercise was initiated by an open call for submission of ideas to meet these criteria. They were discussed at workshop in November 2002 at the National e-science Centre in Edinburgh. The ideas were classified in seven topic areas, and in each area, a moderator entrusted with that task has conducted a web discussion:
1. In vivo <=> In silico: High fidelity reactive modelling of development and behaviour in plants and animals (GC1) 2. Science for Global Ubiquitous Computing (GC2) 3. Memories for life Managing information over a human lifetime (GC3) 4. Scalable Ubiquitous Computing Systems (GC4) 5. The Architecture Of Brain and Mind (GC5) 6. Dependable systems evolution (GC6) 7. Journeys in Non-Classical Computation (GC7) Sir Tony informed the audience that Grand Challenges would be the title of a BCS/CPHC Conference in Newcastle in March 2004 and any future Grand Challenge project would be based on the scientific judgement of the specialists in the area, as well as gaining endorsement by the scientific community as a whole.
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Professor Dugald Cameron, OBE Former Director, Glasgow School of Art, and Roddy Galbraith Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Glasgow 20 November 2003 Scotlands Contribution to Aviation Speakers Abstracts Dugald Cameron Sir George Cayley, a Yorkshire baronet, is regarded as the father of aeronautics. He made the first heavier-than-air flights in in 1849 and 1853; a boy and Cayleys coachman were the reluctant passengers! 2003 was the Centenary of the Wright brothers epic flights at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina on 17th December 1903 - the first ever sustained, controlled, heavierthan-air flights. From its very beginnings more than a century ago, Scots made, and are still making, a significant contribution to the development of aviation. The first lighter-thanair flight in the UK took place at at Comely Bank, Edinburgh in 1784. Otto Lilienthal, working in Germany from 1891was the first real aviator. His disciple was Percy Sinclair Pilcher, an assistant in the Department of Naval Architecture at the University of Glasgow. Pilcher was the first person to make repeated heavierthan-air flights in the British Isles, at Cardross on the Clyde in 1895. He carried on after Lilienthals death in 1896 until his own in 1899. Recent recreations of his flights which were powered by a tri-plane, demonstrated that he was on the right lines. Others took up the challenge: Preston Watson at Errol, and particularly the Barnwell brothers at Causewayhead, Stirling. Frank and Harold were successful designers and pilots, and Frank became the chief designer of the Bristol Aeroplane Company. The Royal Air Force was created out of the Royal Flying Corps, established by the Glaswegian, General Sir David Henderson. He was also its real father - born 1st April 1918. ...human kind differs from all other life by its ability to imagine and create. This is an ability greater than that of analysis by science or sensory stimulation by art. Not merely because it needs both of these to create something greater but because in so doing it provides for our fellow men. (the Late Lord Baker OBE FRS FREng)
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Engineering is often easier to depict than to describe. One striking thing about engineers apart from their disenchantment with the managerial class set above them and the trivialised culture which neglects them - is how often they want to draw things; words not being up to the work of describing technical reality. Give us a pen... engineers would say, it works like this. (Anon.) Roddy Galbraith The lecture details a few of the main achievements/contributions that Glasgows Department of Aerospace Engineering has made over its relatively short history. In particular, the outstanding contributions of Professor W. J. Duncan FRS in the fields of flutter and matrices and to the aerospace community. After his untimely death in 1960, the Mechan Chair was filled by another scholastic giant, Professor T. Nonweiler. He made major contributions to hypersonic flight and space rendezvous, and invented the Wave Rider. It was to be five long years, after Professor Nonweilers departure in 1975, before the third holder of the Chair, Profes-
sor B. E. Richards, could once again bring stability to the Department and so create the environment for research. Major new initiatives were started through new research groupings, all of which made significant contributions to aerodynamics and flight dynamics. Professor Galbraith took over the reins of headship in 1990 and over the succeeding eleven years made the Department 100% researchactive. One of his most significant appointments was that of Dr C. McInnes FREng FRSE (now Professor), whose work on solar sails and autonomous rendezvous will have a long lasting and significant effect on the aerospace industry. Today the Department has at least three internationally-recognised research groups; in Aerodynamics, Space-flight Dynamics and Aircraft Flight-dynamics. Whether or not these can continue and develop in financially stringent times is a matter of debate and so various future options are provided. Whatever the outcome, it is clear that the best work will only be done by the best scholars; we must protect them.
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John Taylor Director General, Government Research Councils 9 December 2003 Research policy: the next five years
The end of my three-plus-two year term as Director General of Research Councils is a good time to reflect on what has been achieved and what challenges lie ahead. The DGRC is the head of a small office whose main job is to oversee the UKs science budget 3 billion by 2005/6. This involves the getting of it from the Treasury; the value-for-money spending of it through the Research Councils, their institutes and UK universities; and advice to ministers on all aspects of it. From another viewpoint, the DGRCs job is to lead strategic change and continuous improvement. So, as only the second incumbent since the post was created in 1993, what are the changes I am most pleased about over the past five years? When the Treasury or Select Committees ask me what they and the taxpayer get for the science budget investment, I usually hold three fingers up to them and say: - new science - trained researchers, and - knowledge transfer to the economy and society.
So I am pleased that the Science Budget in 2005/6 will be roughly double what it was in 1997-8, and that in the 2002 Spending Review we achieved a 10% per annum real terms increase. I am also pleased that the UK science base maintains its very high global ratings for doing world-class science, and that we have the basis of a long term solution to the sustainability of the science base I am very pleased, too, that we carried through the first Quinqennial Reviews of all the Research Councils and have implemented their recommendations by establishing the Research Councils UK partnership and the UK Research Funders Forum. I am extraordinarily proud of the Research Council Chief Executives and the way they have stepped up to a path of radical evolution commitment to leading the process of working together wherever the science needs it, without the huge disruption to science, the nugatory expense and the planning blight that moving to a single Research Council would have involved.
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Instead, we have committed to a route which maintains a very important diversity of funding between the different Councils. Making the Research Councils UK partnership work, and work well, will continue to be risky and difficult. But just imagine the UK basic research scene if we had taken the other route of having just one single Research Council. The UK has no equivalent to the US Department of Energy (DoE), Department of Defense (DoD), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), all of which fund basic science alongside the National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Institutes of Health (NIH). The UK would have had just one agency with one chief executive controlling virtually all government funding for basic research. It would have been a bridge too far in my judgement. To see the importance of Research Councils UKs achievements so far, just look at the two documents we have published as part of the SR2004 spending review process the Synthesis of Strategies and the RCUK Vision for Research. Their real significance is that they exist at all, as the product of extensive interaction between the CEs and their staffs and communities. Five years ago they would have been unthinkable.
And so would such major successes as the UK e-science programme, now being emulated by the US and many others, and the RCUK Basic Technology programme run by one Council, transparently and on behalf of them all and all their disciplines. When I came into this job in January 1999, amongst the first things to cross my desk were being Chair of JIF (Joint Infrastructure Fund), Chair of the Transparency Review, and responsibility for a 500 million project for a new synchrotron called Diamond, which had just been agreed with the Wellcome Trust. JIF has now lead to new permanent streams of infrastructure funding for both universities and Research Council Institutes. The Transparency Review has enabled the TRAC costing methodology to be put in place in all UK universities and is the foundation for our move to Full Economic Costing of Research Council grants over the next 2 years. And I was particularly pleased to inaugurate the Diamond Light Source joint venture company with the Wellcome Trust last year and to perform the ground-breaking ceremony for the new machine at the Rutherford Labs. In knowledge transfer, all the main metrics are moving seriously in the right directions, with major increases in research base start-
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ups, patents, licensing and strategic partnerships with industry. HEIF 2 (Higher Education Innovation Fund) will put in place further support for knowledge transfer, together with major new funding for diversity of mission in the universities, and the Cambridge-MIT Institute is now on course for real innovative success. And we have two more radical changes now in place. The Arts & Humanities Research Board is already an integral part of the RCUK partnership and, the Education Bill permitting, will become a full member of the OST (Office of Science and Technology) family next year. And with the excellent help of the BA (British Association for the Advancement of Science), we have been able to move on from the era of COPUS (Committee for the Public Understanding of Science) and into that of Science in Society, which will see significant new programmes in place in 2004. Alongside these mainstream activities, a couple of sidelines have also gone quite positively. I chaired the group which produced the report on Nanotechnology Applications in the UK for Lord Sainsbury in 2002, and I am pleased that the DTI has now announced major funding to support our recommendations. I also lead the first of the new style Foresight projects, on Cognitive
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Systems. This was a high-risk approach, bringing together leading researchers from the life sciences and the physical sciences to explore whether it would be timely to form new cross disciplinary teams to focus on how the brain really does it. I am delighted that the answer was a resounding yes, and there are energetic follow-up actions going on now to make this happen. So what challenges do the next five years hold? There is certainly much still to do to make sure that the changes we have initiated really take root and thrive, and that new opportunities are seized. Firstly, funding. Despite SR2002, we are still seriously behind our international competitors in the level of publicly-funded research. And we are number one in the world in research productivity, which is just a reflection of the sustainability issue we have not being paying the full costs of public funded research. The SR2002 settlement has put us on a trajectory towards remedying this from 2005/6 onwards we will be paying more per unit volume for research funded from the Science Budget, but nobody pretends that these increases will be enough to achieve full sustainability. So more funding will be needed just to achieve sustainability of our current level of research, and more again to increase the volume of our research to match
those of our international competitors. Secondly, there has seldom been a more fertile time for new research opportunities right across the spectrum. In most of these the UK is very well placed to take leading roles. In the life sciences, there are huge opportunities in the post-genome era in areas such as proteomics, systems biology, brain science, and stem cell research, and major challenges in clinical trials, mental health, ageing, infectious diseases and exotic diseases of both humans and animals. We have unprecedented demands for research on sustainable energy sources and all the related issues of global climate change and the environment. The convergence of computing, communications, electronics and information technology is leading to the explosive growth of cyberspace and increasing societal dependence on cyber-infrastructure. Quantum electronics and quantum information processing promise disruptive new information technologies. And as the nanotechnologies develop, they also will provide major disruptions in almost all forms of manufacturing. As Beagle 2 has shown so poignantly, there is renewed societal interest in the exploration of space, and the UK has the
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capability for world-leading innovative contributions in miniaturised robotics. This will surely be the right way for humankind to explore its place in the cosmos, without diverting unacceptable resources from the energy and environmental challenges it faces on the home planet. And since the proper study of mankind is man, the interplay between all these and the social sciences, economics, arts and humanities will also offer unprecedented opportunities for fertile new research. The UK could and should continue to make leadership contributions in all of these areas, often in international partnerships such as CERN (European Laboratory for Particle Phyics), ESA (European Space Agency), ESO (European Southern Observatory), EMBL (European Molecular Biology Laboratory) and many others. But the opportunities and the competition will not wait for us we must have the confidence and the determination to get our funding levels back with the leaders so we do not have to drop behind or opt out. Finally, the other crucial issue facing the UK research base over the next few years is the absolute imperative for the UK economy to move rapidly up the value chain. As low-value-added businesses move overseas to cheaper locations almost as we watch, it is
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essential that business in the UK focuses urgently on high-valueadded activity and contribution, enabled at least in part by the new knowledge and know-how generated in the research base. The level of industrial R&D in the UK is seriously lower than in most of our major competitors. It is also very patchy, with major fractions of the total in just two areas biotech/pharmaceuticals and defence/aerospace. It is vital that both industry and the UK research base expand their abilities to work together to accelerate the growth of high-value-added business in the UK. Implementation of the recommendations of the recent Lambert Review and the DTI (Department of Trade and Industry) Innovation Review must be an important priority.
The overriding common factor in very many of the new research areas is the need for them to be pursued by flexible, fleet-of-foot research and technology groups combining a number of different disciplines. The same is true in knowledge transfer and the development of high-value-added businesses. The past five years have shown me that people in the UK can be extraordinarily good at this when the culture supports and encourages it. I believe that the ability to work across many different boundaries disciplines, problems, markets, organisations, sectors could well be the single most important competitive advantage for the UK in the years to come.
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Professor Danuta Hbner Minister for European Affairs, Government of the Republic of Poland 19 January 2004 Edinburgh Lecture New Europe: World Views The vast majority of Polish citizens have supported accession to the European Union over the last ten years. They feel this way because they are profoundly European and want to be an active part of the democratic heart of Europe. The main reasons for our desire to accede are therefore historical, political and cultural. But we also have strong economic reasons. We do the vast majority of our trade with the Union and we hope that accession will bring a new wave to foreign investors to our country. Financial assistance through the structural funds is also important, but is not the overriding motive, as it is sometimes portrayed in the foreign press, Once in, what sort of member will we be? The evidence is that we will be a constructive and cooperative member of the Union. The dispute at the recent Brussels summit, leading to an interruption in negotiations for a new EU Constitution, was the result of a series of factors, including a lack of time for adequate reflection and negotiation. It is too simple to ascribe it to Polish intransigence.
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Enlargement does require that decision-making procedures in the Union are improved. We hope that the proposals in the draft constitution, on which there was a large amount of agreement amongst Member States at Brussels, can be brought back onto the negotiating table later this year for reconsideration. However we should perhaps not rush into a new summit without being sure that this time there will be agreement on the package of measures. We cannot afford a second failure. But Poland will bring new policy emphases into the Union. High amongst these priorities will be the Unions relations to eastern Europe, our direct neighbours. Other new members will have their own priorities too this is quite natural and was the case with all previous enlargements. However it appears to me extremely unlikely that the new member states will in any way form a block of like interests in the Council. If we could not forge alliances during the negotiations, I do not see why we should be able to do so after accession.
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The Union we are entering will undergo rapid change in the coming years. The most severe challenges will come from outside: developments in world trade, climate change and the exhaustion of natural resources, notably oil, migration, our relations with the USA and Russia, and with the rapidly developing worlds of China and India, and of course global terrorism. Individu-
al nation states in Europe working alone cannot meet these challenges. If they are to surmount them they will have to work together in a strong European Union in which solidarity between its members grows from year to year. Poland is ready to play its part in this process because we know that the real alternative to European integration is quite unthinkable.
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Professor John Wallace OBE FRSE Principal, The Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama 2 February 2004 The Value of the Performing Arts: An Illustrated Lecture
Professor Wallace began by stating that the Performing Arts are of universal benefit to human behaviour and to personal and national success. To sustain a healthy economy a nation needs a healthy culture. Culture is vital for national identity and a nations open-mindedness, tolerance, and responsiveness to the world of ideas. Turning failure into success through performance builds selfesteem in a non-harmful way. Risk-takers thrive. If the concept of calculated risk-taking training through performance could be multiplied nationally, countries would perform better. A strong economy thrives in a deep-rooted culture. Finland, now the most competitive economy in the world, with the same population as Scotland, has 27 symphony orchestras. The Scots need to sustain a balanced culture. Scottish traditional music is resurgent and youthful. Celtic Connections in Glasgow is the largest Winter Festival in the world to add to the largest Summer Festival in Edinburgh. This resurgence can be balanced with the classical orientation of our national companies. It is not
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either/or - you cannot have one without the other. For Professor Wallace a nations open-mindedness, tolerance and responsiveness to the world of ideas are shaped by the arts. The world of ideas is complex the entry point to the maze of contrary opinion where the performing arts excel. Unlike politics, the Performing Arts think the unthinkable and speak the unspeakable - important in totalitarian countries. In Western democracies, the arts ensure the free expression of ideas, untainted by current social and political orthodoxies. Does the value of the Performing Arts equate to their cost, Professor Wallace asked? The industries which spin off from the cultural bedrock spawn considerable economic activity. Scottish consumers spend 330 million per annum on musical instruments, live and recorded music. There are over 7,000 full time employees in the music industry. A series of reports in the mid-90s valued the British music industry at 3.6 billion. A successful music
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business flows from a nations arts policy. In 1974, all political parties in Sweden agreed to a policy on peoples cultural rights - assuming that widespread musical participation would enhance the nations social and cultural fabric. This led to the systematic creation of schools of music open to everyone. A recent audit of youth music in Scotland found surprising demand for music among the young. Although 60,000 young people take part, 100,000 more would like the opportunity. On this basis the Scottish Executive committed an extra 17.5 million pounds to music in schools. The advantages of music participation include: increased self-confidence, independence and achievement; enhanced life skills and team
working; improved literacy and numeracy. Added to the extensive work going on in Youth Theatre, the importance to our social fabric of the performing arts becomes readily apparent. Professor Wallace therefore concluded that the future Scottish economy demands that we come up with an integrated cultural policy to grapple with a digital future where all popular culture falls within reach of the fingertips. The Performing Arts need to contemplate unachievable areas which look with inspiration on technology to aid the creation of new careers, new industries even. Music and drama reinvent; they always have. People always find a future, and the Performing Arts will be at the centre of that future.
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Duncan Sooman FICE Regional Engineering Manager, Network Rail 9 February 2004 Institution of Civil Engineers/RSE Joint Lecture Refurbishment of the Forth Bridge My topic tonight is the Forth Bridge; a Class A listed structure, recognised by the Institution of Civil Engineers and the American Society of Engineers as one of the engineering wonders of the world which has been nominated by the government as a World Heritage Site. It is, in my opinion, worthy of such recognition, but I often wonder what would be the reaction of town and country planners if such a design was put forward today? Although tonights presentation is about current asset stewardship of the bridge, a little bit of history is necessary to gain an understanding of what we do today and why. History tells us that plans to cross the Firth of Forth have been in existence for as far back as we have records. The Romans considered a bridge of barges and even a tunnel was considered, but only ferry crossings came to reality until the technology developed in the late 1800s and the commercial need made large river estuarial bridges a reality. The present bridge is, in fact, the second to be planned and commenced. The first was by Thomas Bouch, the designer of the ill-fated Tay Bridge which collapsed during a severe gale on 28 December 1879 resulting in the loss of 75 lives. Work on the Forth Bridge was halted and the resultant Board of Trade inquiry recommended that wind forces should be taken as 56lb/sq ft. The original Tay Bridge had been designed to 10lb/sq ft. Although wind loadings are calculated very differently today, the figure correlates well with modern practice. Thomas Bouch was discredited and was to die a year later a broken man. New designers were sought for the Forth Bridge and John Fowler and Benjamin Baker were selected. At the time there was a real public confidence crisis with regard to large span bridges, so it is worth noting one of the considerations stated by the Board of Trade: The bridge should gain the confidence of the public and
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enjoy a reputation of being not only the biggest and strongest, but also the stiffest bridge in the world. And so it was that the present bridge was constructed by William Arrol for the sum of 1,600,000 with the contract being let on 21 December 1882 and the bridge officially opened on 4 March 1890. The scale and prestige of the job in its day might be comparable to the channel tunnel project and used a new material steel. There is some debate as to what is the first all-steel structure in the world. Some say that this bridge is. It is certainly the first in Europe and engineers and others came from all over the world to work on the project. Typical of those was Kaichi Watanabe who was a Japanese apprentice to Fowler and Baker and who can be seen demonstrating the balanced cantilever principle on the model using chairs, broom handles and bricks. The balanced cantilever principle represents engineering simplicity with all loads being conveyed to the foundations by tubular compression members. All lattice girders are tension members. The bridge is approx. 1.5miles long, 370ft high, weighs 51,000 tonnes, has circa 8million rivets and during recent surveys the most modern electronic survey equipment
identified dimensional accuracy of 20mm! It was originally painted Persian Red which was a deep red colour, but by the time of first maintenance painting, ultra violet action had led to the familiar Forth Bridge Red that we know today. In modern times the bridge was owned and maintained by its owners, British Rail from nationalisation in 1947 until Railtrack was formed in 1994. During that time it was routinely inspected and repairs and maintenance to the structure were undertaken by direct labour supported by contractors as necessary. Maintenance was generally undertaken by riggers (a plentiful supply came from the Royal Navy at Rosyth) using catwalk accesses and bosuns chairs, until 1974 when the Health and Safety at Work Act came into being and many of the working methods were found to be non-conforming. From then on, maintenance to some of the difficult access areas was compromised. The fundamental problems with public sector financing mitigated against major refurbishment and in the last years of BR administration, spend on the bridge was limited. However, all things considered, the BR regime adequately main-
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tained the bridge and it was handed over in sound structural condition if not in the best appearance. During the privatisation era, the bridge became the subject of political debate, culminating in the Scottish tabloids, through journalistic licence, claiming that the bridge was unsafe and that steel was falling from the bridge. In fact, what was photographed was a disbonded layer of paint with rust on the side. Nevertheless, the furore created led to HSE (HMRI) interest and serious public concern that the bridge could fall down! As a consequence of a debate in the House of Commons on 22 February 1995, the HSE was tasked to: 1. Assess the structural integrity of the bridge 2. Make recommendations regarding the maintenance regime necessary to ensure its future integrity 3. Publish a report of the assessment The report concluded in 1996 with a series of recommendations but it is important to note that: From the assessment (comprising a condition survey, a hazard analysis and a structural analysis) undertaken, it is HSEs judgement that:
the bridge is safe in its current condition to carry Railtracks present loading although the bridge has been allowed to deteriorate, at present the structural integrity of the bridge is not compromised. the assessed carrying capacity of the bridge in its current condition complies with modern standards of safe design of bridge structures. the existing maintenance regime requires improvement if the deterioration of the bridge is to be arrested and potential structural problems in the future are to be avoided. The work led to Railtrack embarking on a major refurbishment programme comprising: Steelwork repairs Surface coating Bearing cleaning and lubrication Access improvements New 11kv electrical supply New floodlighting Millennium countdown sign Steelwork repairs are generally confined to replacement of steel and rivets, corroded as a consequence of the elements and sea spray and in the past 5 years approximately 50 tonnes of steel has been replaced and around
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5000 small repairs carried out. It is important to note that these repairs can best be described as repairs prior to painting and are not necessary to sustain structural stability. The surface coating system requires initial blast cleaning of various existing coating types (e.g. lead, bitumen etc) tp tale a zincbased primer. This will prevent corrosion and allow suitable areas to be cleaned and prepared for coating. This is followed by a Glass flake epoxy intermediate coat (with brush applied stripe coats to edges, rivet heads, etc) and a polyurethane gloss topcoat to seal the system and provide a gloss finish. It is important that the primer is not applied too thickly as this will not provide a key for the intermediate coat. Care must be taken with stripe coat application as amine blooms may form a slip plane between the intermediate coat layers leading to disbonding. The glass flake epoxy contains tiny glass flakes which overlap and provide a barrier to the environment. However, all main coatings are porous to some extent and hence the application of the polyurethane gloss not only gives a pleasant appearance, it also seals the surface and sheds water rather like car polish. The system is tried and tested and has a design life of 20 years.
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What then do we expect at or after 20 years? At that time, we can expect surface breakdown of less than 5%, particularly at water traps, edges, rivet heads etc and the bridge may appear chalky due to UV breakdown and wind borne abrasion. The treatment will be to blast clean and fully repair the surface breakdown and to wash down, lightly abrade and reapply polyurethane over the remainder. In fact, we expect it to be considerably more than 20 years before this may be necessary. The process of steelwork repair and surface coating are linked and, simplistically, can be described thus: Design access scaffolds Deliver materials to bridge Erect scaffolds Inspect steel members Carry out structural repairs Erect shrink wrap encapsulation Remove paint, prep surface and remove Primer Intermediate coat Top coat Local alter scaffold to paint contact points Strip scaffold etc It is at this point that painting and minor structural repairs become a
significant structural engineering issue. Every scaffold is subject to design, check and Network Rail approval. These designs are subject to global loading checks to ensure that the bridge is not compromised by virtue of dead load or wind loading. Typically, there may be up to 4000 tonnes of scaffold on the bridge with up to 1500 tonnes per cantilever. Encapsulation acts as a wind sail and previously was designed to fail at wind speeds of less than 80mph to relieve wind loading. The upper limit of encapsulation was about 1300 square metres. The highest gust experienced has been 105mph and damage to that system of encapsulation was proving so problematic that we have moved to stronger and better shrink wrapped encapsulation to withstand 100mph wind. Each area must therefore be designed not just for its wind resistance and serviceability but for its effect on the complete structure. The other real benefit is that it provides a better working environment for blasting and painting. The chances of escape of blast or paint spray are much reduced and control of water ingress and humidity is much better. Both are essential for quality surface coating. Of equal importance is the benefit to productivity from good quality encapsulation which facilitates the
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use of dryers and humidifiers, and the lost days to weather amount to between 50 and 60 per year. Materials management is of great importance and must be undertaken so as not to compromise rail traffic. And, apart from recent weekend closures, all the work has been done to facilitate the normal timetable of around 180 trains per day. Access for men and materials is, wherever possible, on specially built walkways and by Alimak hoists which are at their limit of operation from the vertical and temporary platforms and are built for materials and fed from barges when necessary. Logistics management is therefore crucial to success. How do we decide where to paint and when? Whilst it is pleasing to see the bridge painted, the real purpose is to protect structural integrity. Therefore, from our previous condition surveys, structural assessment and estimation of rate of corrosion we can determine timescales for painting and this is considered along with logistics and economics to determine the annual programme. The bridge articulates on a series of rocker and slide bearings. Many attempts at analysis have been undertaken and the various models are not entirely conclusive
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which is not surprising. The policy therefore has been to clean all bearings, replace lubricators and ensure that the bridge articulates and if it continues to do so as it has done for over 100 years then despite analytical models, it works! Access improvements are primarily about replacing the old timber catwalks with modern conforming metal walkways and in recent years approximately 1000 metres have been renewed. A new 11kv electrical supply has been installed to service the new floodlights, bridge maintenance work and infrastructure services. A millennium countdown sign was installed and removed at marginal cost. Fortunately it kept good time and was generally well received by the public. We should not forget that the bridge exists to carry a railway, the ECML to Fife, Dundee and Aberdeen. Line speed is 50mph for passenger trains and 20mph for freight and approximately 180 trains per day are conducted safely through the work site. Only this year has there been a full bridge closure necessary to secure access for painting those members immediately above track level. Weekend closures were planned for 2004 but they have been deferred a year as the adjacent road bridge will close this summer for carriageway repairs and the
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effect on travel between Fife and Edinburgh would have been perhaps unacceptable had we not rephrased our work. We were delighted to be able to co-operate with the road bridge authorities to this effect. The track is 113lb rail on timber waybeams which replaced the special Forth Bridge rail a few years ago. We are experiencing some minor problems with the holding down bolt arrangements and are about to trial a new system for installation in 2004 at a cost of around 100k. The track requires special expansion joints to facilitate bridge articulation and regular track inspection and maintenance must continue throughout. The workforce peaks to 110 in summer and since the major works began, there have been no serious injuries. We did experience two fires; a work bothy heater was left on and a diesel generator caught fire. Both were treated effectively by the fire services and the emergency procedures worked well. Clearly, fire prevention is a major issue. Scaffold boards are treated with fire retarders, storage of paint materials and fuels strictly controlled and special smoking areas designated. Current production rates are approximately 25,000 square
metres per year of surface coating, plus associated steelwork and access repairs at an annual cost of approximately 10 million and since 1995, c150,000 sqm have been painted. This is a considerable commitment to rail infrastructure and the challenge is to continually seek efficiencies. To this end, we continually look for new materials and techniques. We have to date tried high pressure water, industrial paint strippers, other coating systems, e.g. MCU, cleaning, prep and painting by abseil, as well as investigating use of electro magnetic induction to remove existing paint. Glass reinforced plastic has been used to support banks of floodlights. However, to date we have not managed to radically alter our spec or method. This is despite having been audited by countless consultants, contractors and specialists from both Europe and USA who believe they might offer an improved package. What is the reason for the perceived high cost? The answer is simply modern day expectation for health and safety and the environment. Temporary access systems are much more robust than pre 1974, as are permanent walkways.
Most engineers of my generation will admit to having practised open blasting and allowed blast material to discharge into the atmosphere. Clearly and correctly we do not practice this way today but this is a price that society has chosen to pay. As an engineer, I believe the structure deserves its recognition but clearly if designed today, its almost total absence of vertical faces would be avoided so as to facilitate access from vertical drop cradles, etc. I hope tonights presentation has given you all an insight into what is not just the UKs biggest paint job, but an ongoing serious engineering project happening every day with little effect on the travelling public and those who live in the vicinity of the bridge. For my part, it has been a professional privilege and honour to have been one of a long line of distinguished civil engineers who have worked directly on the bridge. Many more will follow me and I hope and trust that they too will continue to strive to find optimum solutions to maintain this truly remarkable structure for all time. I hope you have enjoyed this talk as much as I have in its preparation and delivery.
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Lord Melchett Policy Director of the Soil Association 20 Feb 2004 RSE/IoB/ECRR Lecture The Future of Food and Farming Speakers Abstract Farming and food production in Western Europe and North America face unprecedented problems. These consist of a combination of massive over-production and dumping on world markets of most commodity crops; public and political concern about taxpayers subsidies for farmers, dramatic declines in farmland wildlife and food quality and rapidly increasing concern about the rise of diet related illness, particularly among children. Does this mark the beginning of the end of the agricultural system based on pesticides and artificial fertilisers which has dominated agriculture for the last 50 years?
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Dr Malcolm Kennedy Consultant, PB Power 1 March 2004 Electicity Supply in the New Century
Dr Kennedy began with a statement of the basic principles set down in the 1988 White Paper on Electricity Supply, outlining the deregulation and privatisation of the electricity supply industry in both England and Wales and separately in Scotland. He went on to describe some of the major events that have re-shaped the industry over the past 15 years, and the extent to which competition and regulation have affected the industry. He then explained how mergers and acquisitions, and constant disaggregation and consolidation have characterised a continuously changing industry, as have repeated interventions by both Government and the regulator. These interventions have sometimes been tactical but more often in pursuit of changing policies. The most recent major Government intervention culminated in the publication of the Energy White Paper in February 2003. A major cornerstone of this is the Governments environmental policy which sought to produce one tenth of Britains electricity from renewable sources by 2010. This target has subsequently been increased to 15% by 2015.
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Moving away from Britain, Dr Kennedy went on to describe how, following the EU Directive in 1996, liberalisation of the electricity supply industry throughout Western Europe has developed, given the diversified nature of the industry and the outlook of the individual states. The crash of the corrupt Enron Corporation a little over 2 years ago has had effects on the structure of the electricity supply industry throughout the world to an extent perhaps as great as any Government intervention. Dr Kennedy concluded with a summary of the characteristics and activities of deregulated electricity supply industries around the world and the issues facing the electricity companies themselves, the Governments and regulators and, of course, the customers. He argued that much has been achieved since the early 1990s, nothing has stood still for long and there is little evidence that the number of mistakes being made is decreasing. The only certainty is that there will be an electricity supply industry in the future, since the whole of society is totally dependent upon it.
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Dr Ian Mays Managing Director - Renewable Energy Systems Ltd 15 March 2004 The Royal Academy of Engineering / RSE Joint Lecture Wind Energy : Powering the Future Why renewable energy? There are a number of reasons why we are going to need renewable energy in the future, first and most compelling at the moment, from a political point of view, is global warming, and how we best fight global warming. If we look at European demand, notwithstanding the fact that we are trying to put more energy efficiency into the system, energy demand is still growing at 1% per year, so that by 2010 we can expect that the energy demand will be some 10% above what it was when we set the targets. But, the driver for this is the increase in CO2 emissions and global warming in the atmosphere. Estimates suggest that somewhere between 2 and 6 degrees warming will happen over the next 100 years unless we do something about it. To put it in context, the difference between the mean temperature now and the middle of the last ice age was only about 2.5 degrees, but only in the other direction. You can see this rise in temperatures could have quite a catastrophic effect. To try to fight this, the Kyoto Protocol was brought in in 1997,
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and was signed by a hundred or so countries. The European Union said it would reduce CO2 emissions between 2008 and 2012, by 8% below 1990 levels. The UK was part of that drive, and is to reduce its levels by about 12.5% by a combination of measures energy efficiency, sustainable transport, but also renewable energy. That is only a small step in the right direction, as scientists are suggesting that by 2050, we will need to cut higher emissions by something like 60% in order to stabilise the atmosphere. In Europe, the 8% reduction is developing at different rates, more or less by way of CO2 reduction. Clearly developing economies need more energy and therefore are likely to generate more CO2. The developed economies can perhaps cut back. However, we are not doing particularly well at the moment, in 1999 Europe was 3.6% below 1990 levels. But two years later it had dropped to 2.3% below 1990 levels. EU Commissioner, Margot Wallstrom, said The EU is moving further away from meeting its commitment. Member States that are not on track in
reaching their targets urgently need to take additional action. Thats the CO2 side of things, the global warming side of things, but what about the energy part? Taking a step forward to 2050, we expect the population to have increased by 50%. On top of that developing countries will require more energy; maybe double the present amount by 2050. By 2050 we can expect that oil and gas will be severely constrained in their supply, coal will then take the burden, and thus will start to deplete rapidly. So our energy requirements will need to be met by nuclear and renewables. There is a question mark at the moment on the acceptability of nuclear power, not just in the UK but around the world, which may or may not be resolved - so the extent to which renewables become the primary resource will, I think, depend largely on the future of nuclear. I do believe that renewables are likely to be called upon to meet more energy demands by 2050. What are countries around the world doing? The politicians recognise the need to be doing something in Europe. We have now set a target where about 12% of our primary energy should come from renewables by 2010. Thats quite a tough target; currently it is around 5.3%.
In order to do that, an EU Renewables Directive was introduced which sets individual country targets. These are not obligatory targets but they are targets which countries have to try to meet. If targets are not achieved, then the Monitoring of Compliance will start to bite. Eventually there will be an attempt to harmonise the various support mechanisms for renewables throughout the EU. Renewable energy will be certified to ensure that what is being sold as renewable energy is actually renewable, tracing its origin. The planning consents which are holding up a lot of development at the moment are to be expedited, but also another issue - access to the grid - is also to be given priority. This will be reviewed in 2005 and then again in 2010. Where do renewables come from? There are a number of different renewable technologies, some with moderate resource and some with more significant resource. Those with moderate resource in a European context are waste technologies, geothermal power, hydro and tidal, and those with a more significant resource come from Biomass, wind (onshore and offshore), solar and wave. Geothermal. This is quite limited in Europe. Iceland has quite a bit, but it is really limited in terms of the expected amount of energy that can be extracted.
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Tidal power in the UK we are very fortunate. There is a very good tidal scheme in the Southern estuary, which if developed could bring 6 or 7% of our power. It is quite expensive, and I am sure it will be developed in due course, however in a European context, there is limited potential. The most significant potential comes from biomass, which is basically growing crops to burn to generate electricity which is CO2 neutral. The issues here really are in developing a commercial mechanism, involving farmers, industry and technology. Solar power the technology has been developing quite well, but costs are still very high and I think that will limit its potential until such time as there is a quantum leap in the technology and technological development cost. Wave power there is potential here, particularly in the UK, but again cost is an issue, at the moment. In due course, we hope that costs will be driven down. What are the technologies which are likely to be able to meet some of those relatively short-term targets to 2010. Essentially there are two onshore wind and offshore wind, or at least that is my perspective. The EU has set a target of 468 TWh/yr by 2010. Initially it was thought that wind could perhaps produce 25% of that, and actually
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it is already doing extremely well. Wind in Europe is now producing 27,000 MW of this. The other technologies are not moving as quickly, so my expectation is that wind will be called upon to reach a much higher percentage of that target. At 75% that would mean 135,000 MW of wind. To put this into context in terms of the size of the business that this represents, it is round about a one million euros per megawatt, so that represents round about 135 billion euros of business over the next 6-7 years. It is quite a big challenge to pull that out and to find cash to do it. The countries of Europe generally have a very good wind resource. In most countries in Europe, including the UK, the wind potential is adequate to meet at least 25% of the energy demand. So where have we got to now? Around the world, we now have about 39,000 MW of wind energy capacity installed and around 75TWh of electricity is produced annually. That is saving around 60 million tons of CO2 every year. Around the world, wind now meets the domestic electricity needs of more than 35 million people. There are 55,000 wind turbines installed, and in the past few years the number of new wind energy installations has passed that of nuclear installations.
So why should we have wind energy in the UK? I believe it is the most appropriate renewable resource for the UK. The British Isles have 40% of the European wind resource blowing over their shores, and Scotland has about half of that. So Scotland, I would suggest, is probably the windiest country in Europe. Theoretically in the UK it is enough to provide three times our electricity power, but not 100% of our electricity supply, because it is intermittent. So we have a clean, abundant natural energy source; why not use it? Where have we got to in the UK so far? There are now 83 wind farms. Thats 1060 turbines, with a total capacity of 647 MW, enough to produce power for half a million homes, and reduce CO2 emissions by 1.5m tonnes per year. By 2010, in order to be able to meet the10% target, we expect wind will be producing around 7% of this. That would mean 8000 MW of wind split equally between offshore and onshore. We would need onshore around 3000 wind turbines in total. To put that in context, back in the 19th century, there were some 10,000 windmills around the UK mainland shores, and they were lived with quite happily. Wnd energy technology started to get moving in the 1950s, but it wasnt really until the 1970s, when the energy crisis came and
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focused peoples attention on the finite nature of energy resources, that people started to refocus on the possibilities of wind energy. Having been through a process of research and development, during the 1970s and the 1980s, through one-bladed machines, two-bladed machines, and fourbladed machines, and the different types of rotation, vertical axis and horizontal axis, the design has now basically come down to a three-bladed wind turbine with a horizontal axis. Wind energy is an expanding industry, and it has enormous potential for creating new jobs. Benefits accrue during construction but also afterwards, with tourism both at local and national level. Wind energy results in more jobs per unit of electricity than any other method of electricity generation. The offshore wind market has very different characteristics to the onshore market. First of all it is important to know that it will be supplementing not replacing onshore wind; the costs are higher and we need to ensure that we use the resource that we have on land, in addition to that offshore. Onshore or offshore, I believe we need both in order to meet the UK Government targets, and I know that offshore plans are likely to
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only reach 40-50% of the target for 2010. So what do we need if we are going to build a windfarm? What are the ingredients? First of all we need land with sufficient winds to make it economic, we need a power purchase agreement with someone to buy the power. We need building permission, a grid connection, and finance. Land is available, although there is quite a lot of competition for it now. Windy land finance is available generally, but planning permission and grid connection can be difficult and time-consuming, and the power-purchase agreement is a competitive process. Those are the sort of dynamics which we have currently in the wind energy market in the UK. The basic constraints for wind energy are the price of competing energy sources. Somehow we need a mechanism which enables these relatively expensive technologies to come forward into volume production and be able to compete. You need to ensure that you can get planning consent to build them in order to meet these targets, but the grid also needs to evolve. We have now got to the stage where the cheapest wind has been able to compete with the cheapest conventional power, and that has been demonstrated at a wind farm not too far from here on the A68, where the price of
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power is comparable with the price of gas generation. However, at less windy sites, the cost is higher and therefore, greater than the cheapest conventional power. Because of that, in order to bring wind on we need to have mechanisms in the market place to enable it to come to the market. These can be either an obligation to buy, a percentage obligation, or a tariff mechanism, such as is the case in France and many other European countries, and Germany in particular. To that you could add grant-aid if necessary. You can have tax incentives as is the case in the USA, or you can simply rely on consumer preference. In the UK, onshore wind power now costs around 3.1p KWh; by 2010 we would expect that to come down to about 2.7p KWh. Offshore power costs around 5.5p KWh, hopefully reducing to 4.4p by 2010 and to 3.7p by 2020. Compare that with the DTIs view on nuclear power costs (about 3.7p KWh) and you can see that offshore wind should be able to be competitive with nuclear, by the time that nuclear is able to make a significant contribution in 2020. Onshore wind is very much cheaper. If you take an international view of the costs of different technologies and project this up to 2020, gas and onshore wind should be expectecd to be the cheapest forms of power available, followed by coal and
nuclear, offshore wind, energy crops and wave coming in in due course. Another issue is the grid. At the moment we have a centralised grid system. We need to evolve that and become decentralised, in order to capture the wind wherever it exists, so we need to strengthen the grid in windy areas. Time scales for grid development evolution are a big issue, because building new power lines takes time. We also need to be able to manage the fluctuating levels of generation which are a feature of wind energy. The UK grid system consists mainly of large power stations and is designed to cope with a large plant going out of action and also millions of kettles going on during the TV adverts. Fluctuations in the wind have the same sort of effect on the system as variations in demand. Various studies have been done, and intermittency is really not a problem in the system, until you get up to 10% of your power from wind, and then you need to start providing back-up plant to enable the system to be as reliable with more wind energy on the system. The estimate from the DTI is that cost of back-up is about 0.2p KWh for a 20% contribution from intermittent generation. Although the level will rise once you start to get beyond 20%.
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A further issue is planning Although there is a vocal minority which doesnt like wind energy, the vast majority of people on all the public attitude studies we have done are in favour of it, but planning committees dont like to go against a vocal lobby. As a result of that planning can be difficult. There are moves by the Government to try to improve the planning system to enable wind energy to comeback more quickly, but we really need to mobilise the silent majority here to make sure that peoples voices are heard. In the landscape modern wind turbines are quiet, despite what some people will say; they are graceful in appearance, and actually when larger, the rotation speed reduces, because the tip speed has to remain the same, so when it gets longer the RPO reduces. They rotate relatively slowly and they are safe. The vast majority (80%) of people generally support wind power. In Wales in 2002, 3/5 of those polled supported a doubling in the number of onshore wind turbines in Wales. Generally what is found is that the closer people live to a wind farm, the more they like it, which is quite interesting. So, why wind energy? It is clean, has no emissions, produces no waste, it is sustainable, it is safe, it is popular, it has low, reducing costs.
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Dr Barbara Spruce Winner of the 2003 Gannochy Innovation Award Ninewells Hospital, Dundee 22 March 2004 Serendipity and Biology in the Discovery and Delivery of a New Treatment for Cancer Speakers Abstract Oncology in the 21st century will see cancer patients treated with therapies tailored to the individual genetic makeup of their tumours a vision made possible by the sequencing of the human genome. The potential power of genomic and proteomic profiling in defining cancer treatment for the future is very clear. What is also becoming clear however is that cancer cells, whilst indubitably genetically complex, share certain key vulnerabilities that offer hope for more pragmatic, common approaches to treatment. This lecture will discuss how a blend of ideas, surprises and serendipity has brought an existing class of drug to the oncology arena a drug that exploits an Achilles heel in many tumours, causing them to selfdestruct whilst sparing normal tissues - and look at the hopes and challenges for the future.
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Professor Palmer Newbould Emeritus Professor of Environmental Science, University of Ulster 5 April 2004 Frank Fraser Darling 1903-1979: Ecologist, Conservationist, Prophet
How did a man with no first degree, little academic training and little real serious ecological research achieve such a high status in the international world of conservation? Firstly Fraser Darlings personality, which Professor Newbould described as a mixture of charm and authority. Then there was the fact Fraser Darling was a naturalist with keen observation and a particular gift for assessing, intuitively, field situations. Fraser Darling also possessed special expertise in the areas of ungulates and grazing. Professor Newbould argued that one does not actually need a strong basis in ecological research to develop policies and management (though Fraser Darling himself would argue against this). Professor Newbould went on to point to Fraser Darlings hands-on farming and work experience. The fact that Fraser Darling knew the right people. That Fraser Darling was an exceptionally good writer, making subjects accessible without writing down to people. Professor Newbould described Fraser Darling as a prophet somewhat without
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honour in his own country, and so he did well to move his focus to the United States, with a more romantic/spiritual approach to conservation exemplified by Aldo Leopolds, Sand County Almanac. And lastly Professor Newbould identified Fraser Darlings holistic approach, combining plant, animal and human ecology, including spiritual and cultural values and with an initial approach combining behaviour, genetics and ecology. The main problem for Fraser Darling was that he operated in three areas where there was an interface if not a conflict between commercial or establishment interests and ecological/conservation interests. These three areas were the West Highland Survey, red deer, grey seals. Professor Newbould concluded that the three key works of Fraser Darling are, A Herd of Red Deer, West Highland Survey and The Reith Lectures. The red deer work was groundbreaking seventy years ago and has had a lasting effect on the study of ungulate, mammal and bird populations. West Highland Survey was also innovative but was set in a difficult and
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fraught political situation. The Reith Lectures, at their time 35 years ago, had a major and farreaching influence. In between Fraser Darling often had too many projects running at the same time. Moving his focus to the States allowed Fraser Darling to work with like-minded people, gave him an adequate income and also supported his roving brief for ecological reconnaissance in Mexico, Alaska and East Africa, which was what he did best. And The Reith Lectures restored his status and respect in Britain. Professor Newbould went on to ask, is that it? Does it end here? Or do we want an anthology of his writing (which would be difficult to choose because there is so much good work), a publication of his lesser known occasional pieces, a biography, a festschrift, or, as has proved so successful for Max Nicholson, a website (www.maxnicholson.com)? Or should we simply admit that the Frank Fraser Darling fan club is an ageing community and leave things as they are? Currently I am too close to his writings and my memories to be dispassionate. Also his four children should have a major say in the outcome. Finally Professor Newbould wanted to leave the last word to Max Nicholson, another great guru, who died aged 98 last year, making him more or less a contemporary of Fraser Darling.
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Frank Fraser Darling brought to conservation great gifts for observation and profound reflection on ecology, conservation and their relation to human life and ethics. He lacked, however, a number of more mundane capacities that would have fitted him better to serve as a member either of a staff or of a senior committee, and his efforts to adapt to such environments tended to end in mutual frustration. Fortunately his value as a guru and as a detached assessor of complex problems in the field was recognised before too late by the Conservation Foundation in America, who assigned to him between 1959 and 1972 the right kind of roving commission in which he did some of his best work, crowned near the end by his Reith Lectures on Wilderness and Plenty for the BBC, at exactly the right time, in 1969. I knew him for thirty years, and had sometimes to share his sufferings over actual or imagined setbacks, but in the end he came into his own, and found a receptive audience for a contribution that was partly scientific, partly ethical or philosophical, and at times even mystical. He belongs at the far end of a spectrum that extends all the way from the most practical or political of conservationists to the poets and dreamers. Both extremes are needed even if the task of getting them to mix can be demanding.
Dr Sivaraj Shyam-Sunder Acting Deputy Director, Building and Fire Research Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 21 April 2004 Lessons from the World Trade Center Disaster Speakers abstract A major scientifically-based study of the World Trade Center (WTC) disaster is being conducted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). This study is being carried out under the mandate of the National Construction Safety Team Act of 2002, which authorizes NIST to investigate major U.S. building failures. The purpose of such investigations is to establish the technical causes of building failures and evaluate the technical aspects of emergency response and evacuation procedures. Since NIST is not a regulatory agency and does not issue building standards or codes, the institute is viewed as a neutral investigator. The primary objectives of the 24month building and fire safety investigation are to determine 1) why and how the WTC buildings collapsed after the initial impact of the airplane, 2) why the injuries and fatalities were so low or high depending on location, 3) the procedures and practices that were used in the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of the WTC buildings, and 4) which building and fire codes, standards, and practices warrant revision. The NIST response to the WTC tragedy also includes: a multi-year research and development program to provide a technical foundation for improvements; and a dissemination and technical assistance program to engage industry leaders and organizations in implementing recommended changes to practice, standards, and codes. Dr Shyam-Sunder described the NIST response plan with an emphasis on the scope and status of the WTC investigation itself, and how it seeks to make all buildings safer for occupants and first responders.
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Professor Sir Michael Berry, FRS, FRSE University of Bristol 26 April 2004 Focussing in the Sky Cormack Bequest Lecture Introduction Although I was honoured when John Brown approached me to give this lecture, I felt awkward about accepting, because Im not an astronomer. Therefore I feel the need to start by declaring my interest.. Most scientists - especially astronomers - use light to see things. Light from all regions of the spectrum streams down from the sky - sometimes a flood of rays, abundantly informative, sometimes a trickle of photons, precious conveyors of subtle information. Getting this information is not my main interest. Rather, Im an enthusiast of light itself, and the natural phenomena and observations Ill show you tonight are interesting to me because they provide opportunities for light to display all possibilities allowed by the laws of optics to express the physics of light. Although this lecture comes at the end of a meeting primarily for astronomers, it is a public lecture, so technicalities are not appropriate, and there will hardly be any. But I cant ignore the fact that there are professionals here, and at the very end there will be a
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rising physics gradient, and one or two formulas illustrating a new idea. The general strategy will be to start from Earth and move outwards. Topics covered. (In the lecture, these were illustrated with photographs and computer simulations, and passages from literature showing how novelists or poets observed the same phenomena). - Sparkling of the Sun on the sea. Each brilliant point is a reflection of the sun. Over time, the points appear or disappear in pairs. Each such event (twinkle) corresponds to passage through the eye of a caustic, that is, a moving surface of focused light. Caustics play a central role in the lecture. The rapid succession of twinkles, usually too fast to follow individually, causes the sparkling. - Raindrop caustics. When out in the rain at night wearing glasses, caustics to be seen in the weirdly-distorted images of distant lights. The distortions
are caused by refraction in irregular water-droplet lenses on the lenses. - Swimming-pool caustics. Sunlight is refracted by waves on a swimming-pool into caustic surfaces in the water, visible as bright dancing lines where they intersect the bottom. - Twinkling stars. The turbulent atmosphere generates the equivalent of swimming-pool caustics in starlight. Refraction by air is weak, so the multiple images are too close to see with the unaided eye, but caustics crossing the eye cause stars intensity to fluctuate. With large telescopes, starlight caustics can be seen directly, by looking at a bright twinkling star near the horizon under high magnification and then defocussing. - Catastrophe theory. The strange curved and cusped shapes of caustic are classified by the mathematics of catastrophe theory. The classification restricts the shapes that can occur naturally (that is, in the absence of symmetry). This enables certain apparent forms in swimming-pool caustic patterns to be unmasked as artefacts of poor resolution. The fully-resolved forms can be predicted by the mathematics and then seen in careful experiments.
- Rainbows. These are caustics in sunlight reflected and refracted by raindrops. Each drop bends sunlight into a tiny bright cone, and we see, brightly lit, all the drops on whose cones our eyes lie. - The green flash. Sunlight is bent by the earths atmosphere, which acts as a giant lens. Air is dispersive, so the lens has chromatic aberration (colour distortion). This makes the red sun set before the green sun, which is briefly visible as a momentary gleam at the moment of sunset, if the air is still enough. - Eclipses of the Moon. The Earthatmosphere lens focusses light near the Moon, giving some illumination when the Moon moves into the Earths shadow. This reddish light reveals the integrated sunrises and sunsets on the Earth at the same time. - Mars caustic. On 8 April 1976, Mars eclipsed the star epsilon Geminorum, and the diminution of its light (lasting about 6 minutes) was observed on Earth by an airborne observatory. Marss atmosphere focusses some of the starlight onto a line, observed on Earth as a bright flash during the eclipse. The fact that the Mars lens is ellipsoidal rather than spherical implies that according to catastrophe theory the symme-
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try is broken and the central line is really a four-cusped caustic; this fine detail was seen in the central flash (lasting about 2 seconds). - Caustic-touching theorem. In the images of extended objects, rather than individual points, the boundaries are distorted. An example is the wiggly reflections of ships masts in wavy water. The images are disrupted as well as distorted, in the sense that individual boundary curves are broken up into several distinct curves (topology change). Disruption can be understood by considering false light, imagined as emerging from the eye. The false light is focussed onto caustic surfaces near the distant object. When the caustic of the false light touches the boundary of the object, the image in the true light is being disrupted. - Gravitational lensing. According to general relativity, mass bends light, giving space a refractive
index that varies with the gravitational potential. This causes light from distant astronomical objects to be distorted by the gravity of intervening objects, giving rise to the analogues of multiplyreflected sun images on water. On finer scales, there are unresolved multiple images (microlensing), detectable as spikes in the objects intensity over time the analogue of twinkling starlight. - Wave effects near caustics. Focal lines and surfaces are decorated by patterns of wave interference that are also classified by catastrophe theory. These wave phenomena have not yet been seen in gravitational lensing, but estimates predict effects on a variety of scales, largest near caustics. Unlike geometric gravitational lensing, interference depends on frequency and so might be detected as spectral distortions of gravitationallylensed objects.
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Professor Steve McLaughlin FRSE Professor of Electronic Communication Systems, Institute of Digital Communications, The University of Edinburgh 10 May 2004 Broadband Access Technologies: Reality and Myth Professor McLaughlin opened his lecture with the statement that as the demand for multimedia services grows, so also does the demand for greater and greater bandwidth to service this. This places an increasing load on the access infrastructure and has led to a proliferation of access technologies. He explained that his aim was to explore the technological and economic factors influencing the development and deployment of access technologies on offer. He then aimed to discuss what is the reality of broadband access and what is myth, focusing on the key access technologies: Broadband Fixed Wireless Access and Digital Subscriber Line. Next Professor McLaughlin put forward a definition of broadband as a transmission facility having a bandwidth sufficient to carry multiple voice, video or data channels simultaneously. Each channel occupies (is modulated to) a different frequency bandwidth on the transmission medium and is demodulated to its original frequency at the receiving end. Professor McLaughlin then explored some of the myths that have grown around the Internet, for example: - you can never have too much bandwidth - internet traffic is doubling every three months - everyone needs more bandwidth because of the new killer applications! and explained why these are in fact myths. He then turned his attention to the types of broadband technologies that are available and how they are developing. In particular: - fibre optics - fibre to the home? - DSL/cable modems - data rates cost, etc. - wireless - IEEE802.11 - mobile - 3G and beyond Professor McLaughlin pointed out that for the past twenty-five years researchers have been talking about delivering fibre to the home.
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Currently connection costs to premises are $1500 for fibre and $200 for copper DSL (assuming large-scale deployments)! The key point to these is that fibre to the home is and has been a long-term goal but in the near and medium term DSL, Wi-Fi and developments thereof will be the main delivery mechanism for broadband services to the home. Finally Professor McLaughlin looked to the future and discussed how all the different broadband technologies operate. Although 3G is an important first step, heargued, several basic issues still need to be addressed for next generation wireless systems:
- Fast/reliable broadband radios (PHY/MAC) with QoS ~ 100 Kbps 1-10 Mbps with adaptively, link reliability & QoS - Scalable system capacity for mass-market services high service penetration implies ~Gbps/Sq-Km - Integration of multiple radios into single IP network, unified mobility architecture, open networks with modular services - New networking modes, e.g. multicast, multihop & peer-topeer lower-cost infrastructure, networks that grow organically - Truly useful mobile information services beyond web browsing on phones/PDAs, new portable devices
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Frances Cairncross Rector, Exeter College, Oxford 3 June 2004 The Coming Century Ten Trends to Back
Educated at Oxford and Brown Universities, Frances Cairncross held a number of posts in journalism, including that of Principal Economic Columnist on The Guardian, before joining The Economist. She chairs the Economic and Social Science Research Council and is a regular presenter of the BBC Radio 4 Analysis programme. In a dynamic and enthralling lecture, Frances highlighted the issues facing all of us in the coming century. Population Growth/Reduction: The fertility rate in most Western countries is below that required for maintenance of current numbers, with the United States being an exception due to its high Hispanic population. China, Korea, Iran, Turkey and Brazil were among the countries with significant population growth. Complicating factors included the presence or absence of significant disease, for example in Botswana the population is decreasing by 0.7% per year. In the absence of AIDS, however, the growth would have been some 2% per year.
Ageing: Life expectancy has increased markedly since 1970, in some countries by up to twenty years. The current century may be recognised as the Centenarians Century. The consequent implications for pension funds are enormous, the only remedies being that people work longer or pay higher taxes or both. Frances predicted a growing tension between young and old in this respect. Immigration: This offered possibilities as a solution, there being significant population growth in the poorer parts of the world, particularly in Asia and Oceania. The population in the Muslim areas of the world was also increasing but religious differences, for example in Europe, might create tensions. This was less of a problem in the USA, which in any case is maintaining population numbers. Resource Shortage: Energy consumption, whether of oil, natural gas or coal products, is rising steadily in many countries and particularly so in the United States. On the other hand, that derived from nuclear sources,
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hydropower and other renewables, is much more stable. Frances raised the question of the world oil supply, the reserves of which are falling steadily, but are sufficient to last for many decades. Most of the reserves are to be found in the Middle East and continuing difficulties over supply and pricing are likely. Rising demands for water are another problem, with some 70% of the use worldwide being for agricultural irrigation. Price Stability: Frances made the point that high inflation was not a natural state of affairs, with historically the most significant examples of it occurring in the second half of the 16th and 20th centuries, when in both instances incidentally the throne was occupied by a Queen Elizabeth. Currently we are in a price-stable period with commodity prices falling. The prices of goods were also falling due to increased productivity, while service costs remained relatively flat. Technological Change: Frances saw this as one of the greatest contributors to social change and highlighted, for example, the impact of the pill, the motor car and the cell phone and satellite technology in particular. She raised the issue of world food requirements and whether a second agricultural revolution based on transgenic crops would come about.
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Shaping Ourselves: Society now has available a number of lifestyle medications, for example, Ritalin to reduce behavioural problems in children and Viagra to extend sexual activity in men, with the latter giving rise to the prospect of grandfather fatherhood. Cosmetic surgery, together with advances in DNA technology, offered the possibility of Designer People. Religion: In a number of countries there has recently been a very significant increase in church membership and attendance, in particular in the United States, where the rise in the number of evangelical and born-again Christians has been dramatic. In the Muslim world there has been a huge increase in fundamentalism. Smaller Government: Frances argued that government is a service industry which has not, but ought to have been, improved by technology. The growing population of the elderly was, however, a problem for government in all developed countries, with tax rise implications and constraints on other government activities. New Superpower: Frances predicted that the USA, with 30% of global GDP, 75% of the worlds Nobel Laureates, the worlds wealthiest universities and a rising, not falling population would remain powerful within the
foreseeable future. The predictions were, however, that the economies of China and India would increase to match or overtake that of the USA over the next 50 years.
Finally, Frances identified five major worries: the growth of terrorism; the occurrence of new diseases, for example SARS; the possibility of deflation; the problem of environmental deterioration; and the failure to reduce the poverty gap.
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Professor Hew Strachan FRSE Chichele Professor of the History of War, University of Oxford, and Fellow of All Souls College 14 June 2004 The Entente Cordiale: War and Empire First published April 2004, in the Journal of the Royal United Services Institute and Defense Nationale Britain and France are neighbours. Like England and Scotland, they cannot avoid having a relationship. For most of the last thousand years it has been one of hostility. Indeed, antagonism towards England was what kept the Auld Alliance between France and Scotland. After the union of England and Scotland, it was the differences between the new nation and France that gave Britain an identity. Nationality was rooted in a sense of the other. It is the same with nations as with the individual; wrote the great historian of France, Jules Michelet in 1833, he gets to know and defines his personality through resistance to what is different from himself.1 Britain was Protestant (despite the best endeavours of the Jacobites); it had a constitutional government; and it rejected monarchical despotism. In the nineteenth century British self-satisfaction increased. Under Louis XIV France had been the most powerful player in Europe in terms of population size, econom149
ic growth, military capacity, and intellectual influence. After 1789, its industrialisation faltered, its governments proved shaky, and revolution became a habit. The Napoleonic wars consolidated Britains perception of its own worth, as a naval power certainly and even as a military one. From their arrival in Waterloo station to their visit to the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, French visitors to London cannot avoid the symbols of British triumphalism under the late Hanoverians. Britain had ample cause for smugness. The first industrialised nation in the world, it managed to achieve political stability without revolution. In 1854 Britain fought alongside France against Russia in the Crimean War, but it continued to use the threat of France as its antidote to complacency. Three times, in 1846-7, 1851-2 and 1859-60, it convinced itself or at least did its best to do so that the French intended to invade. The defeat by Prussia in 1870 should have confirmed Frances faltering status. But Britain still
needed its neighbour in order to define itself. In 1888 those anxious about the state of British national defences suggested that the self-serving careerism of General Georges Boulanger pointed once again to the threat of invasion. Boulanger had little following in France, even in the army, and his coup culminated in ignominy. But ten years later, in 1898 at Fashoda, Captain JeanBaptiste Marchand and Sir Herbert Kitchener disputed control of the headwaters of the Nile. Once again their two countries looked to their coastal defences. AngloFrench enmity seemed to be a given of international relations. One of the more surprising outcomes of the nineteenth century was that there was no war between Britain and France after 1815. It corroborates the truism that arms races do not invariably cause conflict and indeed that they might even deter it. The paradox of the Entente Cordiale of 1904 was that it did not arise from geographical proximity. It was the product of the Fashoda crisis rather than of cross-Channel tensions. The confrontation of 1898 highlighted Britain and Frances imperial rivalries, especially in North Africa. The French had built the Suez Canal, but after 1882 Britain controlled both it and Egypt. Kitchener had made clear to Marchand that the British also
meant to master the course of the Nile. Thophile Delcass, Frances Foreign Minister and the architect of the Entente Cordiale, wanted an agreement with Britain less for its own sake and more to secure a free hand for French colonialism. In 1904, the two powers agreed to a demarcation. Britain would control the eastern end of North Africa, and hence the route to India; France would have the western end, from Tunisia, through its pivot, Algeria, and on to Morocco. In a word, the French Ambassador in London, Paul Cambon, declared, we give you Egypt in exchange for Morocco.2 If Delcass harboured wider ambitions, including the possibility of a stronger hand in relation to Germany, these were not shared across the Channel. Lord Lansdowne, the British Foreign Secretary, was keen to improve relations with Berlin. The Germans did not see the Entente as about North Africa or any other of the agreements global concerns, from Siam to the particularly vexed question of the rights of Bretons to fish off Newfoundland. For Germany the Entente was driven by European concerns, not colonial ones. They concluded that the alliance was directed at them, and that, given centuries of Anglo-French rivalry, it was friable. Moroccos independence had been guaranteed by the Madrid convention of 1880.
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Germany resolved to stop Delcass and so expose the slender foundations on which the Entente rested. On 31 March 1905 the Kaiser landed at Tangiers and announced his support of Moroccan independence. He hoped to break the Anglo-French understanding. A conference was convened at Algeiras to consider the Moroccan question, but Britains response to Germany was to show its support for France, not to back off. Sir Edward Grey, who succeeded Lansdowne as Foreign Secretary when the Liberals formed a government at the end of the same year, secretly asked the War Office to initiate staff conversations with the French. For the French army staff talks could only be about the most obvious military threat. Britain might have been Frances oldest enemy, but the sea made a more logical demarcation of the frontier to the north-west than did the Moselle to the east, particularly as the lost provinces of Alsace-Lorraine lay beyond it. France did not go to war in 1914 to recover AlsaceLorraine or to advance its eastern frontier to the Rhine, but its army knew that, if there were to be war, Germany was its most likely opponent. For the British, the staff talks were a diplomatic signal. They were not an indication of strategic intent and they were not sustained, but they
worked. The Entente did not collapse under German pressure. Instead it was strengthened. The Entente Cordiale was not a product of the rise of Germany, but the Moroccan crisis of 1905 ensured that German antagonism became its raison d tre. Moreover, Germany had made clear that colonial rivalries could not be treated separately from European. The Entente had been recast. Its principal function became burden sharing in defence, and its outstanding manifestation the Anglo-French naval agreement of 1912. In July 1911 Germany once again challenged France in Morocco, and once again revealed that the Entente drew its identity from adversity. The British minister whom the French saw as the least reliable on defence, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd George, spoke in ringing terms of Britains commitment to security in Europe. When Delcass was recalled to government as Naval Minister in March 1911, he was appalled to discover that there were no naval talks comparable with the staff conversations conducted by the two armies. By allocating responsibility for the security of the Mediterranean to France, the Anglo-French naval agreement of 1912 followed the logic which had underpinned the original Entente. It gave France suzerainty in the western Mediterranean,
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between Marseilles and North Africa, and it confirmed what the British Admiralty was already doing, withdrawing its battleships to the North Sea to focus on Germany. The security of Frances northern coast now lay largely in British hands, and the two navies adopted a joint naval code to prove it. The French could be forgiven for thinking that an Anglo-French alliance was a done deal. Edward VII, who had knelt before the tomb of Napoleon at his mothers behest when a child in 1855, displayed that love of Paris and of French culture common to all civilised Britons. He died in 1910, and George V seemed less committed and more discreet. But his diplomats spoke the French language fluently, and the Foreign Offices head, Sir Edward Grey, reassured Cambon on 22 November 1912 that, if either Government had grave reason to expect an unprovoked attack by a third Power, or something that threatened the general peace, it should immediately discuss with the other, whether both Governments should act together to prevent aggression and to preserve peace, and if so what measures they would be prepared to take in common.3 At the end of July 1914, the two powers confronted just such a crisis. But the British Cabinet, anxious about its own unity, and
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fearful of the left, could not give the commitment Cambon wanted. E. Grey had an interview with him this afternoon which he told me was rather painful, the Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith wrote to his girlfriend, Venetia Stanley, on 31 July. He had of course to tell Cambon (for we are under no obligation) that we could give no pledges.4 But Cambon reckoned that Britain was pledged, at the very least, to protect Frances channel coast. Both Grey and Asquith were inclined to acknowledge the force of his argument. In the end Britain stood by France in August 1914, but it did not do so because of any obligation entered into by its general staff. The Director of Military Operations, Henry Wilson, was a great lover of France, and like many of his fellow nationals, then and since, spent his holidays there. But the argument that he presented to the Committee of Imperial Defence when it met on 23 August 1911 during the second Moroccan crisis that six British divisions could swing the balance if the Germans invaded France was specious. Privately he admitted (with remarkable accuracy) they would be, fifty too few.5 In the event Britain sent only five in August 1914, while the French massed 82. Moreover, on 5 August, with Britain now at war, the possibility of sending even this paltry total not to reinforce
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the French left wing, but to Antwerp to help Belgium, was given a full and considered airing. If burden sharing embodied a defence commitment, it was at sea and not on land. The First World War proved to be both the making of the Entente Cordiale and its finest hour. Like nations, alliances need to be forged in war to acquire an identity. The significance of 11 November as a day of remembrance is greater in Britain and France than elsewhere. Those other nations for whom the war also ended on that day focus their commemoration on different events: Australia and New Zealand prefer to remember the Gallipoli landings, and Belgium the moment of national awakening when the Germans presented their ultimatum on 1 August 1914. Both Britain and France suffered greater losses in this war than they did in the Second. For Germany, as for the United States and Russia, the memory of the Second World War must always cast a longer, as well as more immediate, shadow. The landscapes of Britain and France now have at least one common feature they are dotted with war memorials, in villages and towns, in squares and parks. There is however a significant difference in these memorials. The battles they list are the place names of France Albert, Bt153
hune, Bapaume, the Somme not of Britain. No poilus fought and died on British soil; the flow of men was in one direction. The First World War was a form of tourism. British soldiers went abroad in numbers and for lengths of time which few of their class had done before. They served amidst the slag heaps of the north-east: they did not see the best of France. To the south, Picardy was more attractive. Its devastation made many realise, with relief, the value to their own landscape of fighting on foreign soil. However, in the eyes of many French farmers the Boche were not the only ones to blame for the damage. Troops, their training and their transport, trampled crops and reduced pasture to mud. Officers who persisted in hunting and shooting evoked outcries comparable with the cahiers des dolances compiled by the Estates General in 1789. But peasants made profits in other ways, setting up estaminets and introducing Tommies to new pleasures, including vin blanc and, with lasting effects on the British diet, pommes frites. British soldiers and French civilians gave the Entente life. Formally as well as informally, the alliance was cemented faster at the economic level than at the military. In February 1915 Britain, France and Russia met at Calais to discuss both the procurement of muni-
tions and its funding. The initial pressures to cooperate were financial to ensure that the allies did not force up prices in neutral markets by bidding against each other, and to keep the dollar/ sterling exchange rate sufficiently steady given the allies need to borrow on overseas exchanges. But Frances Minister of Commerce, Etienne Clmentel, was looking to create a post-war order that drew on the wartime experience of a managed economy both to ensure a rational allocation of resources and to marginalise German competition. His hopes were spurred first by the needs of the allied blockade and then by Germanys declaration of unrestricted U-boat war in February 1917. Shipping losses forced the allies to allocate tonnage centrally through an Allied Shipping Executive. From this flowed the coordinated management of wheat, meat and fats, oil seeds, and sugar. Although in the first instance the adoption of rational, supra-national management tools was pragmatic, in due course they became an article of faith for one of Clmentels brightest subordinates, Jean Monnet. The Entente grew organically, from the bottom up. It therefore had more substance earlier in the war than the appointment in late March 1918 of a supreme allied military commander suggested. The complaints of one nation
about the other should not be exaggerated. Douglas Haig may have huffed and puffed but, until they developed a mass army in 1916, the British were unequivocally the junior partners in a military sense. The plans for the battle of the Somme were predicated on this assumption, even if the effects of Verdun meant that in the event the British took the main burden. Haigs fury when he was subordinated to the command of the French Commander-in-Chief, Robert Nivelle, in February 1917, was directed less at Nivelle himself than at Lloyd George, now Prime Minister, who had manoeuvred him into this position. The failure of Nivelles offensive on the Chemin des Dames in April and the subsequent mutinies in the French army gave the British army an equivalence by mid-1917 that it had lacked previously. But even now, although possessed of an army of comparable size, Britains section of the western front was half the length of that held by the French. Foch, as allied Commander-inChief, in 1918 achieved a victory whose speed surprised even him, congenital optimist though he was. The French army enjoyed a popularity in Britain that would have amazed Wellington or Napoleon. In 1924, a schoolmaster in India, P. C. Wren, published a boys adventure story, Beau
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Geste, which went through thirtyone impressions by 1927. The portrait of Wren himself or what purported to be Wren, reproduced opposite the title page, with the crown of a British major on his shoulder-strap and a row of medal ribbons across his chest suggested that here was a military hero, who, like the improbablynamed Major Henri de Beaujolais of the Spahis in Beau Geste, knew a thing or two about soldiering. In reality Wrens wartime service had lasted less than a year and had been passed in the Indian army reserve of officers. In Beau Geste, middle-class English boys, who before the war would have been guided by the pen of G. A. Henty either to serve the British empire in one of its remoter quarters or even to fight the French in the Peninsula or at Waterloo, join the French Foreign Legion. And they become loyal soldiers of the Republic, despite sadistic sergeants and brutal discipline. They defend Fort Zinderneuf against the Touareg, with the tricolour (called the Flag, with a capital F, in the book) flying to the end. Such harmony was less evident in reality. Once the First World War was over, Frances colonial ambitions reopened the tensions with Britain which the Entente had been designed to obviate. Admittedly nobody in London was inclined to quarrel with (or even
understand) Frances preoccupation with the Maghreb. But Britain did see the Middle East as the outer bulwark for the defence of India. In 1916 competition between the two powers caused Mark Sykes and Georges Picot to divide Syria and Palestine, with consequences which still plague that part of the world. But the deal did not prevent Britain endeavouring to steal a march on the ground as the Ottoman Empire collapsed in 1918. In Iraq, the British pushed on Mosul to secure its oil supplies, and further west Allenbys army reached out for Damascus. The fact that the Turks signed an armistice with Britain alone, aboard a British warship, and without French representation, seemed to confirm that Britain was anxious to keep France out of Syria. Within an hour of the armistice, Clemenceau claimed he had said to Lloyd George in 1918, I had the impression that you had become once again the enemies of France.6 The issue which divided them was not so much their colonial claims as their view of European security. For Britain, the relationship with France was designed to neutralise Germany as it faced west; for France, Germany could only be countered by attention to its eastern frontier as well. France could never believe that Britain was serious about defending the Versailles Settle-
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ment when it did not have conscription. A mass army was still a sine qua non for intervention on the continent, but Britain persisted in believing that blockade had won the First World War and could be relied upon to win a second. When, in 1939, Britain did adopt conscription and then send a mass army to the continent, its soldiers had a stomach-wrenching sense of dj vu. They passed through Arras and took up positions on the Belgian border. The subsequent defeat took the cordiality out of the Entente. Just as war had cemented the alliance in 1914, so war smashed it in 1940. The miracle of Dunkirk was the worst French nightmare of 1914-18 come true: their abandonment by the British. For London, Frances capitulation on 25 June made its ally an enemy. On 3 July 1940 the Royal Navy bombarded the French fleet at Mers-el-Kbir. On 8 June 1941 British forces attacked the forces of Vichy France in Syria, the first battle between the two nations since Waterloo. Once again war and empire were the touchstones of the Entente. Although the British were fighting against Frenchmen in Syria, they were also fighting alongside them. In Damascus Free French units of the Foreign Legion clashed with fellow legionnaires fighting for Vichy. But de Gaulles men were excluded from the
convention brokered at the campaigns conclusion. Churchill and de Gaulle were perhaps too similar not least in their combativeness to like or trust each other. After 1941, neither of their countries was any longer the arbiter of international relations that it had once been; both had difficulty coming to terms with the fact, and both aspired to preserve their empires and use them as foundations in their war efforts. In the history of the Entente Cordiale, it was entirely appropriate that the starting point for their joint military recovery should have been North Africa and the Middle East, and equally unsurprising that Churchill should have hoped to soften de Gaulle in July 1941 with the thought that, France could aim at having in Syria after the war the same sort of position as we had established between the wars in Iraq.7 The dnouement was played out not in France in 1944, but at Suez in 1956. For the last time Britain and France used the Entente Cordiale to wage war and to support their positions in North Africa. But now the enemy that defined the alliance proved to be also an ally, the United States. In 1919-39 the triangular relationship between Britain, France and Germany strained Anglo-French relations, because Britain saw the place of Frances eastern neighbour in different terms from those
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of Paris. In 1956 the United States refused to condone the Anglo-French seizure of the canal. Since then, Britain has often found its perceptions of America differing from those of its nearest neighbour. Unlike Germany, the United States shares both a common language and a common political inheritance with the United Kingdom. The principal foreign policy challenge for successive British governments has been to honour the special
relationship with America, while at the same time ensuring that the Entente Cordiale remains in good shape. As the latter enters its second century, it has never been harder. War and empire no longer provide the binding force for the Entente, but they are constituent elements (however broadly defined and soft that imperialism might be) in the special relationship. Physical proximity, second homes, and battlefield tours to the Western Front will not be enough.
1 Quoted by P.M.H. Bell, France and Britain 1900-1940: entente and estrangement (London, 1996), p. 1 2 Quoted by Christopher Andrew, The Entente Cordiale from its origins to 1914, in Neville Waites, Troubled neighbours: Franco-British relations in the twentieth century (London, 1971),p. 11 3 Samuel R. Williamson, The politics of grand strategy: Britain and France prepare for war, 1904-1914 (1969, reprint, London, 1990), p.297 4 H.H. Asquith, Letters to Venetia Stanley (Oxford, 1985), ed. Michael and Eleanor Brock, p. 138 5 Keith Wilson, The Policy of the Entente: essays on the determinants of British foreign policy (Cambridge, 1985), p. 63 6 J. Martet, Le Tigre (Paris, 1930), p. 59 7 Winston Churchill, The Second World War (6 vols, London, 1948-54), III, p. 715
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Professor Monkombu S. Swaminathan FRS UNESCO Chair in Ecotechnology and President, Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs 23 June 2004 Scottish Agricultural and Biological Research Institutes Lecture Biotechnology, Organic Farming and Shaping our Agricultural Future Speakers Abstract Global agriculture faces formidable challenges. Countries like India, China and Bangladesh must increase production under conditions of diminishing arable land, water resources, climate change and expanding stresses. Research on such issues must therefore be intensified. The development strategies adopted by the M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation will be described in this lecture. To achieve an ever-green revolution which will enhance farm productivity without ecological harm, molecular breeding and organic farming will need to be integrated. GM foods and organic foods should not be pitched one against the other.
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CONFERENCES, WORKSHOPS, SYMPOSIA, SEMINARS AND DISCUSSION FORUMS

