Review of Session 2002-2003

The Royal Society of Edinburgh Review 2004 (Session 2002-2003)
THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH REVIEW OF THE SESSION 2002-2003
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 2003 ....................................... 17 Auditors Report and Accounts ............................................. 31 Schedule of Investments ....................................................... 53 Activities Prize Lectures ..................................................................... 57 Lectures ........................................................................... 109 Conferences, Workshops, Seminars and Discussion Fora . 165 Publications ...................................................................... 215 The Scottish Science Advisory Committee ........................ 217 Evidence, Advice and Comment ...................................... 219 Inquiries ........................................................................... 221 Fundraising ...................................................................... 223 Events for Young People .................................................. 225 Research and Enterprise Awards ...................................... 227 Medals, Prizes and Prize Lectureships ............................... 235 Grants Committee ........................................................... 237 International Programme ................................................. 239 Fellows Social Events ....................................................... 243 Grants, Sponsorship and Donations .................................... 245 Changes in Fellowship During the Session .......................... 247 Staff .................................................................................... 249 Index ................................................................................... 251
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ORDINARY MEETINGS

11 November 2002
Chairman Professor Gavin McCrone CB, VPRSE Formal Admission to Fellowship Professor Andrew Collier Cameron, Dr Magnus Linklater Lecture From Chaos to the Indian Rope Trick. Professor Tom Mullin, Professor of Physics, University of Manchester and Director of the Manchester Centre for Nonlinear Dynamics. (page 113) Lecture (chaired by Professor Gavin McCrone CB, VPRSE) Public Transport and Public Expectations: Can the Gaps Be Bridged? Mr David Bayliss OBE FREng, Former Planning Director of London Transport. (Page 135)
12 May 2003
Chairman Lord Sutherland of Houndwood, KT, FBA, PRSE Formal Admission to Fellowship Dr James Adamson, Professor Alan Alexander, Professor John Anthony Butt, Professor Muffy Calder, Professor Mark Andrew Joseph Chaplain, Dr Thomas Maxton Crawford, Professor Michael Charles Radcliffe Davies, Professor Ian John Deary, Professor Peter France, Professor John Halstead Hardman Moore, Professor Robert Howie Logie, Professor John Macdonald Mackenzie, Professor Mary Tara Marshall, Professor Quintin Archibald Mckellar, Dr Ian Mckenzie-Smith, Professor April Mary Scott Mcmahon, Dr Robert William Milne, Professor Christopher John Dillon Packard, Professor Andrew Fraser Read, Professor Ifor David William Samuel, Professor Alan Finlay Wright. Lecture Genetics and Insurance: Can They Live Together? Professor Angus MacDonald, Department of Actuarial Mathematics and Statistics, Heriot-Watt University (Page 150)
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2 December 2002
Chairman Lord Sutherland of Houndwood, KT, FBA, PRSE Formal Admission to Fellowship Professor Andrew Hamnett Lecture Chemical Constraints on Biological Evolution. Professor R J P Williams FRS, Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory, University of Oxford. (page 116)
3 March 2003
Chairman Lord Sutherland of Houndwood, KT, FBA, PRSE Election of Fellows Following a ballot, those Fellows shown on page 247 were elected to the Fellowship. Scrutineers Professor Roland Paxton and Professor Gordon Craig
Review of the Session 2002-2003
1 September 2003
Chairman Lord Sutherland of Houndwood, KT, FBA, PRSE Formal Admission to Fellowship Honorary Fellowship: Dr Tim Hunt,The Rt Hon Lord Robertson of Port Ellen. Ordinary Fellowship: Professor William Banks, Professor Howard Cooke, Dr Tam Dalyell, Professor Anna Dominiczak, Mr William Edgar, Professor Margaret Frame, Professor Neil Hood, The Rt Hon The Lord Hope Of Craighead, The Revd Dr Fergus Kerr, Professor James Mcdonald, Professor Anton Muscatelli, Dr Susan Rice, Professor Pamela Robertson, Sir Ian Robinson, Professor Brian Smart, Professor Hew Strachan, Professor Pauline Weetman. Lecture Goals, Greed and Governance. Professor Neil Hood CBE FRSE, Professor of Business Policy, University of Strathclyde. (Page 154)
6 October 2003
Chairman Professor Sir David Carter FRSE, VPRSE Formal Admission to Fellowship Professor David Birch, Professor Michael R. Blatt, Professor John Forrester, Dr Stuart Haszeldine, Professor William N. Hunter, Professor Johanna Moore, Professor Nigel Rapport, Professor Austin Smith, Professor Malcolm Walkinshaw, Professor Niall Whitty. Lecture How Cancer Chemotherapy Works. Professor John F Smyth FRSE, Director, Cancer Research Centre, University of Edinburgh (Page 156)
PROCEEDINGS OF THE STATUTORY GENERAL MEETING

