The Royal Society Science Policy Centre

The Science Policy Centre will have five dedicated units each focusing on critical national and global challenges towards 2010 and beyond.  The Centre will involve Fellows of the Royal Society as well as leading scientists and thinkers from around the world. The Centre will ensure impact and policy promotion through press and media work as well as stakeholder engagement to bring in key voices relevant to the issues under investigation.  A strong international element will be included in the policy centre as all these issues are global in scope.  The policy units are:

• Climate Change, Energy and Environment:  An ongoing programme of horizon scanning, evidence gathering and stakeholder dialogue will be created to ensure major policy proposals are generated for the UK government the EU and the Group of Eight industrialised nations in partnership with sister academies.  Fellows of the Royal Society, other physical scientists and social scientists from around the world will be recruited to lead panels and policy teams.
• New and emerging technologies:  Using our experiences in developing policy recommendations around nano-technologies we will actively create a horizon scanning process to identify technical, social, ethical and economic issues of technology at its earliest stages of development.  These might include GM foods, GM drugs, communications, computing and sensing technologies.
• International Security:  Science and technology are at the core of measures to ensure security.  As the dispersion of technical expertise raises the stakes of terrorism and conventional conflict, the science community has a responsibility to advise on public policy responses.   Major studies and reports will be conducted to bring rigorous evidence to policies surrounding information and communication technology, biological and nuclear technology and other security issues with a science element.
• Bio-Sciences and Health:  Medicine and the life sciences are undergoing a revolution in breakthroughs and applications. The growing health challenges in the developed world (obesity, diabetes, etc) are quite different from those plaguing the developing world (HIV/AIDS, Malaria, etc).  Studies and reports will be prepared for the UK government and international bodies on these critical areas.
• Innovation and the Science Base:  Studies and recommendations will be conducted on the readiness of the UK higher education system and research base to support the pipeline of innovation and careers in the sciences.  An emphasis will be placed on policies to encourage innovation and commercialisation of research.

Giving Opportunities

Giving opportunities range from endowing the entire policy centre or individual policy units to providing ongoing membership support. An endowment goal of £25 million has been set to create the International Science Policy Centre and to ensure its impact for decades to come. Industry will be invited to support the Centre through a broad corporate membership scheme.