RSE/BA Joint Conference Anglo-Scottish Relations since 1914 6-7 November 2003
The meeting in Edinburgh formed the third part of an extended event to mark the fourth centenary of the Union of the Crowns in 1603. The centenary event began with a Lecture: Oh Brave New World? The Union of Scotland and England in 1603 which was given by Dr Jenny Wormald at the British Academy in March 2003. That was followed by a two-part conference which met in London (17-18 Sept 2003) and Edinburgh (6-7 Nov 2003). The London meeting focused on Anglo-Scottish Relations from 1603 to 1914 and the Edinburgh meeting on the period since 1914 with particular emphasis on the very recent Past, the Present and the foreseeable Future. Professor Smout opened the Edinburgh meeting with a brief review of the London meeting, noting that most Unions of Crowns in history had not lasted; the Union of the Scottish and English Crowns was therefore exceptional. That Union, and the subsequent Union of Parliaments, proved initially unpopular but nonetheless long-lasting in part at least because they were Unions that celebrated (Scottish/English)
differences rather than attempting to suppress them. Dr Findlay however noted Queen Victorias success in stressing Scottish distinctiveness in a way that her twentieth-century successors were unwilling or unable to do. And Professor Mitchell pointed to the growing emphasis on popular sovereignty, which posed new problems for the Union. Professor Kellas pointed to the significance of political party manoeuvring in the events that ultimately led to Devolution. Victorias ministers left one particularly important imprint upon Scottish-English relations: the Goshen formula, renamed in recent times the Barnett formula or even the Barnett Squeeze. Although redefined much more frequently than it was renamed the basic concept of a crude, simple formula for allocating government expenditure between Scotland and England persisted. But as external conditions changed, its impact varied from fairness to bias whether to the advantage or disadvantage of Scotland. Professor McLean declared the formula to be
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broken. It could soon disadvantage Scotland so severely that a new formula would be needed if the Union were to be preserved. But Professor Heald and Mr McLeod disputed that verdict and argued that the formula would probably evolve, especially as there is no agreement on a replacement. Drawing on international comparisons, Professor Jeffery addressed the fundamental question of any continuing Union: why should south-east Englanders help fund Scottish needs? Professor Hazell and Mr Wintrobe noted that the Scottish Parliament had received a bad press, particularly in Scotland, but they argued that it had pioneered new procedures for scrutiny of legislation, approving the budget, calling the Executive to account, and redressing citizens grievances which were a significant improvement on Westminster. Dr Hussain and Professor Miller investigated the new Parliament and Executives success in reassuring ethnic minorities notably the Pakistani and English minorities that they were not threatened by constitutional change or by growing nationalism within Scotland. Their evidence indicated that ethnic divisions were less intense than historic sectarian divisions and, more remarkably, that the SNP was now more popular within some ethnic minorities than within the Scottish
population as a whole. Professor Schlesinger was more critical of the Scottish Parliaments performance on media issues. Culture was a devolved subject but communication was not, and the Scottish Parliament had been unassertive on broadcasting matters. This raised the wider issue of whether the role of a national parliament was merely to pass laws or to act as a sounding-board for the nation. The Scottish Parliament has been remarkably quick to expand its role beyond the strictly legal on ethnic minority issues but not, by contrast, on broadcasting issues. In two separate papers, Professor Heath and Professor Curtice compared Scottish and English reactions to Scottish Devolution. Professor Heath focused on divergent identities and the different meaning of Britishness north and south of the border. Professor Curtice concluded that Scots and English had not been driven apart by devolution. Both Scots and English supported devolution for Scotland even though many of the English were less convinced of its utility for England or the English regions. The North-East of England was perhaps an exception however. Through a focus on CB Fawcett, whose Provinces in England was the founding text of English regionalism, Professor Tomaney traced the development of a
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Conferences, Workshops, Symposia, Seminars and Discussion Forums regional identity and regional institutions of governance in the North-East of England which is likely to be amongst the first wave of English regions to acquire an elected Regional Assembly. In the North-East such an Assembly would have indigenous English roots; it would be much more than a merely negative reaction to Scottish Devolution. Using qualitative research methods, Dr McCarthy looked at the personal experience of Scots in England, while Dr Watson looked at the experience of the English in Scotland. Dr McCarthys research emphasised the importance of Scottishness for Scots in England. But it was very much a private rather than a public matter for them as for Scots in New Zealand but unlike Scots in the USA or Canada and it blended easily with a sense of Britishness. Dr Watson found that the English in Scotland were shocked by the nationalism of Scots but nonetheless nine out of ten consciously adopted personal assimilation strategies. One in five even wore a kilt on occasion hence the title of his paper: The Kilted English. Professor McCrone argued that the Union in the 21st Century could no longer be based as it was in the 20th Century on welfare and warfare. It was a state of contradictions but might nonetheless persist in a hollowedout form as a loose-linked, supra-national, multi-ethnic liberal state. In his closing paper, New Unions for Old, Professor MacCormick returned to the theme outlined by Professor Smout at the start: the remarkably robust Union of the Crowns as distinct from the later Union of Parliaments. Professor MacCormick saw the Union of Crowns as the Union of the future if devolution led on to parliamentary and governmental independence from England, albeit within a wider network of European governance. The Union of 1603 might then outlast the Union of 1707.
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Discussion Forum 1 December 2003 Do We Approve of a Jury System for Complicated Trials?
Professor Gerry Maher, QC began by stating that the proposal he wished to advance is limited in scope. It is not one to abolish juries altogether. It is rather to remove jury trials in certain cases of complexity, and the reason we should do is that these cases are not suitable ones for determination by a jury. Instead, such cases should be heard by a judge without a jury. It should be borne in mind that only about 1-2% of all criminal cases involve a jury trial. Trial by jury is not typical in our criminal justice system. Rather it is very much the exception. What is typical is trial by a professional judge sitting without a jury. Professor Maher argued that accordingly, his proposal does not involve any radical departure from our current practices. Another feature of our current criminal justice system is the considerable emphasis placed on pre-trial management. Parties are expected to inform the court of the nature of the likely evidence and the probable length of a trial. Accordingly, it would not be too difficult to devise criteria for identifying what trials are likely to be complex.
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The system of trial by jury evolved when criminal trials were very different from what they are today. Trials were much, much shorter. The thought that a single trial could last for weeks, never mind months, would not have occurred to anyone in the 18th and 19th Centuries. Furthermore, there was little by way of technical or scientific evidence. By contrast, the complex trial is a modern phenomenon, its very complexity being based on the existence of professional and scientific concepts unknown to the average juror. One (but not the only) type of complex case is that of a fraud which can be understood only by someone who is familiar with the workings of highly specialised markets. Yet the conditions in which jury trials are typically heard, with evidence being led each day for days (and weeks) on end hardly ensure that a jury can properly absorb and understand what they hear and see. In complex cases, there must be serious doubts whether jurors can obey their oath to, well and truly try the accused and give a true verdict according to the evidence. Professor Maher thus concluded that were a judge to
Conferences, Workshops, Symposia, Seminars and Discussion Forums deal with a complex case he or she would give reasons for the verdict, and justice would be both done and seen to be done, in this type of case. The Rt Hon Lord Penrose then delivered an address, which argued, We Should Approve of a Jury System for Complicated Trails. He began by stating that trial by jury involves citizens in the criminal justice system. It is an important component of our understanding of public duty. Through the jury, the system accounts to an appreciable section of the public for discharge of its responsibilities. Reducing the role of the jury, or suggesting that it was unsuitable for complicated cases, would be counter-productive. He went on to argue that there is no acceptable mechanism for distinguishing exceptionally complicated cases from the norm. Fraud and other financial cases are not necessarily complicated, either in their central facts or in presentation. Many cases of murder and rape raise complex issues. If complexity were a reason for an alternative means of trial, it would be necessary to apply it to many common law crimes. To increase the discretion of the Lord Advocate to determine the method of trial, Lord Penrose argued, would be controversial. To confer a relevant jurisdiction on the court would undermine the separation of functions that defines our criminal justice system. If one could resolve the issue of mastery of the instance, the next problem would be the lack of any acceptable alternative to trial by jury. The use of technical assessors or lay members of a combined tribunal would introduce risks of professional prejudice. In cases of real financial complexity the judge would be disadvantaged without technical support. Therefore, Lord Penrose concluded that the jury system has adapted to the changing needs of society, and can continue to change. Current proposals for reform should be implemented and tested before more radical expedients are tried.
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Discussion Forum SARS - The Lessons Learned 8 December 2003
Speakers and Topics Dr Valerie Delpech Global epidemics of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) reported between February and July 2003 resulted in over 8000 probable cases and presented major public health challenges. Whilst only a few true cases were detected in the United Kingdom, the response was considerable. The early detection, isolation and reporting of cases and the provision of guidelines and targeted information were key components. Although the first global outbreak of SARS was officially contained on 5 July 2003, the world must remain vigilant to the possibility of its reemergence. Valerie Delpech is currently a Locum Consultant Epidemiologist in the Respiratory Department of the Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre (CDSC) at Colindale in London. She trained in Public Health Medicine in the state of New South Wales in Australia and was Medical Epidemiologist and Manager of Infectious Diseases Surveillance with the NSW Department of Health in Sydney until December 2002.
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Valerie has most recently been working on the HPA response to the global outbreaks of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), the UK arm of an international study on SARS, and the development of guidance and surveillance for SARS in the postoutbreak period. Dr Martin Donaghy A feature of recent decades has been the emergence of new infections which have the potential to cause havoc in the societies in which they occur. SARS may show a similar seasonal pattern of transmission as other respiratory viral infections. If so, there is a possibility it may return in the autumn/winter period and be imported into Scotland. We must be ready. The purpose of this talk is to describe the key elements of how we should prepare for this possibility. Martin Donaghy is Clinical Director at The Scottish Centre for Infection and Environmental Health (SCIEH). SCIEH, part of the Common Services Agency is a multi-disciplinary organisation carrying out surveillance, opera-
Conferences, Workshops, Symposia, Seminars and Discussion Forums tional support, research and training on communicable diseases and environmental hazards. Prior to his current post Martin was Senior Medical Officer in Public Health at the Scottish Executive Health Department. With over 20 years experience in various aspects of public health, Martin has contributed to a number of publications, been Medical Adviser to the Food Standards Agency (Scotland) and extensively involved in public health policy in Scotland especially relating to health protection. Among issues concerning the latter has been Healthcare Associated Infection. He has worked at Lanarkshire, Ayrshire and Arran and Tayside NHS Boards and has experience working abroad with a spell in Peru in the late 1970s and early 1980s and in Spain in the 1990s.
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Discussion Forum Monday 12 January 2004 The Cause of Eating Disorders: The Individual, the Culture, or Both?
Dr Chris Freeman began by discussing the view that eating disorders, Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, and Binge Eating Nervosa are widely regarded as 20th Century socially-determined conditions. He explained that he intended to explore the apparent emergence of these disorders in the middle of the 20th Century and why they appear to preferentially affect young women, and assess the role of culture, family, media and individual psychology. He suggested that these conditions should be reclassified as dieting disorders rather than eating disorders because of the central role that dietary restraint plays. He went on to explain that eating disorders are multipledetermined; there is no single cause. To understand the causation of these disorders it is necessary to examine the meaning of severe dietary restraint and thinness for the individual and the message their thinness gives to those around them. It is also important to appreciate the role that biological and genetic factors have in causing these conditions.
Dr Freeman concluded that selfinduced starvation can have political, cosmetic, social and cultural aims, but importantly can also become self sustaining and addictive. Dr Harry Millar then delivered an address entitled, Eating Disorders in Scotland: Hunger for Resources. He began by revealing that studies in the North East of Scotland show an increased incidence of anorexia nervosa over the last 35 years. Bulimia nervosa is more common than anorexia nervosa and, in addition, half of specialistreferred patients suffer from other related eating disorders. These atypical eating disorders also cause significant impairment and, for those patients with a confirmed diagnosis of anorexia nervosa, there is a threefold increased risk of premature death. Dr Millar went on to explain that patients often present late for treatment. This can be due to their lack of awareness or denial of the problem, delays in diagnosis and difficulties in accessing appropriate treatment. Various self help approaches can be
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Conferences, Workshops, Symposia, Seminars and Discussion Forums effective or patients may seek professional help out with the health service. Within the health service, the first point of contact is usually the General Practitioner (GP), but some patients have difficulty approaching the GP and some may present with symptoms not obviously due to the eating disorder. Once they make the diagnosis, the response of GPs is very variable; for example, in Grampian the referral rate to the Eating Disorder Service shows a sixteenfold range of difference between practices. A recent Scottish survey found that only five out of fourteen health board areas had specialist eating disorder services and found no specialist adult beds in NHS Scotland. Finally, Dr Millar stated that in England the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) has been developing clinical guidelines for eating disorders. In Scotland, although the Health Department has produced recommendations for services as part of the Framework for Mental Health, there is no timetable for implementation and no new resources are identified.
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Symposium A Resource to be Harnessed: Maximising the Contribution of Older Members of Society 23 January 2004
Legislative, demographic and economic factors, including constraints in the funding of pensions, now make the effective extension of working life both possible, inevitable, and perhaps on appropriate terms, desirable. Cliff edge or brick wall models for retirement are inappropriate and unwarranted from the medical evidence. Life is a continuum and there should be the minimum of arbitrary, prescriptive boundaries. No single pattern emerged as being universally applicable and the collective data available for society in general certainly concealed several important and distinct subgroups. Professional knowledge workers formed one such group; less constrained by physical or motor skill requirements, and less, or not at all, dependent on state pension provision. This group, after extensive training and long experience, often possessed skills that remained in significant demand. Their interests were not demanding of resources, but rather could be enabled to contribute both fiscally and in service to the community.
Government legislation is now impending and it is appropriate to explore these issues as they affect professional knowledge workers, where institutions such as the Royal Society of Edinburgh can offer particular insight. The most important elements for further consideration include: Identifying the changes in expectations and attitudes among professional workers that will follow from current developments and establishing areas of common interest; Defining essential requirements in legislation and regulation to meet concerns in specific professional areas; Reviewing attitudes and machinery for handling issues of professional competency and encouraging the sharing of best practice; and Considering objective and reasonable expectations with regard to career development and progression planning in the light of societys need for professional effectiveness. The Royal Society of Edinburgh, with its Fellowship drawn from all
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Conferences, Workshops, Symposia, Seminars and Discussion Forums the knowledge disciplines, is well placed to focus such debate and on the basis of this report now invites interested parties to comment. The invited participants, drawn from a wide range of groups with interests in this area, were formed into discussion syndicates. Each syndicate then tackled a specific question framed in the light of the context already established by the briefing papers. Syndicates were united as to the importance of the issues under discussion and on the dearth of adequate information about the group of professional workers that were of particular concern to this meeting. The specific questions tackled and the conclusions of the syndicates, presented in Appendix A, informed the general discussion that followed. When we talk of tomorrow the Gods laugh! This is an appropriate warning as to the limitations of debate and intellectual analysis in a field subject, not only to the interplay of individual preference, market and demographic forces, but also to regulation by local, national and European governments. Entrenched attitudes are to be expected, along with the simultaneous advance of orthogonal views; for example, in the desire to leave head-room for younger people without corresponding loss of status or responsibility for older staff.
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Some saw themselves as belonging to a golden generation with subsequent generations destined to toil indefinitely - but perhaps that was no more than a comfort in old age. Nevertheless, some consensus emerged around concepts such as the need for flexibility, the importance of changing societys attitude to ageing and the need to view life as a continuum. However, there were doubts as to where prime responsibility lay, with Government (EU or UK), financial institutions, employers or individuals. In the final analysis much depended on the ability of the individual to define his or her needs and expectations for later life and to plan and act accordingly. Blunt instruments were unpopular. Such legislatively simple, and seemingly economically predictable solutions, such as a Raising of the Retirement Age would not meet the diversity of need and ambition. They might also even fail to fulfil economic expectations as, for example, in the case of employment following the Working Hours Directive. A successful policy must work with the grain. Sadly, the tree of life is heavily knotted and overall statistics provide a poor guide to individuals who must be afforded the maximum flexibility. Different generations were likely to have markedly different aspirations.
Attitudes to ambition, success, achievement and self-worth were hard, perhaps almost impossible, to change and would require sustained effort. Education, genuine and lifelong, example and encouragement would all be needed. The concept of life as a continuum, which emerged strongly in the medical evidence, was seized upon as of general importance and as providing the thread on which to at least rationalise, if not plan. Distinctions between work and play, employment and retirement would become less significant. Death to retirement, not retirement to death would be the key. The concepts of objectivity and reasonableness likely to be enshrined in legislation would need careful exploration in the light of issues of competence, succession planning and public protection. These concerns are likely to develop under the scrutiny of case law. The measure-
ment of competence was already well developed in some professions, e.g. Medicine. Much could be gained by sharing best practice between professions. It was clear that substantial economic benefits could be achieved for both society and the individual from changes in expectation and regulation. This was not a zero sum game. At a practical level, there is much to do. The customer must be clearly identified, and his or her contribution and needs have to be researched across the range of disciplines and circumstances. Professional organisations should develop these ideas in their own constituencies and perhaps work alongside the RSE in formulating a more considered position. Other organisations represented at the meeting indicated a wish to continue this debate and collaborate with the RSE. Extracted from full report (ISBN No 0 902198 14 9), which is available on the RSE Website.
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Conferences, Workshops, Symposia, Seminars and Discussion Forums Particle Physics Workshop Advances in Heavy Quark Physics 4 February 2004
Speakers and Topics Session 1 Chairman: Professor D H Saxon, FRSE, Faculty of Physical Sciences, University of Glasgow Heavy Flavour Physics at Hadron Colliders Dr P J Bussey, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow Theoretical Overview of Heavy Flavour Physics Dr P Ball, Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology, University of Durham Session 2 Chairman: Prof K J Peach, FRSE, Central Laboratory for the Research Councils New Lattice Calculations for Vub Determination from B p Semi leptonic Decays Ms K Foley, Cornell University Tagging b-Jets at Colliders Dr G Borissov, Department of Physics, University of Lancaster Rare B Decays Dr P J Clark, School of Physics, University of Edinburgh B X(s) g and B X(s) l+l- in the Standard Model and SUSY Dr M Gorbahn, Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology, University of Durham Session 3 Chairman: Prof P N Ratoff, Department of Physics, University of Lancaster Heavy Flavour Physics at e+eMachines Prof D Hitlin, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
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Conference Scotland and the Media 9 March 2004
The three-way breakdown of trust between government and politicians, the media and the general public........ has led to increasing disillusionment amongst parts of society, particularly the young and ethnic groups. There has been a corresponding disengagement and withdrawal from the political and democratic processes, evidenced by declining participation in local and general elections. The breakdown........poses questions both to politicians and to the media as to how they conduct their legitimate, but very different, roles and responsibilities. An Independent Review of Government Communications, January 2004. Voter turnout across the UK at the last general election (2001) fell to 59%, the lowest since 1918. It was even worse amongst younger voters, with just over a third of 1834 year-olds (39%) registering their vote. Today, it appears many younger people are more likely to vote in televised pop contests such as Pop Idol than they are for their local politicians. Saturdaynight entertainment is assuming greater importance than participating in democracy. At the same time, public confidence in our elected representatives and institutions is falling. In 1974, 39% of the population believed the Government of whatever political persuasion would put the national good above party gain. Today, according to the British Social
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Attitude Survey, it is 16%. These trends were sufficiently worrying for the Government to commission an independent review the Phillis Report quoted above to see what can be done about it. The blame for much of this has been attributed to aggressive media coverage that focuses on failure rather than celebrating success. This has a corrosive effect, reducing respect for politicians and turning people away from the political process. It begs many questions how much are politicians to blame for this situation; is journalism properly serving the public interest; what can be done to curb the excesses of the media; and how can relationships be improved in the interests of creating a better
Conferences, Workshops, Symposia, Seminars and Discussion Forums informed, interested and engaged electorate? These were some of the key questions examined at a conference organised by the Royal Society of Edinburgh on March 9, 2004. It arose out of concerns from within the Fellowship of the Society at the apparent breakdown in trust between the people of Scotland and their politicians. The conference sought to examine how Scotland can respond. It was expertly chaired by the BBC presenter, James Naughtie, and featured presentations from leading figures from the world of media and politics. Summing up, Trevor Royle, Associate Editor of the Sunday Herald and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, agreed with the view expressed by a number of contributors that relations between politicians and the press were improving in Scotland. It is not the end of the war but the beginning of a truce, he said. It was also perhaps a sign that we are beginning to grow up and to understand that the Parliament cannot deliver on everything. Mr Royle said he was heartened to hear the discussion of a Scottish PCC, which may be an idea that will grow into something tangible. He supported the notion that the Scottish media should not be frightened of addressing big ideas and should look at what is happening in the rest of the world through a Scottish, and not a London, dimension. However, that type of journalism is more expensive, which brought into question issues of ownership and investment in Scottish-based media. He also welcomed the concern expressed about the increasing blurring of news and comment. He said he was not alone in finding it unsettling to listen to a radio or television news broadcast where a reporter is talking to a journalist about an issue or an event rather than to the people directly involved. The electronic revolution in broadcasting and journalism did not get too much attention, but Mr Royle believed that this may be the face of the future. There is so much information that can now be accessed via the internet that it is a wonder, sometimes, why people bother to pick up a newspaper, he concluded. Extracted from full report (ISBN 0 902 198 39 4.) which is available on the RSE Website.
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RSE/Wellcome Trust Research Workshop Molecular, Clinical and Safety Aspects of Nutrition Research 17 March 2004
Organiser Michael Schweizer, of Edinburgh Universitys School of Life Sciences, set the scene by describing the School of Life Sciences contribution to Food Science and Nutrition Research in Scotland. He then chaired the first session which dealt with molecular and safety aspects of nutrition research. Professor Ian Connerton, University of Nottingham, described the dangers of campylobacters in poultry production and how it can be counteracted by phage control. The activation of the transcription factor NF-kB plays a role in campylobacter infection and this provided a link to the positive effects of omega-3 fatty acids described by Professor Klaus Wahle, The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, the second speaker of the day. Herring and mackerel are excellent sources of these fatty acids. A lively discussion on NF-kB activation followed the lectures and continued into the coffee break. Fruit was available to ensure that the fifty delegates from academia, industry and the Scottish Food Standards Agency did not have to forego their five portions a day!
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In the second session introduced by Steve Euston, Professor Howard Davies, SCRI, Dundee, gave an overview on the opportunities and challenges of enhancing the nutritional value of crop plants. The theme of functional foods was expanded by Professor Donald Muir, FFAST Solutions Ltd, Hannah Research Park, Ayr, in a clear and concise lecture. Questions from the delegates showed that this is an area which has potential. During lunch there was ample opportunity for networking. In the afternoon session led by Michael Schweizer, Professor Rudolph Riemersma, University of Edinburgh, defended the utility of randomised trials in determining the influence of diet on cardiovascular disease. The final speaker, Professor Mike Lean, University of Glasgow, gave an entertaining and insightful presentation on obesity and the need for improving the Scottish diet. He emphasised that the Food Industry must pay more attention to the results of nutrition research since nutrition has an important role in food choice.
Conferences, Workshops, Symposia, Seminars and Discussion Forums The final discussion emphasised the need for research pooling in Scottish Food Science and the necessity of consultation with the Scottish Food Industry and the Executive. It is intended that this workshop will provide the basis for future research collaboration to which the School of Life Sciences with its research programmes in food and beverage science can make a valuable contribution. This workshop formed the basis of an outline proposal submitted to SHEFC with Heriot-Watt University as the lead institution in response to a call for SRDG funding. In total there are five Scottish Universities who intend to build a collaborative network.
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Symposium The Future of Retailing - Transport 25 March 2004
The fifth and final in a series of annual symposia was held at the Society on Thursday 25th March 2004 and attracted some 80 participants. Speakers and Topics Challenges for City Centre Retailing Mr Luke Mayhew, Managing Director, John Lewis. Luke Mayhew became Managing Director of John Lewis in 2000. John Lewis is the largest department store business in the UK, with 26 shops, a direct on-line business and three textile manufacturing plants. It employs over 25,000 people who are all Partners. Luke joined the John Lewis Partnership in 1992 and took on the Development Director role the following year. After leaving Oxford University Luke had a short stint in the Department of Trade and Industry. He then joined Thomas Cook and soon became Development Director. In 1985 he joined British Airways, where he held senior positions in marketing and human resources. In 1990 he became Chief Executive (Europe) of Shandwick plc, a major public relations consultancy business. Congestion Charging and its Impact on Retailing: London and Edinburgh Professor Michael Bell, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College London. The London congestion charging scheme has proved very effective in reducing traffic and hence congestion, but the longer-term land-use impacts are only now becoming evident. Retail within the congestion charging zone has taken a hit. However, congestion charging is but one way of managing traffic in urban areas. Smaller cities, like Newcastle upon Tyne, have successfully employed pedestrianisation. Access by car is maintained by peripheral parking while stores in the pedestrian predinct are supplied from behind or below. Pedestrians move unhindered by traffic between stores and other city centre attractions. Access by bus is maintained by a bus-only street which bisects the pedestrian precinct. The pedestrian precinct
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Conferences, Workshops, Symposia, Seminars and Discussion Forums has been distinctively paved and equipped with street furniture, creating a pedestrian friendly atmosphere. Retail is playing an important part in maintaining the historic buildings around the monument. While large-scale pedestrianisation would not have been feasible for an area the size of the London congestion charging zone, for smaller cities pedestrianisation can offer less risk to activities such as retail and more gain for pedestrians. The Impact of Retailing Logistics Trends on the UK Transport System Professor Alan McKinnon, Director, Logistics Research, Heriot-Watt University. Over the past forty years, major British retailers have extended their control back along the supply chain. Many now regard supply chain management as a core competence and source of competitive advantage. Through their involvement in logistics upstream of the shop, retailers are now responsible for a significant proportion of freight movement. The supermarket chains alone account for roughly 4.5% of all the lorry traffic on Britains roads. Professor McKinnon charted the development of logistics in the retail grocery sector and assessed its impact on the transport system. By consolidating supplies at regional distribution centres
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(RDCs), retailers have been able to rationalise the grocery distribution system, reducing traffic levels on the last link to the shop. Quick response replenishment from suppliers threatened to reduce transport efficiency on the primary link from the factory. The channelling of inbound supplies through primary consolidation centres and development of backloading networks has helped to counter this trend. Over the past three years, some of the major grocery retailers, particularly Tesco, have negotiated factory-gate pricing arrangements with their suppliers, effectively assuming full responsibility for distribution from the point of production. This is yielding transport savings for these retailers, though its wider impact on logistics costs and traffic levels across the industry are still uncertain. The centralised systems of distribution that the large retailers have set up make it easier for them to source products from further afield. This has contributed to the food miles trend and is reflected in the 40% increase in the average length of haul for grocery products over the past 20 years. The lean, highly time-sensitive distribution operations of supermarket chains are vulnerable to traffic congestion. A recent survey
in the food supply chain found that 29% of journeys were subject to a delay. Around two-thirds of these delays, however, were due to the unreliability of loading and unloading operations at factories, warehouses and shops. Exposure to traffic congestion was heightened by the scheduling of both RDC and shop deliveries during the morning peak period. Rescheduling of deliveries to the evening and night can ease this problem, though it is constrained by night curfews and working time restrictions. Opportunities also exist for reducing total lorrykms by (i) reinforcing the downward trend in empty running, (ii) filling the available space on laden vehicles and (iii) transferring traffic to the rail network. In recent years, there has been a significant increase in the volume of retail supplies moved by rail, but from a very low base. The presentation concluded with a review of the likely effects of the growth of grocery home shopping on road traffic levels. This will partly depend on the way retailers and carriers address the last mile
problem. Unattended delivery at the home will increase delivery flexibility and permit substantial reductions in van traffic. Research in the UK, Finland and the Netherlands suggests that the substitution of home deliveries for car-based shopping trips offers the potential to cut road traffic by a significant margin. This assumes, of course, that people will not use the time saved to travel elsewhere by car. The Latest Information to Improve Understanding of Retail Performance Mr John Gallagher, Managing Director, FootFall. John Gallagher discussed the FootFall Congestion Charge Index and issues that have impacted on the congestion charge over the year, such as the Central Line, the SARS outbreak, and the Madrid Bombing. He also considered performance differences between Scotland and London and the effect of Scottish events, such as major football games or snow, on footfall.
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Conferences, Workshops, Symposia, Seminars and Discussion Forums Conference Fire and Structures : Implications of the World Trade Center Disaster 21 April 2004 Full copies of the Conference Papers are available on the RSE Website (www.royalsoced.org.uk/events/2004.htm) Speakers Professor Farshad Alamdari PhD CEng FCIBSE Chief Scientist, Building Research Establishment (BRE) In 1997 Professor Farshad Alamdari joined the management team of BRE (the Building Research Establishment), just after its privatisation, as a key business driver in the cultural change necessary to take a Government research organisation into a commercial research-based consultancy company. Since then he has managed various researchbased businesses involving environmental and fire safety issues. In 2001, Farshad was promoted to Managing Director of the fire division of BRE, FRS (formerly Fire Research Station) and recently to the BRE Chief Scientist. Obtained his PhD from Cranfield University, Farshad is a Chartered Engineer and is a Fellow Member of the CIBSE, Visiting Professor at the University of Ulster and Visiting Special Professor at Nottingham University. Dr Peter Bressington Director, Leader Arup Fire International, Ove Arup and Partners Ltd Peter Bressington is a senior fire engineer who has been leader of Arup Fire in East Asia (based in Hong Kong) and is currently leader of Arup Fire International based in London. Peter has acted as an expert witness in fire safety matters where legal proceedings or agreements have been required. He is Co-Chairman of the Design Criteria and Loads Group on the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, currently he is assisting in re-writing CIBSE Guide E, Fire Engineering Handbook. He chaired the Arup Extreme Events Task Force set up after 11th September. Dr Jose Torero Reader in Fire Dynamics, University of Edinburgh Structures in Fire: An Overview of the Boundary Condition Jos L. Torero obtained his PhD from the University of California Berkeley in 1992. He is currently Reader in Fire Dynamics at The
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University of Edinburgh, UK and a Researcher (en Disponibilit) at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). He previously held the position of Associate Professor at the Department of Fire Protection Engineering and an Affiliate Associate Professor at the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Maryland, USA. He is a member of the British Section Committee of the Combustion Institute and of the Board of the International Association for Fire Safety Science (IAFSS). He is also a member of the AIAA Microgravity and Space Processes Technical Committee, the ASME Fire and Combustion (K-11) Committee, the UL Foams Fire Suppression Systems committee and NASAs Mars or Bust. He is on the editorial board of the journals Fire Technology and Fire Safety Journal. He specialises in fire safety engineering and his work is primarily in the general areas of fire dynamics, smoke detection & management, fire protection and suppression systems. Recently he has been involved in the study of fire-induced skin burns, waste incineration and the behaviour of structures in the event of a fire. He is the author or co-author of three book chapters, more than 50 journal publications and more than 100 other technical documents. Dr. Torero has been the recipient of numerous research
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and teaching awards that include the E. Robert Kent Outstanding Teaching Award (1998), the William M. Carey Award for the Best Paper Presented at the Fire Suppression and Detection Research Application Symposium (2001) and the Harry C. Bigglestone Award for the Best Paper Published in Fire Technology in 2002. Dr Susan Lamont Fire Engineer, Arup Fire Structural Fire Protection:From Prescription To The Performance Based Approach Dr Susan Lamont is currently based in London working as a Fire Engineer for Ove Arup and Partners. Susan is a member of the structures in fire group and specialises in structural fire design, but is responsible for many aspects of life safety design when producing a fire strategy for a building. Susan is actively involved in encouraging research into structures in fire. Arup Fire sponsor a number of PhD students in the UK. Susan completed her PhD at the University of Edinburgh in October 2001. Her PhD title was The Behaviour of multi-storey composite steel framed structures in response to compartment fires. This was a computing-based PhD analysing the influence of different fire scenarios on generic composite steel frame multi-storey structures.
Conferences, Workshops, Symposia, Seminars and Discussion Forums Susan worked extensively with the research team at Edinburgh University modelling the Cardington frame fire tests. Professor Geoff Cox Fire Research Station , Building Research Establishment (Retired) and Visiting Professor Cranfield University Fire Modelling Geoff Cox was, until his retirement last year, Research Director of the UK Fire Research Station (FRS) and Chairman of the International Standards Technical Committee on Fire Safety. He joined FRS in 1973 and has undertaken research on many aspects of fire dynamics. He pioneered the development of fire modelling using computational fluid dynamics and is author of over 100 scientific papers and three books. He is currently a Visiting Professor at Cranfield University and continues to contribute to fire safety science as an advisor to FRS and through his links with various universities. Mr Jim Golt Group Commander, Fire Engineering, London Fire Brigade A Fire Service Perspective Jim has served in the London Fire Brigade for 26 years and has carried out various duties including operations, training, fire safety and risk management. For the last
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eight years he has worked in the field of fire investigation, fire research and fire engineering and currently heads up a team of six dedicated fire engineers providing consultancy services to the Brigades fire safety teams. His team are involved in all major building and civil projects across London together with research activities at major fires. Other activities include committee work for BSI, CACFOA together with lecturing and a keen personal interest in sailing. Professor Vince Brannigan Lecturer in Building Safety and the Law, Department of Fire Protection Engineering, University of Maryland and Visiting Professor in Fire Risk Engineering at Glasgow Caledonian University The World Trade Center: Terrorist Arson and the Law Professor Vincent Brannigan teaches Building Safety and the Law in the Department of Fire Protection Engineering at the University of Maryland. He is also Visiting Professor in Fire Risk Engineering at Glasgow Caledonian University. His BS is in the History of Technology from The University of Maryland, and His JD is from Georgetown University. He is a member the bar and a regular lecturer at the US fire academy in Emmitsburg MD. He has been very active in fire safety codes research on a world wide basis.
Conference Cormack Meeting 26 April 2004
Ross Galloway University of Glasgow Fast electron slowing-down and diffusion in a high-temperature source Niall Deacon University of Edinburgh Meeting the neighbours Mark Toner University of Glasgow Unravelling fast protons and a particles in solar flares Paul Clark University of St Andrews The nature of fragmentation in a turbulent environment Isla Simpson University of St Andrews Accretion onto stellar magnetospheres Ben Panter University of Edinburgh Cosmic star formation rate from the SDSS Stephen Brindley SETPoint West STAR WOS (Schools Travelling Astronomy Roadshow West of Scotland)
Scott Gregory University of St Andrews Accretion channelling in classical T Tauri stars Tom McIvor University of St Andrews Zeeman Doppler imaging of LQ Hya Kirsty Selway University of Glasgow Modelling the polarimetric signatures of extra-solar planets during microlensing events Marek Kukula University of Edinburgh Quasars, black holes and the evolution of massive galaxies Matthew Pitkin University of Glasgow Searching for gravitational waves from known binary pulsars Eric Tittley University of Edinburgh Cluster oscillations and cold fronts Karina Caputi University of Edinburgh A deeper view of extremely red galaxies
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Conferences, Workshops, Symposia, Seminars and Discussion Forums Discussion Forum The Reliability of Fingerprint Identification 1 June 2004
Speakers Mr Bruce Grant Bruce Grant joined the Fingerprint Bureau of the Metropolitan Police in 1969 and for four years from 1991 led the Operational Counter-Terrorist Fingerprint Unit, and then in 1996 became Head of Metropolitan Police Service Fingerprint Bureau. For the past twelve years he has specialised in counter-terrorist fingerprint casework and has been developing a fingerprint strategy in the fight against international terrorism. He has advised in Greece and Bosnia-Herzogovina and has received recognition both for his long service within the Metropolitan Police and from the US Department of Justice Bureau of Investigation. Professor James Starrs James Starrs is a Fellow of the American Academy for Forensic Sciences. He is attached now to the Forensic Sciences Department at George Washington University, Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Forensic Science. He is the core for the Textbook on Scientific Evidence, and he has directed or participated in scientific investigations into events as diverse as the Lindbergh kidnapping, the Alfred Packer cannibalism case, the assassination of Senator Hughie Long in Louisiana, the hatchet murder of the Bordens and the death of Frank Olson. Dr James Thorpe James Thorpe originally graduated In chemistry from Glasgow and then went into the field of forensic science and took his PhD in Glasgow, having studied toxicology. He then moved to the Forensic Science Unit at Strathclyde University, and has been very influential in developing forensic science in Strathclyde and in Scotland generally, and he is now the Acting Director of the Forensic Science Unit. Full transcripts of all presentations are being made available on the RSE Website. Following the presentations, there was a full and frank debate on current fingerprinting issues, in Scotland and overseas. The event was chaired by Judge David Edward, QC, FRSE.
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Conference Scottish Publishing 16 June 2004
The theme of this conference was how best to develop and take forward the Scottish Publishing Industry by discussing the most appropriate ways to implement the recommendations of the recently completed independent review of the Needs of Scottish Publishing in the 21st Century by consultants PriceWaterhouseCooper and Napier University, commissioned by the Scottish Arts Council. Key issues explored, from the perspectives of publishers, support agencies and writers, included the problems and opportunities facing publishing in Scotland, other countries as possible models and reflecting cultural diversity. Speakers and Topics The Canadian Model Mr Gordon Platt Director, Book Publishing, Policy and Programs, Canadian Heritage Gordon Platt is currently Director General, Publishing Policy and Programs, for the Department of Canadian Heritage, and is responsible for the book, magazine and newspaper industries for the Canadian Government. He has broad private and public sector experience in publishing, and before joining the Department of Canadian Heritage, was Director, Writing and Publishing, at the Canada Council for the Arts, where he oversaw the support programs for writers, book and magazine publishers, marketing programs and the Governor
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Generals Literary Awards, Canadas most prestigious literary prizes. Prior to joining the public service in 1989, he was Executive Director of the Association of Canadian Publishers, as well as the Canadian Book Marketing Centre, an industry marketing consortium with offices in four Canadian cities. Prior to this, he worked for several Canadian magazines, including the book industry trade magazine Quill & Quire. Originally from Vancouver Island on Canadas Pacific coast, he holds a BA in Philosophy from the University of Victoria and a graduate degree in Philosophy from the University of Louvain, Belgium.
Conferences, Workshops, Symposia, Seminars and Discussion Forums A Scottish Publishing Overview Mr Bob McDevitt Publisher, Hodder Headline (Scotland) Bob McDevitt has been working in the Book industry for about 15 years, initially as a bookseller and events organiser with Waterstones. He then worked as Sales Manager for Headline publishing in Scotland before moving to London with Headline as a Key Accounts Manager. Bob returned to Scotland to take up the position of Scottish Range and Marketing Manager with Ottakars to oversee the integration of the James Thin chain into the Ottakars family. Since January 2004 Bob has been working with Hodder Headline. His current position is split into two parts, firstly, looking after all aspects of the publishing process for the existing Scottish books and authors on the Headline, Hodder General and John Murray lists. He is also involved with Jacket Design, Marketing ideas, Events opportunities, Sales and Promotions. Secondly, he acts as a talent scout and commissioning publisher for ideas that will work primarily in the Scottish market, but will also have a life in the rest of the UK and beyond. The job does not currently include the Childrens, Religious or Academic divisions of Hodder. The Support Agency Perspective Dr Gavin Wallace Head of Literature Section, The Scottish Arts Council Dr Gavin Wallace is Head of Literature at the Scottish Arts Council, and was Literature Officer from 1997-2002. He is a graduate and postgraduate, in English and Scottish Literature, of the University of Edinburgh. He has been active in many aspects of Scottish literature and culture as a teacher, lecturer, critic, journalist, editor, and broadcaster at home and abroad, and was an Associate Lecturer in Literature and the Humanities at the Open University in Scotland from 1991-2001. He has co-edited critical works on Scottish Fiction and Theatre, and was a co-editor of the journal Edinburgh Review. Ms Liz Small Marketing Manager, Scottish Publishers Association Liz Small is Member Services and Marketing Manager for the Scottish Publishers Association. She joined the SPA in 2002 after working as Editor for Neil Wilson Publishing on both the fiction list, 11:9, and non-fiction. Previously she was a director of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, and a manager at Pan Macmillan Ltd. In Scotland she has also worked freelance and for Chambers and Dillons/ Waterstones.
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Scottish Publishing Success Stories Mr Hugh Andrew Director, Birlinn Ltd Hugh Andrew is Managing Director of Birlinn Ltd, founded in 1992. The company has recently grown through the acquisition of John Donald Ltd and Polygon. Birlinn is the largest publisher extant of Scottish interest material and has recently grown substantially south of the Border and overseas with the success of Alexander McCall Smith. Mr Bill Campbell Director, Mainstream Bill Campbell was born in Glasgow in 1951. He left Kilmarnock Academy to study History at Edinburgh University, graduating in 1973. He spent the following year at the School of Journalism at the University of California before returning to Edinburgh to immerse himself in written and broadcast journalism and as Publications Manager at Edinburgh University Student Publications, forerunner to the current Polygon. In 1978 he set up Mainstream Publishing with co-director Peter MacKenzie. His talk focused on looking outward. Mainstream by name, mainstream by nature. One foot in Scotland, one foot on the bigger scale. Changes in a quarter century of publishing.
The Government Perspective Mr Frank McAveety MSP The Minister for Culture, Tourism and Sport, The Scottish Parliament Tourism, Culture and Sport Minister, Frank McAveety is the MSP for Glasgow Shettleston. Mr McAveety has specific responsibility for tourism, sport, culture and the arts, the built heritage, architecture, Historic Scotland and lottery. He was a Councillor for Glasgow District Council from 1988-95 and Glasgow City Council from 1995-99 and was the youngest-ever leader of the Council. Born in Glasgow in 1962, Mr Frank McAveety obtained BA Joint Honours (English and History) at Strathclyde University in 1983. He also obtained a Post Graduate Secondary Teaching Certificate in 1984 from St Andrews College of Education. He was a secondary school teacher from 1984-98 in Glasgow and Renfrewshire. On the Council he was involved with the Arts and Culture Committee from 1992-97 where he was initially a Vice-Convenor then progressed to be Convenor. He was Council Leader from 19971999 during which time he pioneered the innovative and radical strategies for new investment in the citys schools and housing stock. He is a member of the EIS and the Transport and General Workers Union.
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Conferences, Workshops, Symposia, Seminars and Discussion Forums He was a Board Member of Glasgow Development Agency, Chair of Glasgow Alliance and Board Member of The Arches Theatre Company and Citizens Theatre Company. He is married and has two children; one son and one daughter. London Publishing Perspective Ms Judy Moir Editor at Large, Penguin Books Judy Moir studied English at Edinburgh University and was awarded the Christie Bequest for a years study abroad. After postgraduate studies and some work experience in the US, she returned to Scotland in 1981. She was Administrative Executive, then Director of the Scottish Publishers Association (1981-86). After the birth of her first child, she took up freelance work: including five years part-time with Mainstream, three years part-time with Napier University as a lecturer in publishing, and editing for a variety of English and Scottish publishers. She worked as both editorial and rights manager at Canongate Books, and was appointed Editorial Director in 2000. In 2004 she took up the role of Edinburgh-based Editor-at-Large for Penguin Books. Ms Moir gave some brief comments on the dynamism of the Scottish publishing industry over the past twenty years or so and the effective support from the Scottish Arts Councils Literature
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Department over the years, despite limited budgets. With two major London publishers Penguin and Hodder Headline now appointing Scottish-based staff and planning to have more Scottish titles on their lists, there is recognition that the overall market for Scottish books is currently buoyant, and that there is increasing interest from south of the border in Scottish writers and Scottish culture as a whole. The talk concluded with final thoughts on the international potential for Scottish books and a summary of the positive aspects of London publishers becoming more involved in Scotland. Academic Publishing - Case Study Mr Timothy Wright Managing Director, Edinburgh University Press Timothy Wright has been Managing Director of Edinburgh University Press since 1998, having spent twelve years with the Longman Publishing Group, formerly a division of Pearson PLC, owners of the Financial Times. He moved to Edinburgh in 1994 as Sales and Marketing Director of Churchill Livingstone medical publishers, a division of the Longman Group. He has served as Chairman of the Europe Working Party of the UK Publishers Association and is currently a member of their International Board. He is Chairman of the Scottish Publishers Association, a Board member
of the Council of Academic and Professional Publishers and is a Director of the Independent Publishers Guild. Panellists Mr Iain MacDonald Director, The Gaelic Books Council Iain MacDonald is from the island of Grimsay in North Uist and was educated there, in Inverness and at Glasgow University. He worked at a wide variety of jobs in Uist, Birmingham, Essex and Glasgow before joining the Civil Service in London. From there he went to Comhairle nan Leabhraichean (the Gaelic Books Council), which is based in Glasgow and which provides financial assistance and other services to Gaelic publishers and writers. With Boyd Robertson, he has recently compiled a Gaelic-English dictionary in the Teach Yourself series. Gaelic publishing goes back to 1567, with the first few publications religious. As elsewhere, the publication of the Bible (1801) gave prose a fillip, and a lively prose literature developed in magazines and books in the 19th century. But the greatest volume and variety of publishing has been achieved in recent decades. The twentieth century was particularly noted for outstanding modern poetry. Among the difficulties are the small readership although it is now being augmented by those who have learned the language in recent years and, at this precise
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moment, a shortage of publishing outlets. Mr Gavin MacDougall Director, Luath Press Ltd Luath Press takes its name from Robert Burns, whose little collie Luath (Gael., swift or nimble) tripped up Jean Armour at a wedding and gave him the chance to speak to the woman who was to be his wife and the abiding love of his life. Burns called one of The Twa Dogs Luath after Cuchullins hunting dog in Ossians Fingal. Luath Press was established in 1981 in the heart of Burns country, and is now based a few steps up the road from Burns first lodgings on Edinburghs Royal Mile. Luath offers distinctive writing with a hint of unexpected pleasures. Mr James Robertson Writer James Robertson is a writer with wide experience of the book trade in Scotland. He studied history at Edinburgh Univrsity, and has since worked as a publishers sales representative, as a bookseller and bookshop manager, and as a reviewer for various newspapers. He was first holder of the Brownsbank Writing Fellowship from 1993 to 1995, has edited numerous literary and historical works, and has published two collections of short stories, several works of poetry and two novels (The Fanatic, 2000 and Joseph Knight, 2003). In 1999 he established the
Conferences, Workshops, Symposia, Seminars and Discussion Forums imprint Kettillonia which produces poetry and fiction in pamphlet form. He lives in Angus. One difficulty for many writers, especially those with noncommercial interests, is finding a way to be published on a regular basis. In a country with as fragile a literary infrastructure as Scotlands this is especially difficult. In an ideal world writers would not have to concern themselves with the mechanics of publication, marketing, sales and distribution, but the Scottish book world is not ideal. It was to create a window, however narrow, for new and challenging writing, that I established Kettillonia, but even such a small effort involves sacrificing much time which a writer should be spending, again in an ideal world, writing. Mr Derek Rodger Director, Argyll Publishing Derek Rodger is the Director of Argyll Publishing, which is based in Glendaruel in Argyll. Argyll publishes General titles including biography, history, local books and contract publishing. Closing Remarks by Professor Rory Watson FRSE Director, Institute for Scottish and International Studies, University of Stirling Roderick Watson: poet, critic and Professor of literature at Stirling University, has published and lectured widely on Scottish Literature, cultural identity and modern Scottish writers. He is Director of the cross-disciplinary Centre for Scottish Studies at Stirling and is Series Editor of the Canongate Classics. He served as chairman of the Scottish Book Trust when it became independent of the Book Trust in London and has worked as a literary judge for the Booker prize as well as the McVities and Stakis Prizes for Scottish Writer of the Year. Session Chairmen Professor Gavin McCrone FRSE Vice-President, The Royal Society of Edinburgh (2002-2005) and Professor in Business Studies at the University of Edinburgh. Mr Trevor Royle FRSE Associate Editor, The Sunday Herald Trevor Royle is a well-known author and broadcaster specialising in the history of war and empire with a score of books to his credit. His most recent book is Civil War: The Wars of the Three Kingdoms 1638-1660 (Little Brown) which has just been published. As a journalist he is an associate editor of The Sunday Herald and is also a regular commentator on defence matters and international affairs for the BBC. From 1998 to 1999 he was a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities in the University of Edinburgh.
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Discussion Forum Preserving the Values of Secular Europe in a Time of Religious Turbulence 27 September 2004
Speakers and Topics Professor John J Haldane FRSE Professor of Philosophy, University of St Andrews The question of how to preserve the values of secular Europe in a time of religious turbulence has as its counterpart that of how to preserve the values of religious Europe in a time of secularisation. Is there an opposition between humanist and religious ideals or do they share common values? Is traditional humanism a fruit of Europes Judaeo-Christian foundation, which cannot survive, let alone flourish, when severed from it? Dr A C Grayling Reader in Philosophy, Birkbeck College, London The values characteristic of the Wests liberal democracies were hard won in the five centuries following the Reformation. Understanding the threats they face is the first step to protecting them.
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Conferences, Workshops, Symposia, Seminars and Discussion Forums Conference Scotlands Land 30 September 2004
Few things are as certain as change. It was Disraeli who said, in a speech in Edinburgh on 29 October 1867, that Change is inevitable in a progressive country. Change is constant. Change may be constant, but its nature, its extent, its granularity, and where it might take us were concerns discussed by the diverse group of participants gathered at the Royal Society of Edinburgh to discuss the use and management of Scotlands land. The variety of experiences and interpretations brought to bear on the topic provided an illuminating day, generating many answers and, quite properly, many more questions for all who took part. Sir Peter Hutchison, CBE, FRSE, Chairman of the Organising Committee, introduced the conference drawing our attention to the range of enquiry through the day. Scotlands land is rich and diverse, the landscape rugged and gentle, steep and flat, hard and soft as the result of geological, and biophysical processes. Thereafter the natural heritage is overlaid by cultural heritage, and political, economic, sociological
and technological change. Such a broad topic is impossible to examine thoroughly in a day, but thanks to the ingenuity of speakers and participants, it would be possible to look across a very wide range of issues, and at many scales, from microscopic to global, and across the past, present and future. Reflecting on the day, Professor Jeff Maxwell said that we were on the brink of a new era, when the vision, imagination and innovative capability of those responsible for land use and management could rise to the challenges and opportunities that markets and land policies presented to them. We can unleash the wealth-creating potential of our primary producers within the framework of continuing improvements that research, technology, and science gives us, within an appropriate reform of CAP, if: - use and management of the land respects its inherent worth and value; local communities benefit where possible, and ownership does not constrain development
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opportunities within these communities; there is an acceptance of the inalienable right to enjoy and benefit from the exercise of responsible access; the taxpayers contribution is used wisely and contributes to securing high environmental quality; and, bureaucracy is simplified! To resolve the conflicting desires, and balance the economic, environmental and social goals, Jeff stressed the need for the principles of sustainable development to be implemented. He suggested this would need a
strategic enabling framework, full use of our capacity for innovative research and technology, and the integration of the needs of different sectors and groups in society to include local communities. In his closing remarks he made a plea for moving on from analysis, towards implementing solutions by enabling those who live and work in rural communities to secure their future, whilst also providing for those who choose to use our countryside for the benefits of recreation and an enhanced quality of life, for all our sakes. Extracted from full report (ISBN 0 902 198 49 1), which is available on the RSE Website.
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Conferences, Workshops, Symposia, Seminars and Discussion Forums CRF International Conference Reproductive Health 14-15 October 2004
Reproductive issues have major health and social consequences worldwide. This two-day conference, which attracted some of the leading international figures in the field, focused on the key areas of contraception, fertility and assisted conception, cancer, sexual behaviour and HIV/AIDS. Key messages Reproductive health is of the utmost importance at a global, national and individual level There is real need for new contraceptive methods that are easier to use, more effective and safer than existing methods There are a number of promising avenues for developing new contraceptives, but these will stall without funding, determination and political will Any new method will also have to have additional health benefits such as protection from reproductive cancers or HIV Reproductive cancers (including cervical, breast, ovarian, testicular and prostate cancers) are a serious cause of illness
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and death in men and women and are a major public health problem in the developed world Understanding the reproductive system and how reproductive cancers occur is key to finding new treatments Infertility is a growing problem Women must be encouraged not to delay childbirth because fertility diminishes throughout their 20s then decreases dramatically from the age of 35 Current assisted reproductive treatments are expensive, access to them is poor and cannot overcome the decline in fertility with age By enabling avoidance of unplanned pregnancy in HIVinfected women, contraception is an important way of stopping transmission of the virus from mother to infant Scientists are hopeful that treatments such as microbicidal gels to help reduce the risk of HIV transmission will soon be available
Vaccines to protect against the virus associated with cervical cancer (HPV) and genital warts are at an exciting stage of development Although men and women are having sex earlier and with more people, the abortion rate has remained relatively stable
However spectacular the scientific advances, much of reproductive health depends on human behaviour and on the political will and economic capacity to deliver services Extracted from full report (ISBN 0 902 198 24 6), which is available on the RSE Website.
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PUBLICATIONS
Proceedings A: Mathematics Six issues were published: Parts 133.6(2003) to 134.5(2004 inclusive. Transactions: Earth Sciences Four issues were published: Volumes 93.4(2002) and volumes 94.1, 94.2 and 94.3(2003). Volume 94.3 was a special issue entitled CheliceratePaleobiology and Evolution, comprising 9 papers. ReSourcE : Issues 8, 9 and 10. Royal Society of Edinburgh Directory 2004 (Session 20032004) Royal Society of Edinburgh Review of Session 2004 (Session 2002- 2003) Other Publications RSE Annual Review 2003-2004. A Resource to be Harnessed Report of an RSE Symposium (held January 2004). Fishing Inquiry Report and Summary: Inquiry into the Future of the Scottish Fishing Industry (published March 2004). Scotlands Obesity Epidemic Report of Young Peoples Discussion Forum (held June 2003).
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THE SCOTTISH SCIENCE ADVISORY COMMITTEE