Minute of the Statutory General Meeting held on 27 October 2003, ending the 220th Session
The Annual Statutory Meeting took place in the Societys Wolfson Theatre on Monday 27 October 2003 at 6.30pm. Lord Sutherland of Houndwood, KT, FBA, FRSE, President, took the Chair, and thanked Fellows for remaining to conduct the formal business of the ASM following the outstanding lecture by President Etienne-Emile Baulieu, President of the Acadmie des Sciences, France. Minutes The Minutes of the Annual Statutory Meeting held on Monday 28 October 2002 were taken as read, approved by those Fellows present and signed by the President as a correct record. Election of Council It was agreed that Professor Geoffrey Boulton, OBE, FRS, FRSE and Professor Wilson Sibbett, CBE, FRS, FRSE would act as Scrutineers for the ballot to elect the Officers and Council of the Society for the 221st 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 the new Council had been elected unanimously, as follows : President: Lord Sutherland of Houndwood KT FBA Vice-Presidents: Professor Andy Walker, Professor Gavin McCrone CB, Professor John Coggins General Secretary: Professor Andrew Miller CBE Treasurer: Sir Laurence Hunter CBE Curator: Dr Brenda Moon Fellowship Secretary: Professor Colin Bird CBE Research Awards Convener: Professor David Saxon International Convener: Professor Rona MacKie CBE Programme Convener: Professor Ian Stevenson Young Peoples Convener: Professor Cheryl Tickle FRS Secretary to Meetings: Professor Carol Duffus, Professor David Breeze Councillors: Professor Ron Asher, Mr Ewan Brown CBE, Mr Edward Cunningham CBE, Professor Tariq Durrani, Professor Birgit Lane, Sir Alan Langlands, Professor Richard Morris FRS, Dr Walter Nimmo, Professor Peter Sharp, Dr Ian Sword CBE, Lord Wilson of Tillyorn KT GCMG (resigned April 2004)
Officers Reports The President then invited the General Secretary and Treasurer to present their reports. General Secretarys Report Professor Andrew Miller, CBE, FRSE, reported as follows: As the widely circulated Annual Review for the fiscal year April 2002 March 2003 outlines the Societys key activities during the first half of the current Session, and these are also described in more detail in the separate Trustees Report and Accounts available to Fellows, I will concentrate my remarks more on the highlights of the last half of the Session, since April 2003. There are 10 topics I should like to comment on briefly: i) Corporate Plan Three years after the production of the original Corporate Plan, Council felt it was timely to review what had been achieved. Despite being an ambitious Corporate Plan, I am pleased to report that the overwhelming majority of targets have been met. The few cases where they were not are either because Council decided no longer to proceed (because of changed circumstances) or it had simply not proven possible to raise the necessary external funding. In producing a new Corporate Plan, we have rigorously analysed the Societys
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strengths and weaknesses. The process of devising a new Corporate Plan is well underway and all Fellows will have an opportunity to contribute. ii) Scottish Science Advisory Committee This independent committee, chaired by Professor Sibbett, is funded by the Scottish Executive and operates under the auspices of the Society. It is at an advanced stage of producing its own first Annual Report and will shortly be launching its report on science education also a topic of great interest to many in the Society. iii) Meetings Programme This is a most important aspect of the Societys wider engagement with the public and it has been most pleasing to see many capacity audiences, on occasion requiring the Societys overspill facilities. There has been a large and very varied programme of events including: Human Rights; Scotlands Drug Problem; Infection and the Threat to the Food Chain; Corporate Governance; joint events with the British Academy to mark the 400th Anniversary of the Union of the Crowns, and todays stimulating address by Professor Baulieu. I should very much like to thank the outgoing Programme Conven-
Proceedings of the Annual Statutory Meeting
er, Professor John Beck, for all he has done during these past five years to transform the programme and to wish him speedy recovery from his present illness. iv) International Programme This has accelerated during the Session under Professor Rona MacKies convenership and we are now able to do more internationally because of close links with British Council Scotland and increased funding for this activity from the Scottish Executive. In August, we were delighted to receive a visit by the Vice-President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Professor Chen Zhu, and this will lead to further collaboration between Scotland and China. Under the skilful direction of Vice-President Professor Sir David Carter, the Society organised a high profile seminar on Stem Cell Research at the Scotland Europa offices in Brussels on 15 October. v) Research and Innovation In addition to an increasing number of Research Fellowships, studentships and Enterprise Fellowships, announced at the annual Research Awards ceremony in August, the first Gannochy Award for Innovation of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
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was presented to Dr Barbara Spruce, Ninewells Hospital, Dundee, at an impressive ceremony held on 21 June at Scone Palace near Perth. We are most grateful to the Gannochy Trust for its generous support towards this important new award for younger innovators in Scotland. The award to Dr Spruce was for her work on cancer drugs and was presented by Nobel Laureate, Sir James Black, OM, FRS, HonFRSE. vi) Royal Medals We were greatly honoured that just prior to Professor Baulieus lecture today, HRH The Duke of Edinburgh visited the Society and presented the Royal Medals for 2003 to Professor Sir Paul Nurse FRS, Hon FRSE; Sir Michael Atiyah OM, FRS, Hon FRSE and Lord MacKay of Clashfern KT, PC, FRSE. These are most worthy recipients. vii) MSPs Science Information Scheme This new pilot scheme to provide expert information on scientific and technological issues was launched on 18 September and is being run in association with the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICe).
viii) Inquiries and Evidence A major inquiry into the crisis facing the Scottish Fishing Industry has started under the direction of Sir David Smith FRS, FRSE. In addition, the Society continues to provide many responses to a wide range of consultations and I am most grateful to those Fellows who contribute to this process by taking the time to make their views known to Dr Marc Rands and for his skilful distillation of the comments received. ix) Committee Structure A review of the committee structure is underway. There are currently nearly 50 committees and we are examining ways of trying to reduce the number and make our committee processes more efficient. x) Staffing A revised structure was implemented in September reducing substantially the number of staff reporting to the Executive Secretary and creating a senior management team which meets weekly. These changes will allow greater delegation and improve internal communication both within the staff and with the Honorary Officers. As part of the restructuring, Graeme Herbert, who is on secondment from the Scottish
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Executive, has been appointed Director of Corporate Services and Deputy to the Executive Secretary. Finally, I should like to conclude by thanking the staff for their hard work; they deliver a full programme of activities at a relentless pace. In particular, I should like to express thanks to Sandra McDougall who retired in June after almost 29 years service, and also to mention David Murray who retired in March after 16 years with the Society but, sadly and unexpectedly, died in July. Treasurers Report Sir Laurence Hunter, CBE, FRSE then delivered his report as follows : I am happy to be able to present a more positive report to you this year, and I am reasonably confident that this present financial year will see the Society turn the corner and make a small start on re-building some of the reserves on which we have had to draw in recent times. I shall return to this later. There are three themes on which I would like to focus this evening: to report on the 2002-03 accounts and comment on some of the main factors underlying the figures to update you on developments in the current financial year to comment on a few key issues underlying the financial picture.
As I have said before, it is important that the Fellowship should have a clear understanding of the financial situation, not just in terms of the formal accounts, but also in terms of the budgeting and administrative procedures underlying them. I hope you will find what I have to say this evening contributes to that understanding. Last year, following changes in the Statement of Recommended Practice for charity accounts, we altered our presentation to meet the new requirements, which provided a more symmetrical presentation of income and expenditure figures. That gave us the opportunity to incorporate a summary picture of the accounts and a short statement on the current position in the Annual Report, which was sent to all Fellows. This has been repeated this year, and of course, the formal Trustees Report and the full accounts provide greater detail of the finances. These are available to any Fellow, on request, and are available on the Societys website. I hope you will continue to find this arrangement satisfactory. i) Report on 2002-2003 Accounts As expected, financial year 2002-03 proved to be another difficult one for the Society. The adverse effect of the loss of rental income to the Foundation continued to be felt for half the year, with
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the knock-on consequence that the Society did not benefit from the interest due on its loan to the Foundation. However, net operating revenue showed a small surplus of 14,000 and the General Fund remained just in surplus. This performance, happily, was better than budget. The scale of activity in the Society continued to grow in accordance with the aims of the Corporate Plan, and this was reflected in a 25% rise in income and a 17% rise in expenditure. Of particular note on the income side wasa large increase in donations and grants, partly through an increased grant from the Scottish Executive for the Science Advisory Committee, partly through receipts from the Appeal, and partly in the form of much-appreciated secondments from the Scottish Executive and the British Council. Income from activities also increased by nearly 20%, but investment income remained static. On the expenditure side, Grants payable increased by 19% expanding our support for research through fellowships and studentships, and Activities spend grew by 28%, reflecting the full annual cost
of the Scottish Science Advisory Committee and increased work on advice and inquiries. International links were also much more active, due to the increased availability of funds to support this and that was very welcome. Management and administration costs were slightly reduced, representing less than 10% of income, and that too was satisfactory. The cost of fund-raising is an issue to which I will return shortly. Undoubtedly the most significant feature on the balance sheet was the 7% decline in net assets, due to movements in investments. The stock market you will need no reminder experienced a period of severe decline and we were by no means immune. The consequence was a decline in investment values of over 500,000, much of it a realised loss as we took steps to avoid the high and increasing costs of a fund manager, in favour of a stockbrokermanaged portfolio where costs are based on transactions. This involved a re-shaping of the portfolio to a more defensive profile, which is now in place. ii) Current Developments The figures for the first six months since the realignment
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of investment arrangements show an increase in our portfolio values of just over 16%, ahead of the FTSE All Share Index and the relevant Charities Index. It is to be hoped that this recovery will continue into the medium term. In the short run, our relationships with Speirs and Jeffrey, our stockbroker, have been positive. The first phase of the fundraising campaign has now effectively been completed. Accounts in the last two years have shown costs of fundraising, including both the fees to a professional fundraiser and the senior management costs. In total these have amounted to around 200,000, which has to be set against a funds raised total of about 6 million. Thus the cost of fundraising can be estimated at about 3 per cent, which I hope you will agree is a very satisfactory outcome. It is also important, in the light of recent events elsewhere, that we are highly transparent on this issue. Can I take this opportunity of thanking all those who have donated so generously to the Appeal? These contributions have been of enormous value, and are now separately lodged in a designated fund under
the discretionary control of Council. Fund-raising is continuing, but on a very selective and targeted basis, and this will not require the services of a professional consultant. iii) Corporate Plan The fundraising campaign grew out of the Societys Corporate plan, 2001 2006, which is still unfolding. However, it was always intended that we would re-visit the plan and roll it forward, and in this we are now engaged. Fellows will receive a draft plan for comment in the very near future, with the intention that Council will firm it up in December, enabling the accompanying Management Plan to be developed more fully. What I can say helpfully at this stage is that the shape of the continuing development plan does not envisage major changes of direction. Rather it is concerned to consolidate our present position, but with some amendments: to sharpen up on a limited range of priorities; and to address the related issues of inclusion and integration. This is not the time or place to go into
the details of this, but a brief comment on inclusion and integration may be useful. Although the Society undoubtedly has made efforts to extend its linkages and some of its activities throughout Scotland, it remains rather limited in its geographical scope. And internally, we have not perhaps made enough of the opportunities to link up different strands of activity within the Society. In both of these aspects, we think there is scope for improvement in the way we do things, and in the way we provide opportunities for the Fellowship to be involved with the Society more fully. In encouraging you all to let us know your thoughts on the thrust of the Plan, can I also invite you to make any suggestions for ways in which these objectives can be better fulfilled? To close, I am pleased to report that we are now budgeting for a small surplus and can look to begin restoring reserves. The first few months of this financial year show that, barring unavoidable and unplanned expenditure, this is possible. My thanks go to my colleagues on the Treasurers Committee and to senior staff.
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Approval of the Officers Reports The President sought and received by acclaim, approval of the Officers Reports. Revision to Laws The President drew attention to a letter from Professor Bird, Fellowship Secretary, and the proposed revision to the Societys Laws, both circulated earlier to all Fellows. Professor Bird explained that the Laws changes proposed were designed to: a) bring forward to the end of May (instead of end July) submission of completed nomination forms. b) provide Fellows with a summary List of Candidates; they will no longer automatically receive the much more detailed Candidates Booklet. c) place Proposers under a clear obligation to keep their nominations accurate and upto-date. Professor Finney indicated that he was not content about Fellows ceasing to receive the Candidates Book.
Professor Bird explained this document would be available for inspection in the Societys Rooms. The President added that the proposed revised Laws did not preclude Fellows who so wished from receiving the Candidates Book and it would be sent to Professor Finney and any other Fellows who requested it. With this assurance, the proposed Laws changes were approved unanimously - see following page for details of approved revisions. The full Laws of the Society are published annually in the Directory. Auditor The President reported that it was the Councils intention to appoint KPMG LLP as Auditors, subject to satisfactory negotiations over their fees. Concluding remarks The President concluded the meeting by thanking those members of Council retiring by rotation, especially Professor Sir David Carter, for his consistent support as Vice-President during the previous 3 years.
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Revisions to Laws Approved in October 2003 29. Each Candidate for admission as a Fellow shall be proposed and recommended by a Certificate supported by at least four Fellows, two of whom must certify from personal knowledge of the Candidate. Such Certificates shall be delivered to the Societys Rooms on or before the last day of May, or such later date as Council may direct, during the Session preceding that in which the Candidature is to be considered for Election. Each Certificate shall be in the format specified by Council and shall contain the information required for consideration of the nomination. Each Certificate, unless earlier withdrawn, shall be valid for up to three years. Should a Candidate not be elected within the three year period of validity of his or her Certificate, a fresh Certificate, valid for a further three years, may be lodged after two years have elapsed. 30. The Fellows who sign a certificate from personal knowledge shall undertake the responsibility of acting as proposer and seconder respectively. The proposer
Laws Prior to October 2003 29. Each Candidate for admission as a Fellow shall be proposed and recommended by a Certificate in writing signed by at least four Fellows, two of whom must certify from personal knowledge of the Candidate. Such Certificates shall be delivered to the Fellowship Secretary on or before the thirty-first day of the month of July preceding the start of the Session in which the Candidate is to be considered for Election. Each certificate shall specify the name, status, profession, nationality, date of birth, usual place of residence, and the qualifications of the Candidate. Each Certificate, unless earlier withdrawn, shall be valid for up to three years. Should a Candidate not be elected within the three year period of validity of his or her Certificate, a fresh Certificate, valid for a further three years, may be lodged after two years have elapsed.
30. The Fellows who sign a certificate from personal knowledge shall undertake the responsibility of acting as proposer and seconder respectively, in so far that all
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Revisions to Laws Approved in October 2003 shall undertake to provide and if necessary update the appropriate information required for consideration of the nomination. 31. The proposer shall be responsible for informing the Candidate of the payments to be made to the Society before the Candidate can be admitted as a Fellow.
Laws Prior to October 2003
communications on the subject of the candidature shall take place with one of them.
31. The proposer shall be responsible for informing the Candidate of the payments to be made to the Society before the Candidate can be admitted as a Fellow.
32. An alphabetical list of all Candidates whose Certificates are valid at the closing date determined in accordance with Law 29 shall be prepared and sent to Fellows before the Annual Statutory Meeting. This list shall specify the name, status, profession, usual place of residence, and the qualifications of each Candidate and show the names of the Fellows by whom each Candidate is supported or recommended and the year of candidature. The Council shall select from such list a number to be recommended to the Society for election. The list of Candidates so approved by the Council for election shall be issued to the Fellows not later than the twenty-first day of February.
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32. Not later than October, an alphabetical list of all Candidates whose Certificates are valid on the first day of August immediately preceding shall be prepared, making reference to their year of candidature.
Revisions to Laws Approved in October 2003 33. A document shall be produced no later than the Annual Statutory Meeting giving the alphabetic list of Candidates prepared according to Law 32 together with a supporting Statement for each Candidate. A copy of such document shall be available in the Societys Rooms for inspection by Fellows. Laws 34 to 43 no change.
Laws Prior to October 2003
33. The list so prepared shall be published along with the names of the Fellows by whom each Candidate is supported or recommended, and a supporting statement for each Candidate. A copy of such list shall be immediately thereafter sent to every Fellow. The Council shall select from such printed list of Candidates a number to be recommended to the Society for election. The list of Candidates so approved by the Council for election, shall be issued to the Fellows not later than the twenty-first day of February.
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TRUSTEES REPORT TO 31 MARCH 2003

The Council of the Society as Trustees of the Society present their report for the financial year ended 31 March 2003. 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 2003
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. 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, 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.
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The Year 1 April 2002-31 March 2003

Sir William Stewart handed over the Presidency of the Society to Lord Sutherland of Houndwood at the Annual Statutory Meeting in October 2002. He greatly increased the Societys public profile thanks to his championship of a more outward-looking, widelydisseminated newsletter ReSourcE. The Societys reputation for promotion of excellence was much increased, with expansion of the Research Awards programme, which is supported by a wide range of donor organisations, that realise the Society can help deliver their objectives. The success of the Enterprise Fellowships scheme, developed with Scottish Enterprise, led to this being expanded considerably in scope, with 80 new Fellowships being created during the next five years. The highly successful Fundraising Campaign reached its target early in 2003. There were several strands to the campaign, including an Appeal to Fellows which will produce 400,000, and an award of 500,000 from The Gannochy Trust to fund a major new award for innovation in Scotland. The Scottish Science Advisory Committee was appointed by Council. It first met at the
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Societys rooms in May 2002 in the presence of the newlyappointed Minister for Science, Iain Gray, who was attending his first official engagement. This independent Committee will provide strategic advice to the Scottish Executive on science priorities, and is part of the implementation of the Science Strategy for Scotland. The Committee is housed in its own separate offices in the RSEs Rooms, and is chaired by Professor Wilson Sibbett CBE FRS FRSE. The international profile of the Society has developed considerably, with implementation of the exchange agreements with China, Taiwan and Poland. Closer links were established with other leading European Academies, particularly in Scandinavia. The reports of the Inquiries into Infectious Salmon Anaemia, and Foot and Mouth Disease in Scotland, were well received by the communities affected by the issues involved, as well as by the media and representatives of Government and official organisations. The Council was saddened to learn of the death of its Patron for over 50 years Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, and was represented by the General Secretary at her
funeral in Westminster Abbey on 9 April 2002. Research Awards and Prizes The Society prides itself in supporting research across a broad range of disciplines, and recognises research excellence through its Fellowships, Prizes and Prize Lectureships. Research awards are funded by several donor organisations and the Society is immensely grateful for their generous support. We were delighted that, as part of the Societys fundraising campaign, The Gannochy Trust will provide funding of 500,000 for an innovation award to be presented annually over the next five years, with the winner receiving a 50,000 cash prize and gold medal. In 2002-2003, the Society awarded thirteen Enterprise Fellowships, one PPARC Enterprise Fellowship, one BP Fellowship, two Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland Personal Fellowships and four Studentships. With the additional funding from the Scottish Executive Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Department now in place, the Society was also able to award a larger number of Personal and Support Fellowships, awarding two Personal Fellowships and three Support Fellowships. The first of the new Teaching Fellowships were awarded. These Fellowships are for science, engineering, technol-
ogy and careers teachers in Scottish secondary schools and provide the opportunity to spend up to three months away from teaching duties whilst in an industrial, research or business environment; funding for a replacement teacher is provided. The RSE awarded a number of Prizes during the year. The third round of Royal Medals for outstanding achievement were presented by HRH The Princess Royal, HonFRSE, at a Jubilee Dinner in the Signet Library on 3 October 2002 to: Professor Sir Alfred Cuschieri FRSE, Professor John Mallard OBE FRSE and Professor Sir Alan Peacock DSC FBA FRSE. The James Scott Prize Lectureship, on the fundamental concepts of natural philosophy, was awarded to Professor Sir Michael Berry FRS; the BP Prize Lectureship in the humanities, to Dr Colin Kidd; the Makdougall-Brisbane Prize for distinction in the promotion of scientific research, to Dr Dario Alessi FRSE and the Neill Medal for an outstanding publication in natural history, to Professor Philip Corbet FRSE. On behalf of the Scottish Executive, the Society administered a Science in the Community Award for organisations which had provided science education to the public and schools and had been actively involved in encouraging
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the public understanding of science. This was presented at the Executives Science 20:20 Conference in March 2003 to a joint team from NESciE and SESEF (Natural Environmental Science Education and Scottish Earth Science Education Forum) for their work in communicating earth science to the public. The runner up was the Glasgow Science Centre for its project GSC in the Community. Events The Society has again organised a wide range of events, for both the specialist and general public, providing a forum for informed debate on issues of national and international importance. They have covered a variety of themes and have involved an extensive range of speakers from throughout the UK and around the world, including politicians, industrialists, academics and other key public figures. Attendance has been good, with the theatre frequently being filled to capacity. The quality of events remains extremely high, with positive general feedback from audiences. Examples of successful events held during the year are The Artful Use of Light - Bicentenary of the Birth of David Octavius Hill, a Joint Conference with the Scottish Society for the History of Photography; Science, Society and Government, by Professor Sir David King, Government Chief
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Scientific Advisor; and Memory: Psychological Processes and Clinical Implications, a Joint International Conference with the Caledonian Research Foundation. Other notable events were A New Russian Revolution - Partnership with NATO, a lecture by The Rt. Hon Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, Secretary General of NATO, as part of the annual Edinburgh Lectures series, and a commemorative lecture, organised jointly with the British Academy and held in London on precisely the 400th anniversary of the Union of the Crowns, and given by Dr Jenny Wormald, St Hildas College, Oxford, entitled Oh, Brave New World? The Union of England and Scotland in 1603. The Society has continued to strengthen the links between industry and academia. One particular highlight was a half-day Conference entitled Managing Intellectual Property in Scottish Higher Education at the RSE on 28 June 2002, supported by the RSE, Scottish Enterprise, SHEFC and Universities Scotland. Links with Young People Yet again it has been a busy year, with activities taking place all over Scotland, many of them so popular that they were oversubscribed. A Discussion Forum (supported by the Darwin Trust of Edinburgh) on the issues involved in Cloning was
held at the University of Stirling in June 2002. Students from schools in Stirling, Falkirk, Clackmannanshire and Fife heard from experts, from the Roslin Institute and the University of Edinburgh, about the potential benefits and drawbacks of the technology, as well as the ethical aspects. The results of the forum were compiled into a report published by the Society, and sent to key decision-making bodies. A week-long, non-residential Summer Camp (supported by Shell Expro), held during the 2002 summer holidays at Satrosphere in Aberdeen, was very popular with students. The theme for the week was Waste and the Environment, with the highlight being a falconry display at the Shanks Landfill site where birds of prey are used to discourage seagulls, pigeons and other vermin. Schools Lectures, which aim to enthuse secondary school pupils about science, engineering and technology, were held throughout Scotland, at locations ranging from the Isle of Skye to Tranent. Startup Science Masterclasses at the Universities of Dundee, St Andrews, Glasgow, Heriot-Watt, and Aberdeen/Satrosphere have continued to be a success despite some disruption to use of venues out of hours because of the firefighters dispute.
The long-running Maths Masterclasses for primary school pupils, have expanded to include a new set at the University of Dundee and the Physics Masterclasses, run in conjunction with the University of Glasgow, have also become well-established. The Christmas Lectures were given by BBC broadcast meteorologist, Heather Reid, at Lochaber High School in Fort William. Her talks, to students from as far afield as Inverness, and to the general public, gave a fascinating insight into the science and technology behind weather forecasting. The public lecture attracted one of the largest audiences for many years. The RSE Roadshow (supported by the Institute of Electrical Engineers and Science 03) was held as part of the Science 03 festival at Wick and Thurso. There were interactive maths and earth sciences workshops for local primary schools, as well as the entertaining forensic science talk Death Drugs and Dynamite! for secondary students and the general public. Evidence and Advice In fulfilling its role as a provider of expert evidence and advice to Parliament and Government, the Society responded to 34 requests for comment in the year 20022003. Topics addressed included: The Scientific Response to Terrorism; A Draft Strategic Framework for Aquaculture; A
23
Review of Research Assessment and Science; and The Regional Development Agencies. The Society also instigated independent proactive inquiries. In June 2002 a Working Party, chaired by Professor Sir Roderick MacSween FRSE, reported on The Scientific Issues Surrounding the Control of Infectious Salmon Anaemia (ISA) in Scotland. This reviewed the science behind legislation governing the control of ISA. The report of the Foot and Mouth Working Party, Inquiry into Foot and Mouth Disease in Scotland, which was endorsed by Council, was published in July 2002. This Working Party, chaired by Professor Ian Cunningham CBE FRSE, was charged with investigating the outbreak, spread and control of Foot and Mouth Disease in Scotland during the 2001 epidemic, as well as its impact on the rural and tourism economies of Scotland. Finally, in February 2003, Council gave approval for an independent RSE Inquiry into the current crisis in the Scottish Fishing Industry. International Activities International activities have continued to expand significantly, stimulated by Devolution. A Society delegation, led by the then President, Sir William Stewart FRS FRSE and Sir David Carter FRSE, Vice-President, participated in a high-profile event in Sweden in
24
October 2002 entitled Realising the Potential of Life-Sciences and Biotechnology, also attended by Enterprise Minister Iain Gray. In his speech, the Minister announced additional funding from the Scottish Executive for the Society, including, for the first time, funding for international activities. In October 2002, European Research Commissioner, Philippe Busquin, attended the Annual Statutory Meeting and addressed a capacity audience - in French about Research in Europe with particular emphasis on The EU Framework Programme and The European Research Area. During the year, Officers received a delegation from the Polish Academy of Sciences and signed a Memorandum of Understanding with them. The Taiwan Exchange Programme was launched in late 2002, following a visit in October by the Vice President of the National Science Council, Professor Ching-Jyh Shieh. In May, RSE International Officer Graeme Herbert represented the Society at a Co-operation Conference, held by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in Beijing, that brought together CAS and its Western European partners. Representatives from the Royal Society and sister European academies and scientific institutions in Finland, France,
Germany, Italy and the Netherlands also attended. The Society is now a member of ALLEA, the All European Academies Network. Publications Journals: six issues of Proceedings A and two of Transactions, one of which was a double issue were published during the year. A steady rate of submissions was maintained for both journals. Two new publications, the Annual Directory and the Review of the Session, were introduced in 2002 to replace the Yearbook. The Directory is published in November/December and the Review in the spring. Separate arrangements for the publication of Fellows obituaries are in hand. In addition to the regular publications detailed above, reports of the 2003 RSE/RAE Joint Lecture, I, Cyborg, and the RSEs part in Scotland in Sweden in October 2002, and of the independent inquiries into Foot and Mouth and ISA were also published. ReSourcE was published twice, in Spring 2002 and Winter 2002. The response to this new, more appealing format has been very positive indeed. Fellowship In March 2003, the Society elected 55 Ordinary Fellows, two Corresponding Fellows and four Honorary Fellows. The average
25
age at election of the Ordinary Fellows was 52.8 years. Ten of the Ordinary Fellows were female and four Ordinary Fellows were under 40 at election. Currently (June 2003) the Fellowship consists of 69 Honorary Fellows, 16 Corresponding Fellows and 1243 Ordinary Fellows. 34% of the Ordinary Fellowship cover 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 (76.9%) of Ordinary Fellows are resident in Scotland, 17.4% in England, 5.1% overseas and 0.6% either in Wales, Northern Ireland or Eire. Staffing Matters The Scottish Science Advisory Committee began operating from the Societys Rooms in April 2002, with two new members of staff, Dr Avril Davidson, Head of Secretariat and Tracy Rickard, PA/ Administrator. Duncan Welsh joined the staff in June 2002, originally on a temporary contract. He was appointed as Events Officer in March 2003. The growth of Research Fellowship activities led to the appointment of Jenny Liddell, as Research Awards Co-ordinator, in July 2002.
Michael White started in August 2002 on secondment from the British Council to work with Graeme Herbert (on secondment from the Scottish Executive) running the rapidly expanding International Programme. Paulette Hughes receptionist returned to Australia in December 2002 and was replaced in January 2003 by Cathy Crawford. Two temporary members of staff, Beth Owens, who supported the Foot and Mouth Inquiry, and Kirsty Black, who helped run an
event on GM Gene Flow in January 2003, also provided invaluable support during the year. David Murray, Accounts Administrator for 16 years, since leaving the Civil Service, left at the end of March 2003. Sadly, he was not to enjoy a long retirement as he died peacefully in July 2003. Stuart Armstrong, the Societys freelance Fundraising Consultant since January 2001, completed his contract at end of March 2003.
26
Financial review April 2002-March 2003