The Scottish Science Advisory Committee (SSAC) was established in May 2002 to provide independent advice to the Scottish Executive Ministers on strategic scientific issues. The Scottish Science Advisory Committee, chaired by Professor Wilson Sibbett, Wardlaw Professor of Physics at the University of St Andrews, is an independent voice for science in Scotland. The Committee is uniquely placed to take a broad overview of the diverse scientific landscape in Scotland and it would wish to place this within an international perspective. It will take a medium to long-term, horizon-scanning and strategic view in formulating its advice on science strategy, science policies and science priorities with an overall aim of improving the social, environmental and economic prosperity of Scotland. During the period of this Review the Council of the Royal Society of Edinburgh refreshed the membership of the SSAC following a wide, open and rigorous application and appointment process. The Committee represents a breadth of expertise and experience, and it is intended that the SSAC will be well placed to provide expert advice across a number of relevant policy areas. Over the past year, the SSAC produced two key reports: Why Science Education Matters: Supporting and Improving Science Education in Scottish Schools Provision of a modern and relevant science education is an underpinning factor in the development of Scotlands knowledge economy, educational systems and society as a whole. The Scottish Science Advisory Committee (SSAC) believes that there is an urgent need to improve science education in Scottish schools and that the Scottish Executive must regard this as a matter of high priority. The twenty-three recommendations in the report, aimed primarily at the Scottish Executive, call for: - A comprehensive programme of curriculum change; - Investment in state-of-the-art infrastructure; - Recognition of the importance of technology and technical skills; - The co-ordination and improved connectivity of science education support activities; - Mechanisms to address the challenge of producing a cohort of high-quality science teachers for the future: and - A directed programme of research in science education
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Why Science Matters: making the right connections for Scotland The Scottish Science Advisory Committees (SSAC) vision for science in Scotland is one where all aspects of science activity are connected optimally, with international excellence being a targeted and achievable goal. Scotland already has a number of internationally recognised strengths, but to deliver the best outputs from these activities requires the investment of significant effort and resource to harvest the added value that better connectivity can deliver. There is evidence of a willingness of the science-based communities to work together, but the SSACs vision is that a more comprehensive co-ordination can be put in place to ensure
that Scotland is more able to realise its full potential in all sectors of its scientific endeavours. The key recommendations in this report, aimed primarily at the Scottish Executive, called for: - Optimisation of the science base; - Support for the outstanding talent in the science base; - A significant reshaping of the Scottish science base; - Resources to allow the simultaneous pursuit of excellence in research and the nurturing of knowledge transfer activities; - Improved access to, and engagement with, the science base in Scotland.
Further information about the SSAC and copies of the Reports can be found at www.scottishscience.org.uk
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SSAC
Scottish Science Advisory Committee - Members Professor Wilson Sibbett CBE, FRS, FRSE (Chair) Professor Steven Beaumont OBE, CEng, MIEE, FRSE Professor Geoffrey Boulton OBE, FGS, FRS, FRSE Professor Muffy Calder FIEE, FRSE Professor Sir Kenneth Calman KCB, FRCS, FRCP, FMedSci FRSE Professor John Coggins FRSE Professor Julie Fitzpatrick MRCVS Professor Peter Grant FREng, FRSE, FIEE, FIEEE Dr Stuart Monro CGeol., FGS, ILTM, FRSSA Professor Peter Morgan FRSE Professor Richard Morris FMedSci, FRS, FRSE Dr John Nicholls Professor Stuart Reid MRCVS, FRSE Professor Jonathan Seckl FRCPE, FMedSci, FRSE Dr Barbara Spruce MRCP Professor Joyce Tait Professor Chris van der Kuyl FRSE Eur Ing Graham Wren
Scottish Science Advisory Committee - Staff Dr Avril Davidson, Head of Secretariat SSAC Staff are employed by the RSE. Ms Tracy Rickard, PA/Administrator
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EVIDENCE, ADVICE AND COMMENT

The Society submitted evidence, advice and comment on the following reports during the Session: November 2003 The Practicalities of Developing Renewable Energy. The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee December 2003 Inquiry into the Promotion of Scotland Worldwide. Scottish Parliament European and External Relations Committee January 2004 CAP Reform: Opportunities for Scotland. Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department February 2004 Draft Strategy of the National Library of Scotland. The National Library of Scotland Inquiry into Renewable Energy in Scotland. Scottish Parliament Enterprise and Culture Committee March 2004 Modernising the Policy for Decommissioning the UKs Nuclear Facilities. Department of Trade and Industry April 2004 Science and Innovation - Working towards a 10-year investment framework. HM Treasury, Department of Trade and Industry & Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
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Constitutional Reform Bill. The House of Lords Preparing a new GB strategy on bovine tuberculosis. Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department May 2004 Code of Practice for the Use of Human Stem Cell Lines. Medical Research Council RAE 2008 Panel configuration and recruitment. UK Funding Councils Human Reproductive Technologies and the Law. House of Commons Science and Technology Committee June 2004 Draft guidelines on credit-transfer within the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework. The Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework July 2004 Developing a UK sustainable development strategy together. Scottish Executive Environment Group Developing a Strategic Framework for Scotlands Marine Environment. Scottish Executive Environment Group
Merger of the Scottish Further Education Funding Council and the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council. Scottish Executive Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Department 7th EU R&D Framework Programme. Department of Trade and Industry August 2004 UK contingency plan for the possible emergence of naturally occurring BSE in sheep. Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department Draft Charities and Trustee Investments (Scotland) Bill. Scottish Executive Development Department
September 2004 Strategy for Agricultural, Biological and Related Research. Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department 2008 Research Assessment Exercise: Nomination of Panel Members. UK Funding Councils October 2004 Inquiry into the Scientific Aspects of Ageing. House of Lords Choosing the future: genetics and reproductive decision-making. Human Genetics Commission: Inquiry into Forensic Science. House of Commons Investing in Water Services. Scottish Executive Environment Group Paying For Water Services. Scottish Executive Environment Group
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INQUIRIES
During the 2003-2004 Session the RSE completed its inquiry into the future of the Scottish Fishing Industry. The report noted that a secure and sustainable future for the Scottish fishing industry was achievable, but not without a long term view being taken and important changes being made to both policy and management. In its 35 recommendations it covered the operation of the Common Fisheries Policy, the science of stock assessment and the management of fisheries policy. It also outlined measures to help the industry and fishery dependent communities. The report was widely covered in local and national media outlets and welcomed by many representatives of the fishing industry and the Scottish Executive. The Committee was also invited to give a presentation on the report to the Fisheries Committee of the European Parliament in Brussels, which was well received, and followed by constructive and helpful discussion with the European Commission. The Committees report is available on the RSE Website, and in hard copy from the RSE.
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EVENTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