Result for the Year The year just ended continued to reflect the adverse impact of the loss of rental in the Foundation, with the net incoming resources or revenue surplus of 14,000 in the Society being achieved without the benefit of interest due on its loan to the Foundation. Pleasingly, the General Fund operating deficit of 148,000 included in this result was both less than last year and rather better than the original budget projection. The Designated Funds showed a surplus of 167,000 due to the Appeal receipts in cash in the year of 183,000; the Restricted Funds had a deficit of 5,000 as a result of the effect of cyclical expenditure and increased investment management costs. However, this positive revenue result is overshadowed by the decline in capital value of the stock market investments, which resulted in an overall realised deficit for the year of 337,000 with a further unrealised loss on investments of 164,000. Although the decision to switch investment managers referred to below was taken on the basis of the cost of the service and not past performance, the opportunity was taken to realign the portfolio to be more risk averse. Income and Expenditure Total incoming resources at 2.44 million have increased by 25% over the previous year. The new category Donations and grants at 919,000 shows an increase of 38% over last year, mainly as a result of Appeal receipts and an increased grant from Scottish Executive for the Scottish Science Advisory Committee. This category also includes the value to us of the greatly appreciated secondments of Graeme Herbert from the Scottish Executive and of Michael White from British Council Scotland. Income from Activities has increased by 19% to 1.41m, arising from the increase in support for research awards. The increase in international and meetings income was offset by decreased income in other categories. The category Investment income remained static as a result of the continuing waiver of interest due from the RSE Scotland Foundation, despite an increase in interest received due to higher cash balances. Dividend income from the investments managed for part of the year by Stewart Ivory and in the last quarter by Speirs & Jeffrey, held up well although this may not continue as the total is affected further by reducing tax credits. The share of
27
investment income credited to the General Fund was increased by approximately 25,000 as a result of the earlier decision by Council to re-allocate the income from the Grants Fund for the time being. The total resources expended of 2.43 million increased by 17% over the previous year with the majority of the increase coming from increased expenditure on research awards and the full year expenditure of the Scottish Science Advisory Committee. The category, Cost of generating funds, includes both the direct fundraising costs and an allocation of general overhead in proportion to overall staff time spent in continuing the successful Appeal to Fellows and developing new initiatives and relationships with the corporate sector and charitable trusts. It is pleasing to note that the cost of generating these funds declined by 23% to 84,000, reflecting the up front costs normally associated with a fundraising campaign, and is less than 3.5% of incoming resources. Grants payable of 1.31 million (2002: 1.09m), which include the allocations made by the Grants Committee and the promotion of research by awards of Research Fellowships and studentships, have increased by over 19%. This reflects the full year impact of additional Fellowships awarded from increased funding by the Scottish Executive and additional
28
Enterprise Fellowships funded by Scottish Enterprise. Expenditure is incurred for the first time from the new grant awarded in August 2001 by the Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland. Expenditure on Activities rose overall by 28% from 626,000 to 802,000. This increase reflects the full cost of the Scottish Science Advisory Committee at 150,000 per annum and increased levels of advice and comment including the major Foot & Mouth Disease Inquiry. Expenditure on International links rose significantly, indeed nearly a four-fold increase, partly through the initial stages of exchange research fellowships, and the cost of the symposium organised for the Scottish Executives Scotland in Sweden event held in Stockholm in November 2002. The Management and Administration costs, including building depreciation and non-routine expenditure on the buildings and central publicity expenditure, decreased from 241,000 to 229,000, representing approximately 9% (2002: 12%) of income. This decrease was largely due to one-off buildings expenditure charged in the previous year to the Buildings Maintenance Fund. Transfers from Designated Funds to the General Fund of a net 94,000 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, net of a transfer of 7,000 to the Staff Development fund. Balance Sheet The overall decline in net assets for the year amounts to 7%, almost all of which arises from the movements on investments. Investment values declined by 529,000 or 23% in the period, against a background of difficult stockmarket conditions. Much of this loss was realised in the final quarter of the year as the decision to move investment advisers was implemented. It was decided that the ongoing fee-based cost of a fund manager was not justified for a fairly stable defensively managed portfolio such as ours, in comparison to the costs of a stockbroker-managed portfolio where costs are based on transactions. During the last quarter of the financial year this switch took place and Speirs & Jeffrey carried out some realignment of the portfolio, increasing the overall level of fixed interest stocks and reducing the risk by moving from corporate bonds to government stocks. The RSE Scotland Foundation continued to make the capital payment of 46,800 on its loan despite the waiver of interest and this amount was applied to the
29
General Fund to maintain its (small) surplus. The waiver of interest was necessary to assist the Foundation recover from its deficit of net assets. The Foundation continued to suffer the loss of rental income for part of the year ended 31 March 2003, because although the new tenant, Lakeland Limited, took possession of the unit at the end of May 2002, the rental only became payable from October 2002. Net current assets showed an increase of 50% up from 258,000 to 390,000, arising from the improvement in net cash balances and money market deposits; these include both the Appeal receipts and grants received in advance held over as deferred income until the conditions for use are met. The 2001 Appeal Fund has been redesignated the Development Fund but will continue to receive the ongoing contributions from Fellows which are expected to bring the total to the target of 400,000. The receipts of 182,000 in the year are shown as designated fund receipts in the category of Donations and Grants in the Statement of Financial Activities. Fundraising The first phase of a fundraising campaign has been successfully completed. The next phase is intended to focus more on the
corporate sector, which will require a different approach. A number of important steps have been taken to provide a sound basis for approaches to corporate organisations, but current economic and financial conditions suggest that this would not be a good time to launch a major initiative. Instead, a highly selective and carefully tailored strategy will be pursued as opportunities are identified. This remains an important element in the longer term outlook of the Society and its ability to sustain its expanded level of activities. Conclusion and Future Prospects As predicted last year, the out-turn for 2002-2003 inevitably continued to show the negative effects of the loss of rental income. To this has been added the losses on the capital account due to the continuing difficult financial situation at national and international level, and the re-positioning of the Societys investment portfolio, following the reported change in investment management. Despite this, the Society has maintained a high level of activity across the range of its programmes, aided by increased funding from a variety of sources. Somewhat against the odds, the General Fund remains just in surplus, and it will be an important objective in the next few years to rebuild this fund, which has been a very significant factor in
30
providing reserves to offset a series of problems in recent years. The relation between the General Fund and the Designated Funds amounts set aside or earmarked by Council for specific purposes in the past will be reviewed by Council to ensure that their disposition remains relevant to the current programmes and policies of the Society. The forward budget for financial year 2003-2004 has benefited from continued refinement and formalisation of budget-setting procedures, and a balanced budget is planned, with an initial contribution to the rebuilding of the General fund. In overall terms, it is expected that 20032004 will see the Society turn the corner after a number of difficult years, but continuing review of the financial situation will be essential and careful management required to ensure that a balanced budget, and gradual restoration of reserves, are achievable in relation to the Societys aspirations to maintain an expanded programme of activities. This will continue to be a primary concern for the Treasurers Committee, which has proved to be extremely helpful over a critical period. My sincere thanks is due to this committee, and especially to Kate Ellis and William Duncan, for their support and advice in the past year.
ACCOUNTS
BALANCE SHEET AT 31 MARCH 2003

Note No
Fixed Assets Tangible fixed assets Fixed Asset Investment Investments at market value Historical Cost :1,816,974 (2002 - 2,143,957) Loan to RSE Scotland Foundation 14b 2,078,368 6,341,876 Current Assets RSE Scotland Foundation current account Debtors Cash at bank and in hand Money Market and other term deposits 15 63,125) 73,000) 118,326) 501,130) 755,581) Current Liabilities Creditors : Amounts falling due within one year Net Current Assets Net Assets Funds General Fund Designated Funds Restricted Funds 17 18 19 20 1,142 5,677,421 1,053,213 6,731,776 73,593 5,788,617 1,370,394 7,232,604 16 (365,681) 389,900 6,731,776 (171,399) 258,840 7,232,604 56,063 78,862 178,019 117,295 430,239 2,125,176 6,973,764 14a 1,732,239 2,261,211 13 2,531,269 2,587,377
2003
2002
Approved by the Council on 1 September 2003
Laurence C Hunter Sir Laurence Hunter, CBE Treasurer
31
STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES (INCORPORATING THE INCOME AND EXPENDITURE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2003
Note No General Fund Designated Funds
ACCOUNT)
Restricted Funds
2003 Total
2002 Total
Incoming resources Donations , grants and similar incoming resources 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
530,091 206,393 29,115 765,599
182,877 23,383 206,260 4,558 24,391 5,675 4,590 39,214 167,046 10,473 (135,964) (125,491) 41,555 (94,153) (58,598) (111,196) 5,788,617 5,677,421
206,446 1,202,183 60,060 1,468,689 1,277,896 195,755 1,473,651 (4,962) 17,762 (230,597) (212,835) (217,797) (99,384) (317,181) 1,370,394 1,053,213
919,414
665,946
1,408,576 1,185,228 112,558 107,374 2,440,548 1,958,548 84,257 108,948
7 8 9 10
79,699 8,649 600,173 224,814 913,335 (147,736) 1,073 (13,935) (12,862)
1,310,936 1,096,843 801,603 229,404 626,416 241,090
2,426,200 2,073,297 14,348 29,308 (380,496) (351,188) (336,840) (163,988) (500,828) (114,749) 9,329 (16,507) (7,178) (121,927) (4,499) (126,426)
Realised Surplus/(deficit) for the year Transfers between funds Unrealised losses Net Movement in Funds Balance brought forward at 1 April 2002 Balance carried forward at 31 March 2003
18
(160,598) 94,153 (6,006) (72,451) 73,593 1,142
7,232,604 7,359,030 6,731,776 7,232,604
32
Auditors Report and Accounts
CASH FLOW STATEMENT YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2003

2003
Reconciliation of net movement in funds to net cash outflow from operating activities Net incoming/(outgoing) resources before Transfers Appeal receipts Dividends receivable Interest receivable Interest payable Depreciation Decrease in debtors (Increase)/ decrease in RSE Scotland Foundation current account Increase in creditors Net cash outflow from operating activities Cash flow statement Net cash outflow from operating activities Appeal receipts Returns on investments and servicing of finance: Interest received Interest paid Dividends received Capital expenditure and financial investment: Purchase of tangible fixed assets: Proceeds from sale of tangible fixed assets Proceeds from sale of investments: Purchases of investments Loan to RSE Scotland Foundation Increase in cash 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 14,348 (182,877) (94,783) (13,455) 56,529 9,184 (7,062) 194,281 (23,835) (23,835) 182,877 13,794 91,123 (421) 1,101,180 (1,087,384) 46,808 324,142
2002
(114,749) (91,073) (92,244) (9,022) 89,505 21,591 20,752 5,335 (169,905) (169,905) 91,073 9,582 103,419 (11,555) 80,373 (73,882) 46,808 75,913
324,142 295,314 619,456
75,913 219,401 295,314
33
NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2003

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. 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. 2 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. 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
34

3 Accounting Policies Incoming resources a) Donations grants and similar incoming resources Subscriptions are accounted for on the basis of the subscription year to October 2003 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) Depreciation and repairs The Societys principal assets are its buildings in George Street, Edinburgh. 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 audiovisual 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. Unrealised surpluses on revaluation are credited 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.
35

2003
4a Donations, grants and similar incoming resources Fellows subscriptions Scottish Executive Grant Scottish Executive Grant re Scottish Science Advisory Committee Release of deferred income Other grants and donations Gifts in kind - (value of secondment of staff) Appeal receipts 4b 24a 4c 133,422 328,000 150,000 75,240 49,875 182,877 919,414 4b Subscriptions Contributions from Fellows Admission Fees Annual Subscriptions Income tax recoverable under gift aid
2002
105,121 328,000 55,519 6,413 43,070 36,750 91,073 665,946
13,200 103,158 17,064 133,422
5,400 89,314 10,407 105,121 2,420 12,939 20,800 4,995 153 538 1,225 43,070
4c
Other grants and donations Fleck additional receipt Lessells Trust additional receipt Legacy Donations for Foot & Mouth Disease Inquiry Sales of ties (net) Sales of sundry publications Other income
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 2003 1,202,183 133,230 41,700 31,463 1,408,576 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 2002 1,002,782 113,166 27,527 33,252 8,501 1,185,228
476,086 24,059 148,497 27,863 312,830 25,840 187,008 1,202,183
379,228 6,500 168,543 14,082 216,714 83,586 134,129 1,002,782
36

2003
6 Investment income Dividends (Net) Income tax recoverable on dividend income Interest arising on deposits (Gross) Interest receivable from RSE Scotland Foundation (note 23) 94,783 4,319 13,456 112,558 7 Cost of generating funds Fundraising costs Proportion of central costs (note 11) 51,078 33,179 84,257 8 Grants payable Promotion of Research Prizes and Grants b) 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 D S McLagan Travel Grant Direct costs : General Funds Library Proportion of central costs (note 11) 9 a) Charitable activities Publications Meetings Educational activities Academic / Industry links Fellowships Office International activities Evidence Advice and Comment Scottish Science Advisory Committee 8b 1,273,657 37,279 1,310,936 77,629 344,920 18,144 440,693 137,172 22,297 285,059 20,090 170,733 6,804 32,249 3,100 1,517 1,119,714 454 1,120,168 153,489 1,273,657 9b 22,152 282,243 78,815 9,796 45,386 119,103 94,108 150,000 801,603
2002
92,245 6,107 9,022 107,374 70,348 38,600 108,948 1,060,125 36,718 1,096,843 61,292 276,350 730 338,373 154,985 10,422 200,422 75,308 119,129 5,025 24,224 11,076 588 939,552 475 940,027 120,098 1,060,125 38,209 225,360 56,793 49,219 50,204 50,425 96,869 59,337 626,416
37

2003 9 b) Publications
Editorial & management costs of journals Support of journals published by RSE Scotland Foundation Other publications Proportion of central costs (note 11) 19,290 249 44 19,583 2,569 22,152 11,700 16,930 2,431 31,061 7,148 38,209
2002
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 made a donation to the RSE Scotland Foundation equivalent to the Foundations net deficit 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 2003 9,238 22,061 32,949 4,457 68,705 79,780 80,919 229,404 619,061 (59,347) (90,529) 469,185 49,875 25,610 544,670 23,930 105,545 4,432 55,906 21,683 2,066 18,562 7,344 1,519 240,987 785,657 2002 5,568 22,061 32,949 24,046 84,624 76,105 80,361 241,090 487,539 (82,708) 404,831 36,750 37,982 479,563 30,951 109,811 4,970 44,797 23,185 2,118 11,710 8,519 34,495 270,556 750,119
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
38