Talk Science school visits 8 December 2003. Serpents and Synthesisers by Murray Campbell at Grangemouth High School. 16 December 2003. DNA profiling and its use in famous cases by Dr Adrian Linacre at James-Watt College Greenock campus and Kilwinning campus, North Ayreshire, for local school students. 15 & 17 December 2003. Death, Drugs and Dynamite! by Dr Allan Jamieson at James-Watt College, Greenock campus and Kilwinning campus, North Ayreshire for local students. 21 January 2004. A Guided Tour of the Universe by Professor Henry Ellington at Tobermory High School, Isle of Mull. 3 March 2004. Chemistry, Colour and Magic by Dr Christine Davidson at Stranraer Academy. 16 & 17 March 2004. From Black Holes to Big Bangs by Dr Alan Heavens. Talks for schools and a talk for the public as part of the Science 04 Festival at Wick and Thurso High Schools. As part of National Science Week. 22 March 2004. Death, Drugs and Dynamite! by Dr Allan Jamieson at Springburn Academy, Glasgow. 28 May 2004. Captain Cook and the Cosmic Yardstick by Dr Martin Hendry at Ardnamurchan Community School, Strontian. Talks for school students and the local community. 8 June 2004. Maths Matters by Dr Bruce Davies at Selkirk High School. 26 August 2004. Chemistry is Magic by Dr Christine Davidson at Wellington Academy, Ayr. 15 & 16 September 2004. Throwing Light on the Human Genome by Professor Wendy Bickmore at 4 Schools in Aberdeenshire, as part of TechFest. 16 September 2004. Lasing Down the Internet by Professor Thomas Krauss at Bell Baxter High School, Cupar, Fife. 25 October 2004. Setting Sail for Orbit by Dr Colin McInnes at Largs Academy, Ayrshire. Christmas Lectures 8 December 2003. Black Holes and White Rabbits by Professor John Brown FRSE, Astronomer Royal for Scotland, at Inverness Royal Academy. There was a talk for local school students as well as a talk for the general public. Professor Browns entertaining talk used magic to explain the science of black holes and how a universe might be born.
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RSE Roadshow Workshops and talks for primary and secondary students, as well as the public. 26-28 October 2003. Arbroath Academy cluster group, Angus. 15 &16 March 2004. Portree High School cluster group, Isle of Skye. As part of National Science Week. Discussion Forum 16 June 2004. Energy Crisis: what are the alternatives? At the University of Glasgow Crighton University Campus, Dumfries. S5/6 students from Dumfries and Galloway heard from the experts and made up their own minds as to how Scotland should proceed to ensure that in 2020 the required 40% of electricity will be from renewable sources. In addition to electricity, they considered how we could fulfill our future transport and heating energy needs. The students proposals have complied in a report, which has been published and distributed to decision-making bodies including Scottish and UK governments. Copies of the report can be downloaded from the RSE web site.
Summer School 2 - 6 August 2004. In partnership with Heriot-Watt University, supported by Edinburgh City, East Lothian and Midlothian Councils Workshops and talks on science, technology and maths subjects, but also on transferable skills and advice for those not sure about continuing into higher education. Maths Masterclasses Saturday morning games and puzzles for P6/7 students to encourage an interest in mathematics. Aberdeen City Council 18 September 2004 2 October 2004 University of Dundee 1 May 2004 8 May 2004 15 May 2004 22 May 2004 Kirkliston Primary School 8 November 2003 15 November 2003 22 November 2003 29 November 2003 High School of Glasgow 17 January 2004 24 January 2004 31 January 2004 7 February 2004
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Young People
Startup Science Masterclasses These sets of four Saturday morning hands-on workshops for S1/2 students continue to be popular, with many sets being well oversubscribed. University of St Andrews 1 November 2003 8 November 2003 22 November 2003 29 November 2003 24 April 2004 1 May 2004 8 May 2004 15 May 2004 University of Dundee 8 November 2003 22 November 2003 6 December 2003 13 December 2003 8 May 2004 15 May 2004 22 May 2004 5 June 2004 University of Glasgow 22 November 2003 29 November 2003 6 December 2003 13 December 2003 24 April 2004 1 May 2004 8 May 2004 15 May 2004
Heriot-Watt University 1 November 2003 8 November 2003 15 November 2003 22 November 2003 24 April 2004 1 May 2004 8 May 2004 22 May 2004 Young Peoples Committee Awards 2 September 2004 Awards were presented at a reception hosted by the President to those who have made an extraordinary voluntary contribution to the Young Peoples Activities. 2004 Awardees: Dr Allan Jamieson The Forensic Institute Dr Greig Chisholm Ciba Specialty Chemicals Dr Chris Baddeley University of St Andrews Dr Lindsay Fletcher University of Glasgow Dr Hilary-Kay Young University of Dundee
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RESEARCH AND ENTERPRISE AWARDS

The following awards were made in Session 2003/04 :
RESEARCH FELLOWSHIPS BP : Personal
Scottish Executive : Personal Dr Richard Blythe. The Statistical Physics of Nonequilibrium Phenomena. School of Physics, University of Edinburgh Dr Timothy Drysdale. Micro Antennae for Terahertz Endoscope. Department of Electronics & Electrical Engineering, University of Glasgow Dr Annette MacLeod. Human infectivity in African trypanosomes: a genetic and population based approach. Wellcome Centre for Mollecular Parasitology, University of Glasgow. Scottish Executive : Support Prof Mark Ainsworth, FRSE. Discontinuous-Continuous Computational Models for Structural masonry. Department of Mathematics, University of Strathclyde. Dr Jacques Fleuriot. Formal Verification of Air Traffic Management Algorithms. School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh Dr Catherine Jones. Identification of genes influencing Gyrodactylus salaris ectoparasite resistance in Atlantic salmon. School of Biological Sciences, University of Aberdeen.
Dr Benjamin Hourahine. Modern Theory for Optoelectronics Materials. Department of Physics, University of Strathclyde CRF : Personal Dr Graham Rena. Biochemistry and cellular biology of FOXO transcription factors. Division of Pathology & Neuroscience, Ninewells Hospital & Medical School, University of Dundee. Dr Rainer Breitling. Representation and exploitation of diverse biological evidence in a systems biology context. Plant Sciences Group, Institute of Biomedical & Life Sciences, University of Glasgow. Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland : Personal Dr Ashley Craig. The role of Chk2 in mammalian ageing. CRUK Cancer Centre, University of Edinburgh. Dr Anna Dickinson. Why do older people get flummoxed by computers? Investigation into development of home-based communication application. Division of Applied Computing, University of Dundee.
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Scottish Executive : Teaching Ms Anne Lawson, Tobermory High School, Isle of Mull. The Forestry Commission. Ms Karen McNish, George Heriots School, Edinburgh. Moredun Research Institute. Mr Iain McGregor, Monifieth High School, Angus. Scottish Natural Heritage.
ENTERPRISE FELLOWSHIPS PPARC
Engineering, University of Strathclyde. Dr Alan Feighery. SOFCRoll Fuel Cell. University of St Andrews. Dr Susanne Olsen. Hybrid Membrane Separation System. School of Engineering, The Robert Gordon University Food and Drink Dr KC Namkung. Innovative Water Cleanup Advanced Fenton Technology. University of Abertay, Dundee. Life Sciences Dr Paul Ajuh. Discovery and development of lead compounds for use as anti-fungal drugs based on novel RNA splicing protein targets. University of Dundee. Dr Lindsay Cairns. Peptide Immunotherapy to suppress the immune response to blood group antigens. University of Aberdeen Microelectronics Dr Ian Apple. Silver Nanoparticles and SERRS Diagnostic Systems Department. of Pure and Applied Chemistry, University of Strathclyde. Optoelectronics Dr Rayne Longhurst. Development of Molecularly Imprinted Polymer (MIP) sensors for Environmental Applications. School of Engineering, The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen.
Dr Chris Doran. A User-Friendly Optical Sensor System for Hostile Environments. GA Solutions Revolutionising Geometry. Mr Ian Latham. Aluminium mirrors for gamma ray telescopes and renewable energies. University of Durham. Scottish Enterprise Communications Technologies Mr Nandaraj Hosabettu. Automatic Cable Fault Locator. Signal Processing Division, University of Strathclyde. Electronics Mr Ralf Klinnert. A fun outdoor activity game for children to stimulate physical activity. School of Engineering, Napier University. Energy Mr Matthias Drr. Scottish Fuel Cell Consortium Ltd. Institute of Energy and Environment, Department of Electronic and Electrical
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Research and Enterprise Awards
Dr Martin ODwyer. Optical Biopsy System for Photo Diagnosis of Cancer. Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Glasgow Mr Andrew J. Willshire. Remote Monitoring & control of electrical submersible pumps using sensor technology. University of Strathclyde. RESEARCH STUDENTSHIPS Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland Mr Charles Duffy. Neuromuscular Adaptations to Innovative Exercise programmes for Improving Functional Abilities in Older people. Department of Applied Physiology, University of Strathclyde. Miss Beth Wilson. Remembering the self: Autobiographical memory in an ageing population. Department of Psychology, University of Dundee. RESEARCH WORKSHOPS Wellcome Trust Dr David Donaldson. Getting the most from neuroimaging: developing standards, protocols and best practice for event-related potential studies of human cognition. Department of Psychology, University of Stirling PRIZES AND SCHOLARSHIPS Cormack Postgraduate Prize 2003
Mr Ben Panter. Star Formation and Metallicity History of the SDSS galaxy survey. Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh. Undergraduate Prize 2003 (Shared) Ms Nicola Armstrong. Solar Coronal Heating Nanoflares. School of Maths & Statistics, University of St Andrews. Ms Isla Simpson. Accretion onto stellar magnetospheres: Feeding Young Suns. Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of St Andrews. Vacation Research Scholarships 2004 Mr Thomas Barber. The Age of Galaxies. Institute for Astronomy, Royal Observatory, University of Edinburgh. Ms Ruth Carr. Determination of the Origin of Coronal Loop Oscillations. School of Maths & Statistics, University of St Andrews. Mr Mark Douglas. The Magnetic Structure of the Solar Corona. School of Maths & Statistics, University of St Andrews. Mr Matthew Lee. Shell Properties of Detached Shell Stars. School of Physics & Astronomy, University of St Andrews. Mr Stuart Lynn. Irradiation of Accretion Disks near Black Holes. Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Edinburgh.
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Ms Rowan Smith. The Effects of Supernovae on the Interstellar Medium: Linking Theory and Observations. Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of St Andrews. Lessells Travel Scholarships Mr Robert Currie. Active Management of Distributed and Renewable Generation in Distribution Networks. Massachusetss Institute of Technology, USA. University of Strathclyde. Mr Joseph Emans. Vibration enhanced drilling Experimental and Analytical methods. Terralogs offices, California, USA Terratek test facilities, Utah, USA. University of Aberdeen.
Mr Blair Fyffe. Fracture properties of snow. Institute for Snow, Davos, Switzerland. University of Edinburgh. Dr Darren Graham. The Application Of Lean Methods To Construction Project Planning. University of California at Berkeley, USA. University of Edinburgh. Miss Natalie O V Plank. Carbon nanotubes for nanoscale electronics. The University of Edinburgh. In collaboration with NEC Fundamental and Environmental Research Laboratories, Japan. Ms Jana Urban. Tools for Personalised Multimedia Information Management. University of Illinois, USA. University of Glasgow.
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Research Fellows in Post During the Session RESEARCH FELLOWSHIPS BP : Personal Dr Matthew Costen, Department of Chemistry, Heriot-Watt University Dr Benjamin Hourahine, Department of Physics, University of Strathclyde Dr Patrik Ohberg, Department of Physics, University of Strathclyde Dr Darrel A Swift, Department of Geography and Topographic Science, University of Glasgow Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland : Personal Dr Ashley L Craig, CRUK Cancer Centre, University of Edinburgh Dr Margaret Lai, Endocrinology Unit, University of Edinburgh Dr Val Mann, Scottish Mechanotransduction Consortium, University of Edinburgh Medical School Dr Heather Wilkinson, Centre for Research on Families & Relationships, Edinburgh University Scottish Executive : Personal Dr David Andrew, Institute of Biomedical & Life Sciences, University of Glasgow Dr Kirsten S. Dickson, Department of Neuroscience, University of Edinburgh Dr Sonja Franke-Arnold, Department of Physics and Applied Physics, University of Strathclyde Dr Nikolaj Gadegaard, Centre for Cell Engineering, University of Glasgow Dr Alun Hubbard, Department of Geography, University of Edinburgh Dr Nigel M Kelly, Department of Geology & Geophysics, University of Edinburgh Dr Linda A Kirstein, School of Geoscience, University of Edinburgh Dr Gail McConnell, Centre for Biophotonics, Strathclyde Institute for Biomedical Sciences, University of Strathclyde Dr Paul McKenna, Department of Physics, University of Strathclyde Dr Abbie Mclaughlin, Department of Chemistry, University of Aberdeen Dr David F Manlove, Department of Computing Science, University of Glasgow Dr Jason Smith, Department of Material, University of Oxford Scottish Executive : Support Dr Ian Philip Gent, School of Computer Science, University of St Andrews
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Professor Desmond J Higham, Department of Mathematics, University of Strathclyde Dr David Hutchings, Department of Electronics & Electrical Engineering, University of Glasgow Dr Xavier Lambin, School of Biological Science, University of Aberdeen Dr Colin R Pulham, School of Chemistry, University of Edinburgh ENTERPRISE FELLOWSHIPS PPARC Dr Christopher Doran, Astrophysics Group, University of Cambridge Mr Ian Latham, Department of Physics, Durham University Scottish Enterprise Communication Technologies Mr Nandaraj Hosabettu, Dept of Electronic & Electrical Engineering, University of Strathclyde Electronics Mr Danny Rafferty, Department of Health and Social Care, Glasgow Caledonian University Energy Mr Matthias Durr, University of Strathclyde, Dr Alan Feighery, Room 127 School of Chemistry, University of St Andrews Ms Susanne Olsen, Clear Process Ltd.
Life Sciences Mr Paul Ajuh, School of Life Sciences, University of Dundee Dr Alison Blackwell, Institute of Cell Biology, University of Edinburgh Dr Lindsay Cairns, Department of Medicine & Therapeutics, University of Aberdeen Microelectronics Dr Ian Apple, Department of Pure & Applied Chemistry, University of Strathclyde Yinshui Xia, School of Engineering, Napier University Optoelectronics Dr Rayne Longhurst, CREDO, The Robert Gordon University Dr Martin ODwyer, University of Glasgow Mr Keith Symington, Heriot-Watt University Mr Andrew Willshire, Institute for Energy and Environment, University of Strathclyde Software Dr Sabrina Malpede, SMAR-Azure Ltd RESEARCH STUDENTSHIPS Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland Mr Stephen H Butler, Department of Psychology, University of Glasgow
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Ms Janine M Cooper, S2 Department of Psychology, University of Aberdeen Paula Cox, Department of Psychology, University of Aberdeen Mr Charles Duffy, Dept of Applied Physiology, University of Strathclyde Ms Claire Fitzsimmons, Geriatric Medicine, University of Edinburgh
Mr Alan Gow, Dept of Psychology, University of Edinburgh Ms Carly S Rivers, Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Western General Hospital Ms Beth Wilson, Dept of Psychology, University of Dundee
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MEDALS, PRIZES AND PRIZE LECTURESHIPS