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 Scottish Science Advisory Committee Promotion of Research Prizes and Grants Management and administration Buildings and Maintenance Management and Secretariat Publicity 33,179 2,569 167,864 43,583 9,384 45,386 92,062 66,220 2,358 4,546 63,246 79,780 610,177
Designated Funds
Restricted Funds
2003 Total
33,179 2,569 167,864 48,113 9,384 45,386 92,062 66,220 153,489 15,127 9,238 63,246 79,780 785,657
2002 Total
38,600 7,149 145,257 49,537 39,033 50,204 41,923 92,330 16,591 120,098 11,500 5,568 76,105 56,224 750,119
4,530
153,489 12,769 4,692
21,991
153,489
Total 2003
12 Employees Wages and salaries Social Security Costs Other pension costs (note 21) 526,306 33,480 59,275 619,061
Paid by SSAC 2003

50,622 3,963 4,762 59,347
Paid by Foundation 2003

76,938 4,774 8,817 90,529
Paid by Society 2003

398,746 24,743 45,696 469,185
Paid by Society 2002

343,175 21,356 40,300 404,831
The average number of employees of the Society including those employed under joint contracts with the RSE Scotland Foundation during the year was 25(2002 20). Of these two were employed in respect of the Scottish Science Advisory Committee.
39

22-24 George St.
13 Tangible Fixed Assets Cost At 1 April 2002 Additions Disposals At 31 March 2003 Depreciation At 1 April 2002 Charge for the year At 31 March 2003 Net Book Value At 31 March 2003 At 31 March 2002 1,103,038 1,103,038 66,183 22,061 88,244 1,014,794 1,036,855
26 George St.
1,647,468 1,647,468 98,847 32,949 131,796 1,515,672 1,548,621
Equipment
67,927 421 68,348 67,631 359 67,990 358 296
Computer
40,036 40,036 38,431 1,160 39,591 445 1,605
Total
2,858,469 421 2,858,890 271,092 56,529 327,621 2,531,269 2,587,377
Value at 1 April 2002

14a Fixed Asset Investments Managed Funds 184,602 Fixed interest 645,124 UK equities 1,169,893 Overseas equities (managed funds) 204,934 Cash deposits 56,658 2,261,211
Investments made at cost

230,357 480,466 433,219 (1,141,190) 2,852
Proceeds on Gain/(loss) sale of on sale Investments

(78,660) (403,617) (501,159) (117,744) 1,084,532 (16,648) (32,542) (24,428) (235,253) (58,965) (351,188)
Revaluation
(9,835) (27,451) (123,601) (3,101) (163,988)
Market value at 31 March 2003

293,922 670,094 743,099 25,124 1,732,239
The deficit on sale of investments measured against their historical cost was 313,187 (2002 deficit 81,747). The investment management fee of 16,648 (2002 6,490) has been deducted from the proceeds of sale of investments. 2003 14b Loan to RSE Scotland Foundation Due within one year Due after one year 46,808 2,031,560 2,078,368 2002 46,808 2,078,368 2,125,176
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 1 July 2002 Council agreed to waive the interest payment due for the year ended 31 March 2003 as no rental was received by the Foundation in that period from the ground and basement floor unit. The capital repayment for the year of 46,808 was paid at the end of the financial year as normal.
40

2003 15 Debtors General debtors Stock of ties Prepayments and accrued income Income Tax Recoverable 64,262 3,492 5,246 73,000 2002 40,158 3,582 1,095 34,027 78,862
16 Creditors: Amounts falling due within one year General creditors Accruals and deferred income University of Glasgow (note 19) Symposia income deferred
102,398 220,991 16,632 25,660 365,681
76,266 73,987 15,266 5,880 171,399
17 General Fund At 1 April 2002 Net movements in funds for the year from Statement of Financial Activities At 31 March 2003
73,593 (72,451) 1,142
212,683 (139,090) 73,593
41

Capital Asset Reserve Building Staff DevelopmentC H Kemball Grants Maintenance Restructuring Appeal Fund Fund Fund Fund Fund Dr James Heggie Fund Total
18 Designated Funds At 1 April 2002 Investment income Other income Less Direct expenditure Investment Management Fees RSE admin and staff costs Surplus/(deficit) for the year Transfers between funds building depreciation loan repayment from General Fund (101,818) (55,010) (46,808) 7,665 7,665 -) -) -) (55,010) (46,808) 7,665) (94,153) -) 965) 865 185,487) 660) (24,391) 3,460) 167,046) (4,558) -) (8,488) (2,995) (16,041) (133) (4,281) (1,535) (5,949) -) (4,457) -) (11,622) (1,145) (17,224) 4,710,652) -) -) 154,901) 5,422) -) 24,725 865 90,336 7,168 182,877 18,088) 793) -) 581,489) 208,426)) 5,788,617) -) -) 9,135)) -)) 23,383) 182,877)
Net gains on investment assets Realised Unrealised -) -) -) 155,866) 33,255 -) 275,823) (2,809) (1,312) 14,627) (90,311) (42,171) (32,371) (125,491) (15,115) (58,598)
At 31 March 2003 4,608,834)
424,616) 164,400) 5,677,421)
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. In approving the budget for the year ended 31 March 2003, Council resolved that as the balance of the Grants fund was sufficient to meet current needs, the income of approximately 25,000 from the investments held by the Grants Fund should be allocated to the General Fund.
42

Robert Cormack Bequest 19 Restricted Funds At 1 April 2002 Investment income Other income Less Direct Expenditure Investment Management RSE Admin and staff Surplus/(deficit) for year Net gain on investment assets Realised Unrealised At 31 March 2003 Lessells Trust Auber Bequest Prizes Fund Dryerre Fund Others Total
112,701) 4,939) (6,805) (830) (1,487) (4,183) (17,504) (8,173) 82,841)
392,818) 17,216) 12,291) (32,249) (2,892) (5,181) (10,815) (61,008) (28,488) 292,507)
317,738) 13,925) -) (2,339) (4,191) 7,395) (49,348) (23,043) 252,742)
75,343) 3,302) (5,394) (555) (994) (3,641) (11,701) (5,464) 54,537)
437,531) 19,176) (3,100) (3,221) (5,771) 7,084) (67,953) (31,731) 344,931)
34,263) 1,370,394) 1,502) 60,060) 12,291) (1,600) (252) (452) (802) (49,148) (10,089) (18,076) (4,962)
(5,321) (212,835) (2,485) (99,384) 25,655) 1,053,213)
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 Piazzi-Smyth 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 2002 represents the total sum apportioned but not yet paid over to the University (note 16). Unrestricted Designated Funds Funds 20 Analysis of Assets between Funds Fund balances at 31 March 2003 are represented by : Tangible fixed assets 803) Investments 75,384) Loan to RSE Scotland Foundation -) Current assets 35,113) RSE Scotland Foundation current account 63,125) Deposits 36,185) Bank overdraft less cash (138,294) Current liabilities (71,174) 1,142) Restricted Funds 2003 Total 2002 Total
2,530,466 603,642 2,078,368
-) 1,053,213) -) 37,887) -) -) 256,620) (294,507) 1,053,213)
2,531,269) 1,732,239) 2,078,368) 73,000) 63,125) 501,130) 118,326) (365,681) 6,731,776)
2,587,377) 2,261,211) 2,125,176) 78,862) 56,063) 117,295) 178,019) (171,399) 7,232,604)
464,945 5,677,421
43

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 Earnings-Related Pension Scheme. 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 Future Service Liabilities Investment return 5% 6% Salary Increase 3.7% 3.7% Pension Increase 2.7% 2.7% 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 245% of employees contributions of 6% of pensionable salaries, amounting to 14.7%. 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 2003; the major assumptions used in this valuation were: 2003 2002 Rate of increase in salaries 4.0% 4.3% Rate of increase of pensions in payment 2.5% 2.8% Discount rate 5.4% 5.9% Inflation assumption 2.5% 2.8% 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.
44

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 return Equities Bonds Other- Property Cash Whole scheme assets 8.0% 4.8% 6.0% 4.0% Value at 31 March 2003 000 1,029,900 125,000 153,100 37,100 1,345,100 000 199 (308) (109) Expected return 7.5% 5.5% 6.0% 4.0% Value at 31 March 2002 000 1,365,554 155,502 145,187 117,548 1,783,791 000 140 (133) 7
Of which RSE share Present value of scheme liabilities Surplus/(deficit) in the scheme Net pension (liability)/ asset
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 Surplus at 1April 2002 7 Current service cost (39) Employer contributions 40 Net return on assets Expected return on employer assets 10 Interest on pension scheme liabilities (8) 2 Actuarial gains/ (losses) (119) Deficit at 31 March 2003 (109)
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 45,696 (2002 38,375) 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 5,893 (2002 6,401). 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 and 2003 to assist the Foundation in extinguishing its deficit of net assets. 45

23 RSE Scotland Foundation (Continued) At 31 March 2003 the financial position of the RSE Scotland Foundation was as follows: 2003 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 2,061,700) 58,624) (63,125) (46,808) (130,298) (2,031,560) (151,467) 2002 2,060,752) 78,174) (56,063) (46,808) (127,230) (2,078,368) (169,543)
The Statement of Financial Activities for the year ended 31 March 2003 was as follows: Incoming resources Donations, grants and similar incoming resources Charitable activities Publications Academic/Industry Links Licence fees Conference Facilities letting ( net ) Activities for generating funds Rental and service charges receivable Fundraising event Investment income - bank interest 2003 249) 98,470) -) 100,417) 74,343) 118,140) 33,146) 479) 425,244) 145,888) -) 145,888) 279,356) 46,477) 98,718) 33,146) 38,493) 44,446) -) 261,280) 18,076) (169,543) (151,467) 2002 16,930) 114,086) 75) 89,093) 55,814) 46,423) -) 976) 323,397) 120,496) 350) 120,846) 202,551) 42,629) 131,017) -) 37,859) 42,742) -) 254,247) (51,696) (117,847) (169,543)
Cost of generating funds Building management Fundraising and publicity
Net incoming resources available for charitable application Charitable expenditure Conference facilities hire Publications Donation to RSE Development Appeal fund Management and secretariat Depreciation on leasehold improvements Interest payable Total resources expended Net incoming/(outgoing) resources and movement in funds for the year Balance brought forward Balance carried forward
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.
46

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 Public policy Seminars Foresight seminars International activities Other departments support for meetings GM Gene Flow Oral Health Scotland in Sweden 2003 500,145 150,000 328,000 14,467 2,000 18,096 1,012,708 Direct Costs 150,000 20,096 249 440,693 14,467 23,930 649,435 Staff and other costs 89,874 40,335 18,374 59,452 66,220 79,780 9,238 363,273 2003 Total 150,000 109,970 40,335 18,623 500,145 66,220 14,467 79,780 23,930 9,238 1,012,708 2002 395,728 55,519 328,000 15,018 7,583 2,000 803,848 2002 Total 55,519 69,646 40,497 37,504 395,728 92,330 76,105 30,951 5,568 803,848
Allocated to Functional Activities Scottish Science Advisory Committee Meetings office Educational activities Publications office Promotion of research Evidence advice and comment International activities Management and secretariat Buildings - Establishment expenses - Maintenance
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: Chairmans fee, salaries and other staff costs Establishment Office costs Travel and subsistence Committee and working groups Professional services Balance carried forward 2003 Total 92,225 19,689 10,536 8,174 6,214 5,243 7,919 150,000 2002 Total 16,404 28,615 500 10,000 55,519
This includes amounts paid to the Society for use of office space and services.
47