David Anderson-Berry Medal no award made Bicentenary Medals 8th Award 2004 Professor John S Beck, FRSE Professor John Laver, CBE, FBA, FRSE The Rt Hon Lord Ross, PC, FRSE BP Prize Lecture in the Humanities 7th Award 2003. Dr Rebecca Kay. Department of Central and East European Studies at the University of Glasgow, in recognition of her contribution to the Humanities in Scotland. The Prize Lecture is due to be delivered at the RSE on Monday 5 September 2005. CRF Prize Lecture 14th Award 2004. Joan Bakewell CBE. Broadcaster and writer, London. Gannochy Award for Innovation 2nd Award 2004. Dr Ian Underwood FRSE, MicroEmissive Displays Ltd and University of Edinburgh, for his miniature optical displays technology. Gunning Victoria Jubilee Prize Lectureship 31st Award 2004. Professor Peter Bruce FRSE. School of Chemistry, University of St Andrews, in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the public understanding of science in his lithium battery work. Makdougall Brisbane Prize 70th Award 2003. Dr James Wright. School of Mathematics, University of Edinburgh, for his outstanding contribution to the mathematical analysis of generalised and singular Radon transforms. Royal Medals, 5th Award 2004 Life Sciences : Professor Sir Philip Cohen FRS, FRSE, for his outstanding contribution to Life Sciences. Sir Philips discoveries in the role of protein phosphorylation and its deregulation in major diseases, particularly diabetes, have led to the development of a new scientific investigation and also to the development of new therapeutic drugs. Humanities and Social Sciences : Professor Sir Neil MacCormick FRSE, FBA, QC, for his outstanding contribution to academic life in Scotland and internationally, particularly in the field of legal philosophy. Physical and Engineering Sciences : Professor Robin Milner FRS, FRSE, for his outstanding contributions to software engineering which have changed the face of modern computer science.
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GRANTS COMMITTEE
The Grants Committee considered 28 applications and a sum of 14,890 was awarded to 25 applicants. Approximately 65% of this sum was awarded as travel assistance.
Travel Assistance Professor J Connolly, for travel to Tanzania. 900 Professor G Donaldson, for travel to New Delhi and Mumbai, India. 900 Professor J C Eilbeck, for travel to Lyon. 175 Professor H Giegerich, for travel to Hyderabad. 900 Professor M D Houslay, for travel to Montreal, Canada. 900 Professor J Howie, for travel to Ekaterinburg, Russia. 500 Dr M R W Johnson, for travel to Nepal. 900 Professor E W Laing, for travel to Lisbon, Portugal. 350 Professor J McGeough, for travel to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 500 Professor A Robertson, for travel to Thessaloniki, Greece. 500 Professor M Thomas, for travel to North Queensland, Australia. 900 Professor R Watling, for travel to Guranaree and Chiang Mai, Thailand. 250 Professor G A Watson, for travel to Chalkis, Greece. 500
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Professor J Webb, for travel to Pomona, California. 605 Professor G Wiener, for travel to Chengdu, China. 900 Research Visitor to Scotland Professor J C Brown, to enable Dr Astrid Veronig to visit the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Glasgow from Karl-Franzens-Universitat Graz, Austria. 600 Professor A P Cracknell, to enable Professor Clive Fraser to visit Dundee, Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow Universities from the Department of Genomics, University of Melbourne, Australia. 450 Professor J C Eilbeck, to enable Professor V Z Enolskii to visit Heriot-Watt University from the Institute of Metal Physics, Kiev. 600 Support for Meetings Professor C Davies, for the Scottish Universities Summer School in Physics. 600 Professor T Ingold, for Creativity and Cultural Improvisation. 600 Professor S Kuksin, for Statistical Mechanics: A conference in Honour of the 75th Birthday of Oliver Penrose FRS FRSE. 600
Professor P S Maitland, for the International Symposium on the Conservation and Management of Arctic Charr. 600 Professor J McGeough, for the 14th International Symposium on Electromachining (ISEM). 600 Professor A Read, for The Contribution of Genetics to the Study of Parasitic Protozoa meeting. 560 Professor K Smith, for the International Workshop on Radiation Imaging Detectors. 600
Auber Bequest Award To Professor Elliot Leader for the second year of his Auber Award, to continue his research at CERN, Geneva, and the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Sofia. 1000 Support for Publication No awards made this session
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INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMME
International Exchanges During the last Session, the International Exchange Programme was launched. The programme is growing steadily following an initial slow start due to travel restrictions to Asia and lack of knowledge of the programme. There are three bilateral programmes in place, following the signature of Memoranda of Understanding with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (to member institutes), the Polish Academy of Sciences and the National Science Council of Taiwan. During the Session an Open programme was launched to allow travel to other destinations not covered by the bilateral agreements, or to receive visiting researchers. The following awards were made in 2003-2004: Bilateral (travel to Taiwan) Dr Linda Kirstein, University of Edinburgh Professor John Simmons, HeriotWatt University Jim Ritchie, Heriot-Watt University (travelled in place of Dr D Clark) Dr David Dorrell, University of Glasgow Bilateral (travel from Taiwan) Dr Fang-Pang Lin, hosted by Dr Jessica Chen-Burger, University of Edinburgh Bilateral (travel to China) Dr Xiaoying Liang, University of Paisley Dr Grahame Oliver, University of St Andrews Bilateral (travel to Poland) Dr David McKee, University of Strathclyde Bilateral (travel from Poland) Professor Wojciech Adamski, hosted by Professor Andrew Hardcastle, University of Paisley Professor Radoslaw Pytlak, hosted by Dr Jacek Gondzio, University of Edinburgh Professor Krystian Wojaczek, hosted by Dr Esther Reed, University of St Andrews Professor Jozef Niznik, hosted by (the late) Professor George Blazyca (died March 2005), University of Paisley Dr Edyta Supinska-Polit, hosted by Dr Annette Carruthers, University of St Andrews Dr Andrezj Pacak, hosted by Dr Christophe Lacomme, Scottish Crop Research Institute Dr Magdalena Gawin and Dr Katarzyne Sierakowska, hosted by Dr Steve Sturdy, University of Edinburgh
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Open (travel to Australia) Professor Marcel Jaspars, University of Aberdeen Professor Mary Ann Lumsden, University of Glasgow (travel from Australia) Professor Keith Crews, hosted by Professor Ban Seng Choo, Napier University (travel to France) Dr Ingela Johannson, University of Glasgow; (travel to India) Dr Matthew Schwartz, University of Edinburgh; (travel to New Zealand) Dr Guy Bewick, University of Aberdeen (travel to USA) Dr Vera Thoss, Macaulay Institute Dr Kevin Hammond, University of St Andrews Dr Helen Minnis, University of Glasgow (travel from USA) Dr Edward Radstetter, hosted by Dr Martin Sommerkorn, The Macaulay Institute Dr Vasudevan Lakshminarayan, hosted by Professor Daphne McCulloch, Glasgow Caledonian University
(travel from Armenia) Dr Astghik Pepoyan hosted by Dr Rustam Aminov, Rowett Research Institute (travel from Argentina) Dr Rita Ulloa, hosted by Dr Mark Taylor, Scottish Crop Research Institute (travel from Brazil) Dr Ary Oliveria-Filho, hosted by Dr Toby Pennington, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (travel from Germany) Dr Gunnar Hornig, hosted by Professor Eric Priest FRS, University of St Andrews (travel from Hong Kong) Dr John Shi hosted by Dr Jane Drummond, University of Glasgow (travel from The Netherlands) Dr Anne Keegan, hosted by Dr Helen Francis, Napier University (travel from Thailand) Dr Krongkarn Chootip, hosted by Professor Alison Gurney, University of Strathclyde Events and Visits A report of the Stem Cell Discussion Forum held at Scotland House in Brussels in October 2003 has been published. The pilot phase of the Voyages of Discovery project has been completed. Two successful tours were run in November 2003 and January 2004 on the respective
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International
themes of Energy and Life Sciences. These tours were organised by a partnership of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scottish Development International, British Council Scotland and Universities Scotland. Senior R&D managers from large multinational companies were invited to visit Scotland to meet researchers and see facilities at different institutions throughout the country. It is hoped that research collaborations and strategic partnerships will result from the initial contacts made during the tours. Depending on future resources, this project will continue to organise similar tours. The Society hosted a meeting with the UK Research Office to discuss the implications of consent agreements and intellectual property rights within consortia involved in EU Framework 6 research projects in November 2003. In August 2003, the Vice-President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Professor Chen Zhu, visited Edinburgh with a delegation of botanists, invited to the UK by the Royal Society of London, and while at the Royal Society of Edinburgh, invited a delegation of Scottish researchers to visit China to map out the potential for future collaboration. A delegation of nine Scottish researchers, accompanied by Michael White, (International
Activities Manager), visited Beijing in March 2004. The delegation covered the following disciplines: - Botany - Plant genetics - Optoelectronics - Nutrition and Human health (especially with respect to diabetes) - Nanotechnology - Science Policy - Public Understanding of Science Following a two-day seminar entitled Sino-Scottish Science: Sharing Ideas, the delegation divided into two groups and visited various institutes during the remainder of the week to identify areas where there was potential mutual benefit in developing bilateral collaboration. These included: Institute of Physics, Institute of Semiconductors, Institute of Botany, Beijing Botanical Garden, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, China Museum of Science and Technology, Institute of Chemistry, Institute of Geology and Geophysics and Beijing No. 80 High School. The Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Chinese Academy of Sciences signed a Memorandum of Understanding in March 2002. The agreement provided for a programme of exchange visits between Scotland and China at
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postdoctoral level. It is expected that this exchange programme will develop further following this visit. A seminar, Improving science communication: as simple as possible, was held at the Societys Rooms and was organised by the British Council and directed by BBC science presenter, Quentin Cooper. Thirty three participants from 20 countries, including Michael White, RSE International Activities Manager and Dr Harinee Selvadurai, RSE Education Manager, took part. This seminar was held during the Edinburgh International Science Festival to enable participants to take part in events at the Festival as well as the workshop sessions at the RSE. Subsequently, the participants have formed a web-based enetwork to keep in touch. To welcome people from the Eastern European Accession States, which joined the European Union on 1 May 2004, Crossroads for Ideas - a series of UK-wide events were organised to cover a range of subjects. The Scottish element was a biosciences workshop, held at the Ballathie House Hotel, near Perth. The objective of the workshop was to identify areas where there was potential mutual benefit in collaboration. Eight young postdoctoral scientists from the UK met with eight from the Accession States (one from each).
224
Each participant made a presentation about the research going on in their own research area in their home institution and additional inputs were made by established senior UK researchers. In addition to the workshop sessions, there were three half-days of professional visits to Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow to meet with relevant researchers and visit research facilities. The participants also enjoyed a social programme which included a Ministerial dinner at Edinburgh Castle and a visit to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. This event was organised by the Scottish Executive, British Council and RSE. The Scottish Executive organised a season of events, Scotland in the Netherlands 2004. The RSE was invited to organise a one-day meeting similar to the event held during the Scotland in Sweden season in 2002. The theme of this symposium was brain science. The event was organised with the Royal Netherlands Academy for Arts and Sciences and was held at the Academys 17th century headquarters in the centre of Amsterdam. This top-level scientific meeting brought together scientists from Scotland and the Netherlands to stimulate discussion and identify possible research collaboration in the future. Professor Richard Morris also gave a public lecture on How
International
Brain Science could transform our lives in the 21st Century. A report of the event is available on the RSE website. Visitors have been received from the Technical University of Lodz, the Chinese Academy of Forestry, the National Science Council of Taiwan, the Royal Irish Academy (the President), and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The Polish Minister for Europe (and subsequently nominated European Commissioner) Professor Danuta Hbner delivered the Societys Edinburgh Lecture (reported elsewhere). Visitors from the Polish Academy of Sciences and the National Natural Science Foundation of China were also received. Publication: Science Scotland A new publication has been created by the Society, in partnership with the Scottish Executive, British Council Scotland and Scottish Development Internation-
al. The first issue was launched at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, held in Seattle in February 2004. The second issue was published to coincide with the Tartan Day events held in New York at the beginning of April. This publication will appear in different formats; paper, electronically, CD-ROM and web site (http:/ /www.sciencescotland.org). This publication features the best of science and technology in Scotland with the objective to raise awareness to an international audience, using the global networks of the partner organisations. To guide the direction of content for each issue, an Editorial Board has been created, under the chairmanship of Professor John Coggins. Each issue will be themed on a different area of research where Scotland can demonstrate world-class ability.
225
FELLOWS SOCIAL EVENTS