BP Research Fellowship Trust 24 b) Donations Income Promotion of research receipts Transferred to deferred income Meetings Income 148,497 148,497 Caledonian Research Foundation 27,862 27,862 22,297 5,565 27,862 Scottish Enterprise 312,830 6,055 318,885 285,059 6,055 27,771 318,885 Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland 335,700 (148,692) 187,008) 170,733 16,275 187,008 Wellcome Trust 12,081 12,081 10,109 1,972 12,081
Costs Promotion of research 137,172 Conference Workshops RSE administration and staff costs 11,325 148,497
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 2003 are as follows: A & M Hearing Ltd Archibald Campbell & Harley WS Carpet Foundation Darwin Trust of Edinburgh GlaxoSmithKline Lloyds TSB Scotland NHS Education for Scotland 25 Analysis of net funds Oticon (William Demant) Foundation, Denmark Scottish Enterprise Scottish Dental Practice-Based Research Network Scottish Society for the History of Photography Shell Expro University of Durham
At 31 March 2003 118,326 501,130 619,456
Cash flows (59,693) 383,835) 324,142)
At 1 April 2002 178,019 117,295 295,314
Cash at bank Deposits
48

26 Main Activities Meetings and Education Lectures Symposia/Conferences/Seminars Exhibitions Policy Seminars Debates Workshops Technology Ventures and Foresight Seminars 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 Central Administration Submissions to Government and public agencies External events held at RSE 22 George Street 22-26 George Street 34 175 41 113 3 4 19 3 4 28 16 3 6 10 117 4 15 4 6 7 84 1333 249 1311 256 6 4 2 2 6 6 1 4 36 8 7 2 1 1 4 1 35 8 10 2 1 1 4 1 27 9 2 5 17 8 2 1 3 6 2002/03 Number 2001/02 Number
49
AUDITORS REPORT AND ACCOUNTS

We have audited the financial statements on pages 31-49. 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 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
51
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. 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 misstatement, 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 2003 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.
KPMG LLP Chartered Accountants Registered Auditor. Edinburgh, September 2003
52
Royal Society of Edinburgh Schedule of Investments - movements at valuation. Year ended 31 March 2003.
Closing No Purchase Costs Closing Market Value 114,490 114,712 114,722 (3,504) (14,000) (7,002) 4,418 81,413 726 (4,801) 4,286 113,670 56,700 76,175 79,625 Sales Proceeds Gain/ Revaluation for Year (Loss) on Sale (2,180) (20,390) (2,258) (4,293) (2,881) Opening Market Value 72,180 70,700 90,956 71,040 77,002 107,220 80,687 75,339 9,936 70,000 111,638 70,566 117,174 117,603 119,005 116,748 70,000
Investment Current Holdings
Gilts 107,000 105,000 109,000 108,000 70,000 55,000 70,000
Treasury 9.75% Stock 2002
Treasury 5.5% 2008/12
Treasury 5.75% 2009
Treasury 5% 2012
Treasury 5% 2014
Other Fixed Interest
Aberforth Geared Cap & Int. Trust Corus Finance 6.75% 2008
SCHEDULE OF INVESTMENTS
53
HBOS 9.25% IRPF
HSBC Holdings 11.69% 2002
ICI Investments 7.625% 2007
Powergen 8.5% 2006
R B of Scotland 7.387% 2010/49 Managed Funds 20,000 57,000 27,600 110,100
Aberforth Smaller Co Trust plc
77,753 76,273
28,705 -
28,705 -
(52,300) (2,228) 4,595
57,800 75,525 80,868
Dunedin Income Growth Inv. Trust Murray International Trust
Closing No
Purchase Costs 76,331 32,498 2,006 3,920 32,943 18,330 3,180 32,082 11,432 13,531 14,713 13,680 11628 3629 (2,063) (9,122) (8,995) (26,069) (16,325) 6,684 (3,970) 38,237 (21,238) 2,177 (17,900) 1,454 111 (15,006) 547 (6,540) (5,778) 9,617 (9,649) 6,796 (5,409) (23,275) 37,747 34,675 34,106 34,397 18,441 34,503 32,629 38,970 32,450 49,956 (24,546) 79,730
Sales Proceeds
Closing Market Value
Scottish Mortgage & Trust 1,750 9,500 8,500 5,300 7,700 3,100 6,700 6,000 5,000 26,796 45,510 46,329 31,038 39,600 22,675 20,750 5,692 6,734 59,475 50,000 19,266 73,227 74,502
34,000
Opening Market Value -
Gain/ Revaluation for Year (Loss) on Sale 3,399
Smaller Companies IT ULS 2003
Equities
AstraZeneca
Aviva plc
Barclays
BP Amoco Ord. US$0.25
BPB Industries Ord. 50p
BT Group 25p
54
Cable & Wireless Comms. Ord. 50p Capita Group
Centrica
Christian Salvesen Ord. 28 1/8p
Diageo
Electrocomponents Ord. 10p
Firstgroup
Glaxo Smith Kline Ord. 25p
GUS
HBOS Stock 25p
HSBC Holdings Ord. US$ 0.50
Closing No
Purchase Costs 33,463 31,796 32,803 32,733 14,880 32,277 32,394 7,650 22,213 42,961 28,165 18,148 14,161 22,327 (34,543) (5,639) 7,65(6,130) (8,969) (16,100) (2,327) 1,053 (588) 15,434 (20,616) (18,128) (253) (1,020) (72) 1,093 (8,026) 1,093 2,422 2,422 (501) 37,849 32,962 47,260 32,550 31,713 14,808 33,370 20,737 33487
Sales Proceeds
Closing Market Value
IMI Ord. 25p 4,500 68,000 8,400 6,600 4,800 14,200 7,500 2,350 28,763 21,470 20,475 44,265 51,930 28,343 19,800 56,870 1,641 36,050 33,592 -
Opening Market Value 50,400
Gain/ Revaluation for Year (Loss) on Sale (12,551) -
Land Securities Group
Legal & General Group (Nil Paid)
Legal & General Group Ord. 2.5p Lloyds TSB Group Ord. 25p
MMO2
N Brown Group Ord. 10p
National Express
National Grid Transco
55
Pearson
Pillar Property
Pillar Property Inv. Ord.
Prudential
Rank Group
Reckitt Benckiser Ord.
Reed International Ord. 12.5p
Rio Tinto
Rotork Ord. 5p
Schedule of Investments
Royal Bank of Scotland Ord. 25p Sage Ord. 1p
11,980
(9,490)
Investment Current Holdings Purchase Costs 12,247 17,135 32,632 4,026 2,167 450 20,893 2,852 30,048 12,000 1,032,842 2,261,211 8,540 29,068 28,225 67,681 39,200 32,220 16,994 24,377 51,775 17,912 6,686 (1,084,534) 16,648 11,443 16,006 24,450 1,95(3,457) (2,207) (6,292) (15,226) (14,823) (15,906) (11,156) (1,854) (351,186) (3,101) (163,989) 25,124 1,732,239 19,147 (1,746) (3,976) (1,800) 1,714 (11,059) 1,9630,546 (3,454) 34,592 34,807 44,100 41,852 (6,973) 10,162 32,780 Sales Proceeds Closing Market Value
Closing No
Sainsbury (J) Ord. 25p 3,000 9,200 9,100 45,000 7,142 36,340 13,650 19,463 22,500 40,138 46,350 6,143 41,840 34,000 -
14,900
Opening Market Value 37,953 Gain/ Revaluation for Year (Loss) on Sale (17,420)
Scottish & Newcastle
Scottish & Southern Energy Ord. 50p Scottish Power
Shell Transport & Trading Org 25p Spirent
UK Balanced Property Trust
Unilever Ord. 1.4p
United Utilities
56
Viridian Ord. 25p
Vodaphone Group 5p
Whitbread Ord. 25p
Wilson Bowden Ord. 10p
Overseas Equities (Managed Funds)
Fleming American IT Ord. 25p
Fleming Japanese IT Ord. 25p
CFS Asia Pacific A Acc
CF Odey Euro Trust Accum
Investec European Fund ACC
Templeton Emerging Markets IT
Cash
56,658 (1,140,192)
TOTALS
PRIZE LECTURES
20th James Scott Prize Lecture Sir Michael Berry, FRS 9 December 2002 Making Light of Mathematics
Sir Michael Berry, Professor of Physics at the University of Bristol, was elected to the Royal Society in 1982, knighted in 1996 and holds numerous national and international awards, including seven honorary degrees. He is known not only for his pioneering work on phase but also as a communicator to specialists and the layperson alike. In addition, he has been awarded for his work in uniting science and art. The James Scott Prize Lecture is the result of a bequest by James Scott, a farmer at East Pittendreich, near Brechin, and is held every four years on the subject of fundamental concepts of natural philosophy. It should be noted that Sir Michaels talk was abundantly illustrated with photographs and computer graphics so the following report cannot summarise it fully. Physics and mathematics have evolved together and remain intimately connected; optics is a prime example of this relationship. This was illustrated by a series of presentations demonstrating the mathematics underlying everyday physical phenomena, many relating to light. Sir Michael demonstrated that 1+1 does not always make two. If two torch beams (messy light) are added, the resulting beam is twice as bright. However, if two beams of pure light are added the contributing waves add to give an
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additional property, phase. Phase is the property of any cyclic process and explains at what stage the oscillation exists (at any given moment), as in phases of the moon. The effect of phase means that the beams can, at particular stages, cancel each other out, giving 1+1 = 0. Sir Michael went on to define a caustic as a line of focused light and showed an image of interference fringes on the edge of a caustic. Such interference can be observed in a rainbow when all the water droplets have roughly the same size. This is caused by sunlight hitting a raindrop at a uniform angle, and emerging at a non-uniform angle, concentrated in a given direction, known as the rainbow angle. Inside the rainbow, for each particular angle there emerge two rays that enter
the rainbow at completely different heights. These two rays interfere to give an interference fringe: the supernumerary rainbow. Mathematically this is known as a 2:1 map because there are two possible angles of entry into the rainbow for every ray of light that emerges. This is not to be confused with the completely different phenomena of secondary rainbows, visible some distance from the primary rainbow. In contrast, the reflection of sun upon water, giving an intense sparkle of light, is a many-to-one map. The sparkle comprises many images of the sun arriving in one place (the eye) and the images occur at points where the water surface has exactly the right slope to reflect sunlight into the eye. The singularities of the map (the places where the images coalesce) occur on focused surfaces, just above the surface of the water and unseen by the eye. It is the rapid succession of these singularities that give the sparkling effect and if the eye is positioned close to the water surface, the individual images can be seen. The mathematics describing this phenomenon of natural focusing is catastrophe theory. Caustics are the envelopes formed by families of rays in the natural world. Sir Michael showed a series of images representing the planes formed by rays of varying
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family size, for example, folds and cusps. These lines of focused light are decorated with interference patterns. An example of a caustic (in water rather than light) is Kelvins ship-wave pattern, i.e. the V shape trailing behind everything from tankers to ducks, always having the same angle. Caustics display points of complete destructive interference, i.e. points of absolute blackness. Sir Michael explained that physicists use series when unable to make absolute calculations, and moved on to discuss the mathematics of infinite series. There is a famous paradox concerning the apparent impossibility of being able to walk two steps. In walking two steps one must first walk the first step and before completing the second step one must walk the first half of the second step. Before one walks the remaining half one must first walk half of that distance, and so on ad infinitum, never actually completing the second step. Mathematically this is a convergent series with a finite sum, and it took a long time to explain the apparent paradox: 1 + + + 1/ 8 +1/16 + 1/32 Stokes created an infinite divergent series to explain Airys rainbow integral, which concerns the transition from the bright side of a rainbow to its dark side. To get from the bright side to the dark side without going through
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the zero point (the caustic) involves one ray diverging into two. The series takes the form: 1+ 1/10 + 2/100 + 6/1000 + 24/ 10000 This appears to be the beginning of a convergent series, but after a while the contributions get bigger. Stokes understood that the point at which the contributions get bigger is associated with the transition from the bright side of a rainbow to the dark side. Sir Michael then examined the mathematics of zero. When a wave has zero intensity, its phase is indefinite and if phase were represented by colour, all colours would be represented at the zero point. If sound is represented by waves then the areas of silence at the points at which they interfere can be represented by strings. These strings can be intertwined in many ways, and knot theory explains their connections. Examples of the forms they take include being wound on a torus, and a trefoil threaded by a triple helix. Black (zero intensity) light can be represented similarly, as can waves that exist at a quantum level within an atom. In the latter case the string is a series of points representing the zero probability of finding an electron. As beams of energy (sound, light or electrons) are changed, so do the strings change, knotting and unknotting in spectacular fashion.
Sir Michael then examined the geometry of colour. He explained that colour cannot be solely regarded as a spectrum as the quantity of each individual frequency must also be known. Just three types of cone cells within the eye interpret this infinite number of frequencies. He described his interest in the colours of darkness. If one looks at a zero intensity point, i.e. absolute darkness, on an interference pattern, and magnify the intensity of the colour at these points, then one sees a characteristic pattern of colour, comprising shades of purple, black and white. Sir Michael proceeded with an examination of extreme interference. A normal interference pattern from a diffraction grating (described by Young in 1800) can be mathematically explained by Gauss sums. Extreme interference is a further aspect, producing patterns that depend very sensitively on the angle x. All the resulting patterns have a basic curlicue shape but have layers of individual intricacy overlaid. For many years these patterns were of interest only to number theorists but are now recognized by physicists as an optical microscope. Incredibly, the pattern for almost every x contains somewhere within it the pattern for almost every other x. Sir Michael continued with an exploration of fractals. They are
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infinitely wiggly curves, appearing infinitely intricate upon magnification and are represented by a dimension. A curve has a dimension of 1, whereas a very wiggly line has a dimension between 1 and 2, where 1 is smooth and 2 is completely filling area. With diffraction images if you look across a diffraction image you see a dimension of 1.5. However, if you look along the image you see a dimension of 7/4, and at certain diagonal lines the dimension is 5/ 4. Sir Michael argued that physics is full of analogies and an analogy of the optical diffraction grating phenomenon is found in quantum mechanics. In quantum optics the key is the distance from the grating. The corresponding variable in quantum mechanics is time. The wave equation describes the phenomenon in optics; in quantum mechanics it is Schrdingers equation. In the latter, the repetitions in the image produced by the grating become repetitions (revivals) in time of quantum waves. Quantum carpets are the paths woven by electrons following a fractional revival. Unlike sound waves, light waves travelling in a crystal oscillate from side to side. Such a matrix acting on a light source changes it however, if the original light is chosen carefully, the new light is the same as the original. Two
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waves that get out of step can be made to interfere using a black light sandwich, the bread of the sandwich being two sheets of Polaroid, and the filing a crystal between them. The pattern produced has a bullseye pattern. Sir Michael concluded with two quotations: James Clerk Maxwell, The dimmed outline of phenomenal things all merge into one another unless we put on the focusing glass of theory and screw it up first to one pitch of definition and then to another so as to see down into different depths, the great millstone of the world. Lennon and McCartney, The fool on the hill sees the sun going down but the eyes in his head see the world spinning round. Following the lecture there were questions from the audience. Sir Michael was asked how his lecture related to quantum cryptology. Sir Michael replied that the closest connection would be with number theory, which describes extreme interference. Asked which of his discoveries had given him the most satisfaction, Sir Michael replied that he had enjoyed making a small contribution to Stokess divergent series that occurs in Airys rainbow integral.
Prize Lectures
6th BP Prize Lecture Dr Colin Kidd FRSE Race and the Scottish Nation 1750 - 1900 13 January 2003
The President, Lord Sutherland of Houndwood, KT FBA PRSE, introduced the lecture by thanking BP for their support of this Prize Lecture, given, in a range of fields, to an academic under the age of forty. He described how Dr Kidd has firmly established himself as a Scottish historian focusing on 18th century Scotland within an international dimension, and has written the acclaimed titles, Subverting Scotlands Past and British Identities before Nationalism; Ethnicity and Nationhood in the Atlantic World 1600 1800. Lord Sutherland then invited Dr Colin Kidd to deliver his BP Prize Lecture entitled Race and the Scottish Nation 1750 1900. Before I start I would also like to thank BP and the RSE for their support, in particular the RSE staff for their Rolls Royce-like efficiency in organising this event. It occurred to me this afternoon as I was trying to work out exactly what I was trying to do that there are three things I would try to persuade you about. Since youre still awake I would like to get them in early. You seem to be a very fair-minded audience so I think I may be able to persuade you of one or two of these but I have my doubts about the third. The three points, as the title suggests, are contained within race and the Scottish Nation. The first point I would like to persuade you of is that race was absolutely central to Scottish identity in the 19th Century. In fact, more than that, it was something that was of
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much greater import than national identity, and led to considerable reshaping, indeed undermining, of national identity in the 19th Century. The second point I want to convey is that this concept of The Celtic Fringe (a term still used to describe those nations on the periphery of the British world Wales, Scotland and Ireland sharing a non-English identity with something Celtic about them) would be an anathema to 19th Century Scots, as it would be to the 19th Century English. So far I think you can be persuaded. On the third point I have no hope. It is that some, but not all, influential Scots and English commentators in the 19th Century thought that the Scots were English, more English than the English, and the English
agreed, at least, that the Scots of the lowlands were more English than the Englishmen. Not that the English werent English themselves, just that they were a little bit less English than the Scots. I think youll have some trouble with that notion! I would like to start by looking at a couple of Scottish national icons through racial eyes in the late 19th Century. I would like to start with Burns. Thomas Carlisle described Burns as a piece of the right Saxon stuff. No mention of Scotland there. John Halliburton, one of the most celebrated of 19th Century Scottish Historians described William Wallace as, the representative or champion of the Saxon or pure Norse inhabitants of Britain who have not yet been subjected to the southern yoke. Saxon or pure Norse; a potential contradiction. Teutonism means someone who speaks a Germanic tongue, and is used in the 19th Century to describe anyone who belongs to the Germanic or Teutonic race. This not only included the Anglo-Saxons (and a few of the Scots were AngloSaxons) but was also used of the Norse, as in the last quotation. And this view of Teutonism was a powerfully held, entrenched view in 19th Century Scotland. I will show this evening that the view was held right across the sciences, particularly in the medical profession and also in the arts by
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historians, archaeologists and literary people. One can find a broad based intelligentsia spreading out into the professions in 19th Century Scotland, of people who were obsessed with race and thought that the bulk of the Scottish population (i.e. the expanding lowlands) and some pockets elsewhere, were Teutonic people, belonging to a Teutonic race. And that race mattered much more than nationhood in the 19th Century. This was the new trendy view and had the purpose of subverting old views. Particularly its as if race science falsified the old science of nations, that nations were somehow false. Race embodied a new truth, previously hidden. Race was nature, nations were accidents, race was authenticity. If you wanted to understand the world around you, you wanted to understand race, not nation. For that reason nationhood took a back seat in discussions about 19th Century Scotland. I should mention how I came upon this topic. I first came across it about a decade ago when I was reading an American historian who was writing about the origins of racial Anglo-Saxonism and the transformation of English identity in the 19th Century. I was very persuaded by the argument, but who were the figures transforming English identity, racialising AngloSaxonism in the 19th Century? There was John Pinkerton, Scots
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literary scholar who wrote about the Picts; there was George Coombs, an Edinburgh phrenologist, and Thomas Carlisle. I thought it was very interesting how English identity was transformed by a group of people that the authors felt were English; but of course we knew better. I want to begin by disposing of the notion of the Celtic Fringe. As far as I can trace, the term Celtic Fringe actually emerges towards the end of the 19th Century. The first mention I can find is in a controversial speech given by Lord Salisbury in 1890 when he was in Lancashire opening a Conservative Club and he used the term Celtic edges. He said the Celtic edges of the British Isles were overrepresented in Parliament. What did Salisbury mean? We get a clue from his nephew Arthur Balfour who in the previous year, 1889, gave a speech in response to JP Clerks Home-Rule Bill and what Balfour said was that he denied that Scotland was in unity. He said, I venture to say that the Highlands of Scotland are more unlike the Lowlands of Scotland in every essential particular than the Lowlands are unlike the North of England. Linguistically, ethnologically (a 19th Century term for anthropology) in the character of the people, in the social addicts, in every essential moment I boldly state that the line of division is