Fellows Reception The 2004 Summer Reception took place at the University of Dundee, on 2 July 2004 within an especially designated RSE marquee as part of Sensation Village during the spectacular University Graduation celebrations. During the event, Bicentenary Medals for service to the Society were presented to : Professor John S Beck Professor John Laver The Rt Hon Lord Ross Discussion Dinner 12 January 2004. The Cause of Eating Disorders - the Individual, the Culture, or Both?. Led by Dr C Freeman, a Consultant Psychiatrist at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital, and Dr H Millar, a Consultant Psychiatrist in the Eating Disorder Service of the Royal Cornhill Hospital, Aberdeen. Discussion Suppers 11 December 2003. What Do We Mean By Contemporary Art Discussion Supper. Professor Christina Lodder, FRSE, University of St Andrews; Professor Duncan Macmillan, FRSE, Curator of Talbot Rice Gallery, The University of Edinburgh; Professor Graham Smith FRSE, Professor of Art History, The University of St Andrews; and Professor Richard I. Thomson FRSE, Watson Gordon Professor of Fine Art, The University of Edinburgh.
227
6 May 2004. Rediscovering Diversity in Higher Education. Professor John Mavor, FRSE; Professor Timothy OShea, Principal & Vice-Chancellor, University of Edinburgh; Professor David Ingram, FRSE, Master, St Catharines College, Cambridge; and Professor Michael Thorne, Vice-Chancellor, University of East London. New Fellows Dinner 2004 The 2004 New Fellows Dinner was held on 21 June 2004 and was attended by around 75 New Fellows and partners, members of Council and RSE staff. Professor Andrew Miller proposed the Toast to the New Fellows, to which Sir John Ward responded. Fellows Coffee Meetings Weekly Coffee Meetings were held throughout the winter and spring months. Speakers at the monthly lecture meetings were : 4 November 2003. Imperialism Ancient and Modern. Professor John S Richardson 2 December 2003. Human Organs for Sale. Lord Kilpatrick of Kincraig 13 January 2004. Fungi - What if they Went on Strike? Professor Roy Watling 3 February 2004. Pilgrims, Nomads and Tourists : The Changing Landscape of Faith. Lord Sutherland of Houndwood, President
2 March 2004. Dont Count your Chickens... Professor J S Beck 12 October 2004. Intelligence, Government and the Media. Janet Morgan, Lady Balfour of Burleigh The Royal Society Dining Club This Club was established on 3rd January 1820, with the view of promoting the objectives of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In Session 2002/2003 meetings were held as follows : 827th dinner - 1 December 2003. Praeses : Sir Michael Atiyah Croupier : Professor D Saxon
828th dinner - 5 April 2004. Praeses : Sir Roderick McSween Croupier : Professor J Knox 829th dinner - 7 June 2004. Praeses : Lady Balfour of Burleigh Croupier : Professor T Anderson 830th dinner - 4 October 2004. Praeses Professor M McLeod Croupier Lord Cameron of Lochbroom Fellows Golf Challenge The 2004 Golf Challenge, held at Dunblane New Golf Club, was won by Professor Andrew Mackenzie.
228
GRANTS, SPONSORSHIP AND DONATIONS

The society is grateful to the following organisations for their continuing support during the Session: BP Research Fellowship Trust Caledonian Research Foundation Lord Fleck Will Trust Lessells Trust Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland GM Morrison Charitable Trust Gannochy Trust PPARC Scottish Enterprise Scottish Executive The Wellcome Trust
and also to the following for their support for specific events and activities: Aberdeenshire Council Archibald, Campbell & Harley WS British Council, Scotland City of Edinburgh Council Corus Fire Engineering The Darwin Trust of Edinburgh Edinburgh Centre for Rural Research FM Global Research Highlands & Islands Enterprise Institute of Civil Engineers Institute of Physics Teacher Network Royal Bank of Scotland Royal Academy of Engineering Scottish Association for Marine Science Sir Walter Gibley Scottish Land Federation Sir Ian McGregor Shell Exploration & Production Shell UK Ltd Statoil ASA Scottish National Heritage University of Glasgow Weber Shandwick
229
CHANGES IN FELLOWSHIP DURING THE SESSION

DEATHS REPORTED TO THE SOCIETY
Fellows Henry Matthew Adam Dirk Bijl Arthur Donald Boney (Anthony) John Clark Alan (Hugh) Cook William Alexander Cramond Arthur James Ogilvie Cruickshank Douglas Scott Falconer Roy Foster Robert Barclay Goudie James Kerr Grant George Patrick Henderson Violet Rosemary Strachan Hutton Hugh Christopher LonguetHiggins William Mckane Anna MacGillivray Macleod William Barr Martin Gordon Ramsay Nicoll Stanley Donald Nisbet Guan Bee Ong Harold Stanley Arthur Potter Adam Neil Smith Donald Elmslie Robertson Watt Alwyn Williams Peter Northcote Wilson
Honorary Fellows Francis Harry Compton Crick Wallace Spencer Pitcher Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins
ELECTIONS
Honorary Fellows Alan Greenspan Jack St Clair Kilby Corresponding Fellows Douglas Sutherland Bridges Victor Matveevich Buchstaber Eleanor Elizabeth Bryce Campbell Bhadriraju Krishnamurti Wolfgang F G Mecklenbrauker David Thomas Pegg John Urquhart (Alan) William Alexander Jardine Watson
231
Edward Osborne Wilson
Fellows Asen Michaylov Asenov Brian Ashcroft David Begg Jocelyn Susan Bell Burnell Paul Michael Bishop Mary Bownes Callum Graham Brown Oscar Peter Buneman Graham Douglas Caie Stuart Malcolm Cobbe David John Cooke John Kevin Curtice John Alan Dawson David Alexander Syme Fergusson Roderick Allister McDonald Galbraith Brian Gill Christopher Simon Haley Gordon Hayward Richard Milne Hogg Alan William Hood Deborah Janet Howard Nicholas Barrie La Thangue Jeremy John Lambert Bruce Philip Lenman Andrew Peter MacKenzie Stephen McLaughlin Agnes Lawrie Addie Shonaig MacPherson Anne Elizabeth Magurran Elizabeth Ann Moignard Thomas Mullin Andrea Mary Nolan David OHagan Timothy Michael Martin OShea Karl John Oparka Lindsay John Paterson Murray George Hornby Pittock Wilson Che Kei Poon Stephen David Reicher Philippe George Schyns Mark Robert Shaw John Roger Speakman John Arthur Swaffield David Tollervey John Richard Underhill Ian Underwood Christiaan Richard David Van Der Kuyl Karen Heather Vousden John MacQueen Ward David John Webb Bonnie Lynn Webber Cornelis Jan Weijer Alan Jeffrey Welch Robert John White Mark Edward John Woolhouse Eric George Wright
232
STAFF CHANGES DURING THE SESSION

Arrivals Mr Andy Curran, Facilities Assistant Ms Zo Eccles, Receptionist/ Telephonist Mr George Pendleton, Facilities Assistant Departures Mr Andy Curran, Facilities Assistant Mrs Rebecca Gibson, Receptionist/ Telephonist Mr Colin Nelson, Facilities Assistant
Other Staff in post throughout the Session Ms Christel Baudere, Personnel Assistant Mr Stuart Brown, PR and Communications Manager Mrs Rosn Calvert-Elliott, Events Manager Ms Jennifer Cameron, IT Support Manager and Communications Officer Dr Lesley Campbell, Policy, Education and Fellowship Services Manager Dr William Duncan, Chief Executive Miss Kate Ellis, Director of Finance Ms Emma Faragher, Education Assistant Mrs Anne Fraser, Research Awards Manager Ms Jean Finlayson, International Officer Ms Kirsteen Francis, Conference Centre Co-ordinator Ms Sarah Gilmore, Events Coordinator Mr Graeme Herbert, Director of Corporate Services Miss Vicki Ingpen, Journals and Archive Officer Mr Gary Johnstone, Accounts Assistant Mr Robert Lachlan, Accounts Officer Mrs Jenny Liddell, Research Awards Co-ordinator Mr Frank Pullen, Central Services Manager Dr Marc Rands, Policy Officer Dr Harinee Selvadurai, Education Officer Mr Brian Scott, Technical Support Assistant Mrs Sheila Stuart, Administration Assistant Mrs Margaret Tait, Receptionist/ Telephonist Ms Susan Walker, Events Officer Mrs Doreen Waterland, PA to Chief Executive and Officers Mr Duncan Welsh, Events Officer Mr Michael White, International Activities Manager (seconded from the British Council)
233
INDEX
A Aberdeenshire Council, 229. Advances in Heavy Quark Physics, 171. Anglo-Scottish Relations since 1914, 159. Annual Statutory Meeting, 5. Archibald, Campbell & Harley WS, 229. A Resource to be Harnessed, 168 ASM, Minute, 5. Auber Bequest Award, 220. Auditor's Report and Accounts, 35. B Berry, Sir Michael, 141. Biotechnology, Organic Farming and Shaping our Agricultural Future, 158. BP Personal Research Fellowship, 209,213. Research Fellowship Trust, 229. British Council, 224, 229. Broadband Access Technologies: Reality and Myth, 144. C Cairncross, Frances, 146. Caledonian Research Foundation (CRF), 229. International Conference, 193. Personal Research Fellowship, 209. Prize Lecture, 217. Cameron, Professor Dugald, 111. Changes in Fellowship, 231. Christmas Lectures, 205. City of Edinburgh Council, 229. Conferences/Symposia A Resource to be Harnessed, 168. Anglo-Scottish Relations since 1914, (RSE/BA Joint Conference) 159. Cormack Meeting, 182. Fire and Structures : Implications of the World Trade Center Disaster, 179. Reproductive Health. (CRF International Conference), 193. Scotland and the Media, 172. Scotland's Land, 191. Scottish Publishing, 184. The Future of Retailing, 176. Cormack Bequest Lecture, 141. Meeting, 182. Prizes and Scholarships, 211. Corus Fire Engineering, 229. Crossroads for Ideas, 224. D Darwin Trust of Edinburgh, 229. Deaths Reported to the Society, 231. Dining Club, 228. Discussion Forums Do we Approve of a Jury System for Complicated Trials, 162. Energy Crisis: What are the Alternatives?, 206. Preserving the Values of Secular Europe in a Time of Religious Turbulence, 190.
235
SARS - The Lessons Learned, 164. The Cause of Eating Disorders: The Individual, the Culture or Both?, 166. The Reliability of Fingerprint Information, 183. Discussion Suppers, 227. Do we Approve of a Jury System for Complicated Trials, 162. E Edinburgh Centre for Rural Research, 229. Election of Fellows, 231. Election of Officers and Council, 5. Electricity Supply in the New Century, 130. Energy Crisis: what are the alternatives?, 206. Evidence, Advice and Comment, 201. F Fellows Coffee Meetings, 227. Fellows Golf Challenge, 228. Fellows Reception, 227. Fellowship Deaths Reported to the Society, 231. Election of Fellows, 231. Fellowship Secretary's Report, 17. Fire and Structures : Implications of the World Trade Center Disaster, 179. FM Global Research, 229. Focussing in the Sky, 141.
Frank Fraser Darling 1903-1979: Ecologist, Conservationist, Prophet, 138. G Galbraith, Roddy, 111. Gannochy Trust, 229 Award for Innovation, 217. Gannochy Innovation Award Lecture, 137. General Secretary's Report, 6. GM Morrison Charitable Trust, 229. Grand Challenges for Computing Research, 109. Grants, 219. Auber Bequest Award, 220. Research Visitor to Scotland, 219. Support for Meetings, 219. Support for Publications, 220. Travel Assistance, 219. Grants, Sponsorship and Donations, 229. H Highlands & Islands Enterprise, 229. Hoare, Sir Tony, 109. How Brain Science could transform our lives in the Future, 224. Hubner, Professor Danuta, 118. I Inquiries - Scottish Fishing Industry, 203. Institute of Civil Engineers, 229. Institute of Physics Teacher Network, 229. International Programme, 221.
236
Index
Crossroads for Ideas, 224. Events and Visits, 222. Exchanges, 221. Science Scotland, 225. Scotland in the Netherlands, 224. Sino-Scottish Science, 223. Stem Cell Meeting, 222. UK Research Office, 223. Voyages of Discovery, 222. Investments, 55. K Kennedy, Dr Malcolm, 130. L Lectures Biotechnology, Organic Farming and Shaping our Agricultural Future, 158. Broadband Access Technologies: Reality and Myth, 144. Energy Supply in the New Century, 130. Focussing in the Sky (Cormack Bequest Lecture), 141. Frank Fraser Darling, 138. Grand Challenges for Computing Research, 109. Lessons from the World Trade Center Disaster, 140. New Europe: World Views, 118. Refurbishment of the Forth Bridge (ICE/RSE Joint Lecture), 122. Research Policy: the next five years, 113. Scotland's Contribution to Aviation, 111.
237
Serendipity and Biology in the Discovery and Delivery of a New Treatment for Cancer (Gannochy Innovation Award Lecture), 137. The Coming Century - Ten Trends to Back, 146. The Entente Cordiale: War and Empire, 149. The Future of Food and Farming (RSE/IoB/ECRR Joint Lecture), 129. The Value of the Performing Arts, 120. Wind Energy: Powering the Future (RAE/RSE Joint Lecture), 131. Lessells Bequest Travel Scholarships, 212. Lessells Trust, 229. Lessons from the World Trade Center Disaster, 140. Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland, 229. Personal Research Fellowship, 209, 213. Research Studentships, 211, 214. Lord Fleck Will Trust, 229. M MacMillan, Professor Duncan, 87. Maths Masterclasses, 206. Mays, Dr Ian, 131. McLaughlin, Professor Steve, 144. Medals, Prizes and Prize Lectureships, 217.
Bicentenary Medals, 8th Award, 217. BP Prize Lecture, 217. CRF Prize Lecture, 217. David Anderson-Berry Medal, 217. Gannochy Award for Innovation, 217. Gunning Victoria Jubilee Prize Lectureship, 217. Makdougall Brisbane Prize, 217. Royal Medals, 217. Melchett, Lord, 129. Molecular, Clinical and Safety Aspects of Nutrition, 174. N New Europe: World Views, 118. New Fellows Dinner 2003, 227. Newbould, Professor Palmer, 137. O O'Nions, Sir Keith, 77. Ordinary Meetings, 3. P PPARC, 229. Enterprise Fellowship, 210. Pre-mRNA Splicing, 59. Preserving the Values of Secular Europe in a Time of Religious Turbulence, 190. Prize Lectures CRF Prize Lecture. Pre-mRNA Splicing, 59. Henry Duncan Prize Lecture. Scotland and the Origins of Modern Art, 87.
The Bruce-Preller Prize Lecture. The Threat of Terrorism, 77. Publications, 195. Annual Review, 195 Directory, 195. Proceedings A: Mathematics, 195. ReSourcE, 195. Review, 195 Transactions: Earth Sciences, 195. R Refurbishment of the Forth Bridge, 122. Reproductive Health, 193. Research and Enterprise Awards. BP : Personal, 209. Cormack Prizes and Scholarships, 211. CRF Personal, 209. Lessells Travel Scholarships, 212. Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland, 209. PPARC Enterprise Fellowships, 210. Research Fellows in Post, 213. Research Studentships, 211. Scottish Enterprise Enterprise Fellowships, 210. Scottish Executive Fellowships, 209. Teaching Fellowships, 210. Wellcome Research Workshop, 211. Research policy: the next five years, 113.
238
Index
Research Visitor to Scotland Grants, 219. ReSourcE, 195. Royal Academy of Engineering, 229. Royal Bank of Scotland, 229. Royal Netherlands Academy, 224. RSE Roadshow, 206. S SARS - The Lessons Learned, 164. Science Scotland, 225. Scotland and the Media, 172. Scotland and the Origins of Modern Art, 87. Scotland's Contribution to Aviation, 111. Scotlands Land, 191. Scottish Association for Marine Science, 229. Scottish Enterprise, 229. Enterprise Fellowships, 210. Scottish Executive, 229. Personal Research Fellowship, 209, 213. Support Research Fellowship, 209, 213. Teaching Fellowship, 219. Scotland in the Netherlands, 224. Scottish Land Federation, 229. Scottish National Heritage, 229. Scottish Publishing, 184. Scottish Science Advisory Committee, 197. Members, 199. Staff, 199.
Serendipity and Biology in the Discovery and Delivery of a New Treatment for Cancer, 137. Shell Exploration & Production, 229. Shell UK Ltd, 229. Shyam-Sunder, Dr Sivaraj, 140. Sino-Scottish Science: Sharing Ideas, 223. Sooman, Duncan, 122. Spruce, Dr Barbara, 137. Staff of the Society, 233. Startup Science Masterclasses, 207. Statoil ASA, 229. Steitz, Professor Joan, 59. Strachan, Professor Hew, 149. Support for Meetings Grants, 219. Support for Publication Grants, 220. Swaminathan, Professor Monkombu S., 158. T Talk Science school visits, 205. Taylor, John, 113. The Cause of Eating Disorders, 166. The Coming Century Ten Trends to Back, 146. The Entente Cordiale: War and Empire, 149. The Future of Food and Farming, 129. The Future of Retailing - Transport, 176. The Reliability of Fingerprint Identification, 183.
239
The Threat of Terrorism: The Place of Science, 77. The Value of the Performing Arts, 120. Transactions: Earth Sciences, 195. Travel Assistance Grants, 219. Treasurer's Report, 14. Trustees Report, 19. U Underwood, Dr Ian, 217. University of Glasgow, 229. V Voyages of Discovery, 222. W Wallace, Professor John, 120. Weber Shandwick, 229.
Wellcome Trust, 174, 211, 229. Why Science Education Matters: SSAC, 197. Wind Energy: Powering the Future, 131. Workshops Advances in Heavy Quark Physics (Particle Physics Workshop), 171. Molecular, Clinical and Safety Aspects of Nutrition Research (Wellcome Trust Research Workshop), 174. Y Young Peoples Committee Awards, 207. Young People's Programme, 205.
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The Royal Society of Edinburgh Review 2005

THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH REVIEW OF THE SESSION 2003-2004

THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH REVIEW OF THE SESSION 2003-2004

PUBLISHED BY THE RSE SCOTLAND FOUNDATION ISSN 1476-4342

PROCEEDINGS OF THE ORDINARY MEETINGS

Review of the Session 2003-2004

PROCEEDINGS OF THE STATUTORY GENERAL MEETING

Review of the Session 2003-2004

Proceedings of the Annual Statutory Meeting

Review of the Session 2003-2004

Proceedings of the Annual Statutory Meeting

Review of the Session 2003-2004

Proceedings of the Annual Statutory Meeting

Review of the Session 2003-2004

Proceedings of the Annual Statutory Meeting

Review of the Session 2003-2004

Proceedings of the Annual Statutory Meeting

Review of the Session 2003-2004

Proceedings of the Annual Statutory Meeting

Review of the Session 2003-2004

TRUSTEES REPORT TO 31 MARCH 2004

Review of the Session 2003-2004

Trustees Report to 31 March 2004

Review of the Session 2003-2004

The Year 1 April 2003 - 31 March 2004

Trustees Report to 31 March 2004

Review of the Session 2003-2004

Trustees Report to 31 March 2004

Review of the Session 2003-2004

Trustees Report to 31 March 2004

Review of the Session 2003-2004

Trustees Report to 31 March 2004

Review of the Session 2003-2004

Trustees Report to 31 March 2004

Review of the Session 2003-2004

Trustees Report to 31 March 2004

AUDITORS REPORT AND ACCOUNTS

Review of the Session 2003-2004

Henderson Loggie Chartered Accountants Registered Auditor Edinburgh September 2004

Laurence C Hunter Sir Laurence Hunter, CBE Treasurer

Review of the Session 2003-2004

706,333 73,437 46,264 826,034

56,558 49,716 106,274

315,604 1,590,238 58,552 1,964,394

1,663,675 1,394,109 154,532 112,558 2,896,702 2,440,548

9,119 13,872 571,467 213,502 807,960 18,074x

22,117 38,138 9,719 69,974 36,300

1,726,785 232,894 1,959,679 4,715v

1,762,774 1,310,936 842,499 223,221 801,603 229,404

2,837,613 2,426,200 59,089 14,348d

1,649 (118) 1,531

13,206 (942) 12,264d 48,564d (38,713) 77,219 87,070 5,677,421 5,764,491

23,040 (1,642) 21,398 26,113 134,728 160,841 1,053,213 1,214,054

37,895 (2,702) 35,193 94,282 221,590 315,872

29,308 (380,496) (351,188) (336,840) (163,988) (500,828)

19,605. 38,713 9,643. 67,961. 1,142 69,103

6,731,776 7,232,604 7,047,648 6,731,776

Auditors Report and Accounts

CASH FLOW STATEMENT YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2004

58,230 96,388 154,618 (451) 262,552 (262,552) 46,808 46,357

198,245 56,558 254,803

254,803 619,456 874,259

324,142 295,314 619,456

59,089 (56,558) (92,636) (58,230) 55,890 (17,340) 78,455 28,598 (2,730)