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not the division between England and Scotland but some line to be drawn far north of that. It so happened that when Salisbury gave this speech it actually led to a flurry of press interest in the subject and one of the people who responded was a chap called Grant Allan, a journalist, evolutionist and ethnologist in the late 19th Century. He didnt like Salisburys idea but he agreed with him on the premise that the bulk of Scotland wasnt in this Celtic Fringe. He said that the Saxon Lowlands were not included in the fringe and even added (and here I might persuade you on my third point) that there were no thoroughgoing Englishmen now left in Britain save among the socalled Scotch of the Lowlands. I have looked at a number of Irish and English anthropologists writing about the Scots at this time; all concur about the Celtic Fringes but they arent thinking about the three Celtic nations; they are thinking about something much more marginal than that. They are not being sloppy, they are thinking very precisely about the Celtic-speaking regions of the British Isles. I have another quotation here from the Rev Isaac Taylor, author of the book, The Origin of the Aryans. The term Aryansreally refers to those people who spoke Indo-European languages, ranging through Sanskrit, the Celtic and Germanic languages and so on. It is a
philological term; some people were very careful where they used it (in a strict philological sense) whereas others used it to refer to physical characteristics. It is a term we have come to associate with Nazi Germany, with abuse based upon physical characteristics. But in the 19th Century they tended to be strict in the use of the term, certainly under the influence of the philologist Max Mueller. Isaac Taylor argued that the lowland Scotch were more Teutonic than the English. Teutonism is the key characteristic about what it is to be English. English is conflated with race and Taylor located various regions of the British Isles where he thought the Teutonic blood was least diluted; the Orkneys, the Lothians, Yorkshire, East Anglia and Ulster. I think a very similar lecture could be given about Ireland and race in the 19th Century, an area I touched on during my research and a wonderful topic waiting to be looked at. While I was looking at these anthropologists I also discovered that a number of them had carried out fieldwork in Scotland in the 19th Century. John Beddoe was an English anthropologist who spent some time in Edinburgh doing medical training as a houseman and he then went out and studied hair and eyes throughout the British Isles, but particularly in Scotland. He broke the races of Britain down, county by county, and calculated this
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using his Index of Nigrescence. I knew that I couldnt come to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, with all its mathematicians and scientists, without bringing at least one formula, something that looks a bit like an equation. Of course it is total nonsense. Nigrescence is not based upon skin colour but is somehow based on the assumption that the Celts are darker than the Teutons, and is based largely upon hair analysis. The interesting thing were finding here is that English anthropologists and English politicians did not look to Scotland and recognise a Celtic Fringe; by and large they saw Saxons. Beddoe saw plenty of Saxons in places such as the Lothians, East Coast, Far North, and so on, and we get this view that England saw Scotland not as a Celtic fringe but as full of sound Teutonic virile people full of the Saxon energies, etc. Now, how did all this come about? Where did all this start? The starting date I gave for this lecture was 1750. It is not a total red herring. I dont think its when the Scots began to be interested in race but I think its when you can detect the first glimmering of the term polygenesis. In 1748 David Hume wrote an essay on national character. In 1753 he inserted a footnote to that essay, a footnote that is now the most controversial part of Humes oeuvre, certainly if you read The
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Journal of the History of Ideas. People send in articles concerning nothing else. Hume mentioned Negro inferiority in that footnote and said that there were about four or five different races of men. This is the term polygenesis, meaning that mankind does not have one origin. In other words, different races have different beginnings. Back then it was controversial for very different reasons than today. Now it is controversial because it looks as if one of the prime (dead) white European males of the Western canon of philosophy was a racist, and thats why so much scholarly attention is now focused on this one footnote of Hume, which he amends slightly in his 1777 edition. The reason it was so controversial back then (and the reason why he dropped the bit about several races of men) was because of monogenesis. Monogeneis was orthodox doctrine and this where the whole subject of race links up with Christianity. Monogenesis is absolutely essential to the Christian doctrine because if we are not all descended from one Adam and Eve, from one racial origin, the whole theology of Christian redemption falls flat. Thats why I think Hume was a bit cagey and thats where I can trace the beginnings of just how race enters into Scottish social thought in 1774 in the work of Lord Kames, Sketches in the History of Man. Kames looks
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around the world and argues that the huge variation in bodily appearance meant that the humans came from more than one origin. He also found it hard to believe that the Americas and Australasia had been populated by Eurasia and Africa. He came to the conclusion that the evidence of the natural world around us suggested that there were different races, polygenesis, created in a set of multiple creations. Then came Kames (who had been in trouble before when up for Heresy in the 1750s), watching his back, and invoked his great deus ex machina. He wrote The Tower of Babel, and said that at the Tower of Babel it wasnt just the language of mankind that had been transformed but their bodily constitution. And so that explains everything, home and dry. People read Kames as he had intended it, i.e. he didnt mean the bit about the Tower of Babel. From 1774 onwards one can find a torrent of comment in Scotland directed against Kames theory about race. Ive been looking at Edinburgh and Glasgow medical theses at the time; they engage with race. Ive been looking at medical textbooks, apparently very dry books such as Dr W.P.Allisons Outlines of Human Physiology. As a non-medic I find them as dry as dust (!) but in the middle of it all you find Allison having a go
about monogenesis and polygenesis, having a go at Kames ideas. Ive been through the very interesting records of the (still student-run) Royal Medical Society, here in Edinburgh and discovered that from the mid1780s through to 1812, they had 13 different papers discussing Kames theories about race. This is absolutely fascinating, in particular their attempt to rebut Kames, discussing issues such as cases of albinos, black people with pale skins, and freckles, because paler skins tend to freckle in the skin (and might that not be an environmental explanation about how white people grew dark). In fact one of the papers at the Royal Medical Society discusses colour as a universal freckle. One of the people who gave a paper was Britains leading racial scientist of the 19th Century, James Coles Pritchard, a Bristolian who studied medicine at Edinburgh and worked out a way of rebutting Kames in a very controversial way. It wasnt heretical but he found a way of explaining how blackness was transformed into whiteness. It sounds good, except he ends up with a black Adam which poses a bit of a problem. Race science is a big deal in medical and scientific circles throughout the 19th Century. The pseudoscience of phrenology developed by the Edinburgh brothers George and Andrew
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Coombs contributes to a great interest in craniology, the science of the skull. This involves reading the skull in terms of the location of various mental characteristics and that was tied to the study of different crania of different racial groups. Phrenology was a very popular pseudoscience in 19th Century Britain and its heartland was in Scotland. The Edinburgh brothers were the main British interpreters of a pseudoscience that had developed in the German speaking world. Talking of which, the Scottish medical community was very receptive to developments in racial science on the continent and one finds reference to the Dutch scientist Petrud Kamper with his facial angle theory of the races. Also reference to J.F.Blumenbaat, the Gottingen anatomist who coined the term Caucasian, and also the Swedish craniologist Anders Retius. Retius came up with the cephalic index, a ratio of the maximum length and breadth of the cranium, whence we get these wonderful terms dolichocephalic or long headed peoples, particularly associated in the 19th Century with the Teutonic race and the brachycephalic (wide or round headed). This was another subject of tremendous importance in the 19th Century, followed not just by medics, but archaeologists also, looking for the real truth about peoples, coming from physical characteristics. This goes on right
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through the 19th Century but its not just those people on the pseudo-scientific fringes of the medical world. We are talking about very established figures such as Sir Arthur Keith who went on to be the conservator of the Royal College of Surgeons in London. He is now thought to be one of the main perpetrators of the Piltdown fraud in the 1910s. In the middle of the 1890s Keith came to the conclusion that the key to the races of Britain was the configuration of the ear. Between 1895 and 1897 he studied 15000 ears. He looked at the wider community, including prisoners and lunatics. Another key figure was Ebeneezer Duncan, the first physician of the Victoria Infirmary, and one of the founders of that hospital. He was also president of the Sanctuary Association of Scotland and a key figure in late 19th Century Scottish medicine. He was absolutely obsessed with race and studied the records of hat manufacturers from which he developed conclusive proof that the Scots were more dolichocephalic than the English. I have to say that Duncan was an open-minded man, and much as he praised the glories of the Teutonic race of Scotland he also saw a downside to this, These virile Teutons got drunk more than the Celts and had higher rates of illegitimacy, and I discovered that as well as being a leading medic he was also
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President of the Langside Union Association. Yet despite this he welcomed Irish immigration into Scotland because these Celts in certain respects might improve the morals of the virile Teutonic race of Scotland. But as I said its not just on the medical and scientific side that we see race in Scotland. Its also on the Arts side and the key figure here is John Pinkerton, who in the late 18th Century was a very keen proponent of the recovery of the mediaeval corpus of Scots literature; he was a great proponent of literature in the Scots tongue. Alongside that he was a notorious Celtiphobe; he despised everything to do with Celts and especially everything to do with Ossian. He came up with the notion that from time immemorial there were two main races in Europe; the Goths or Teutons (a super-race) and an inferior race of Celts. And what is most interesting about Pinkerton (and this is what is total nonsense in his work and is something that has survived throughout the 19th Century - I have found traces of it in 1916 in the work of somebody who was a celebrated biographer of Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun) is that he came up with the notion that the Picts, the aboriginal people of Scotland were not Celts (as I think we would believe them to be), but in fact were a Germanic or Teutonic people. His theory about the Picts was controversial but had some followers. It was
parodied by Walter Scott in The Antiquary but it was a view that was upheld by our own equivalent of Dr Johnson, the Rev John Jimmison. He produced an ethnological dictionary of the Scots language in 1808 and also held this view that the Picts were Teutonic and that Scots language had been spoken from time immemorial by the Picts in Scotland. History was also shaped by racialist ideas. Archaeologists such as Daniel Wilson included chapters on the cranial characteristics of the races of Scotland. In folklore, in the study of popular culture, theres David McRitchie who believed that the fairy folk, the little folk of Scotland, were in fact a non-Aryan race. He thought they were Picts (Pects) or Finns or Laps speaking a non IndoEuropean language. In other words the influence is everywhere, throughout the arts and sciences. Empire too helped to reinforce these ideas but I should just point out you could be a racialist and an anti-Imperialist. The famous Robert Knox, author of The Races of Men argued (as did George Coombs the phrenologist) that races belonged to particular continents, and it was against the laws of nature to go and conquer and colonise another continent. In other words you could be a racialist anti-imperialist. In fact it was quite easy to be progressive
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and racialist. We tend to associate racialism with the politics of the right, but in the 19th Century, racialism was as much on the left because remember that polygenesis is very daring and atheistic. Racialism is similarly progressive and trendy. British anthropology as a whole was predominantly monogenist but the French, having had a revolution of their own, were much more polygenist and plenty of French polygenist ideas came into Scotland. So weve looked at the causes of all this, what about the consequences? I think there are three. Two are quite well known. Firstly, weve got the Scots response to the Irish, and a number of scholars have written about this. Its obviously something that begins in the early/mid 19th Century and was certainly still present in Scotlands respectable circles as late as the 1920s and 30s. This is a hostility towards Irish Catholic immigration in Scotland that is not simply based on sectarianism but also because these people do not belong to a Teutonic race; they are weakening the Teutonic race. Even in official documents, such as the preface to the census in 1871, you find the Scottish registrar bandying about a lot of racial epithets about deterioration of the race in Scotland due to Irish immigration. Secondly, theres the attitude to the Highlanders. This is some-
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thing Tom Devine has looked at in his work on the Irish famine in the late 1840s and one of our former Glasgow PhD students, Christine Nephenuel, in her recent book, looks at the Press response to the 1840s famine. They have shown that many newspapers were less than sympathetic to the plight of the Celts because they took the racialist view that the Celts were an inferior race on the verge of extinction - so why bother helping out? Perhaps the most stark was The Sutherland and Fifeshire Journal which said that ethnologically the Celt is weaker than the Saxon and destined to disappear. And now for third consequence. It relates to my mission to persuade you this evening that the Scots saw themselves as English in the 19th Century. What we get is the view that the Scots nation was created as a Teutonic state. The historian Duncan Keith, writing in 1886, claimed the Celts of early Scotland were too decentralised to put together a state. Its only as Scotland becomes Teutonised that Scotland becomes a state. One can find similar sentiment in the work of historians such as Halliburton, who writes how Scotland and England were formed out of the general Saxon aggregate, as if it were an accident that the Northern and Southern Saxons were split up. I came across a wonderful 19th Century school textbook that went through many editions, by a
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lady called Margaret McArthur. I wondered if any of this racial stuff actually trickled down through the classrooms. I couldnt believe my eyes when I saw the material. Page one states how Scotland is composed of two branches of a great Aryan race. My goodness, there would be trouble if that were being taught today. She goes on to say the Saxons of the lowland outnumber the Celts of northern Scotland by more than three to one, despite the fact that the Teutons were called by the name of the Celtic people. She goes on to the War of Independence. This is a difficult point because if race is everything and nations dont matter, then the War of Independence is made to look like a civil war within the Saxon race family. What does she find? Edward I does his stuff for Scotland and what do the Celts of the North do? Nothing! She uses the word apathy to describe them. But the lowlanders, the descendants of the early Teutonic settlers, had remained more purely English in blood and speech than their Kinsfolk on the Southern side of the border. And she says that at the Battle of Bannockburn the Saxons of the lowland had decided their own fate and that of the Celtic people by whose name they were called and whose kingdom they chose to belong. In other words the War of Independence is all about the Teutonic race
and their mistake, and thats where William Burns is important. As far as I can see William Burns is the true Scottish Nationalist historian of the 19th Century. He produces a history of the War of Independence in 1874 in which he argues that if all this racialist nonsense takes hold, then Scottish history will come to mean nothing. Instead of being held as a noble tale of patriotism, the War of Independence should in strict logic be lamented as an unfortunate blunder or a specimen of wrong-headedness. He argued that if the racial theorists were correct then the history of our country ceases to have any meaning. As Robert Knox said, forget for a time the word nation. In other words nations are accidents, what really matters is race. So what Im driving at is that these theorists were so driven by race that they concluded that in effect nations were nonsense. Black was white, Scotland was England. Pinkerton, for example, claimed that two words had hitherto totally ruined our history; Scots and Scotland. Duncan Keith suggested in his history of Scotland that the name Scotland suggests an untruth. Ebeneezer Duncan claims that the names England and Scotland have no value ethnologically. Their view was that the two countries were indistinguishable. Furthermore, because England had had a
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Norman Conquest (and therefore had experienced significant immigration) Scotland, along with other places such as Northumberland, remained more purely racially Teutonic. I want to finish by looking at the period we think of as the crucible of modern Scottish history, the period when Nationalism took hold. You can see how race here provides a justification for Union, because it is not a union of opposites; Union is simply a corrective ending the accidental division of Scotland and England. As a result of Irish Home-Rule, the Scots begin to agitate for the same, and in 1886 the Scottish Home-Rule Association was formed. This is a tremendous period of creativity for Scottish constitutional thinking. I had always assumed (and here I must correct something I previously published) that there was logical connection between racialism and unionism. But believe it or not I have begun to find racialist homerulers saying that Scotland is England. For example W.Scott Dalgliesh, writing in the 1880s, a home-ruler writing in periodicals, argues for a restored Scottish Parliament so that Scotland can express her Teutonic virtues. He goes on to say that the Scots are more English than the English. There are others too, like Robert Cassie, who continues writing
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about home-rule right into the 1930s. G.B.Clarke, in the home-rule debate of 1889 that I mentioned, concluded by saying that homerule should in no way undermine the great Anglo-Saxon union. What I have also discovered is that in the 1880s there were a lot more ideas than simply homerule, e.g. constructive imperialism (imperial confederation). There were plans to do things with the Empire. The Empire has been acquired in a fit of absence of mind and we ought to rationalise its procedures, bring people in to play, think about how we should run the economics of the Empire. Here too a lot of Scots took the theme of home-rule all around and linked it in with the idea of imperial reform. We see an Imperial Federation League formed in 1884, and the famous Scot, Lord Rosebery, who of course thought of the Scots as an Imperial race, served as its President. What Ive discovered is that these themes of race, home-rule and imperial confederation all link up in myriad ways. The 1880s are not simply about home-rule and nationalism; what Ive discovered for example is the idea (alongside imperial confederation) of racial imperialism espoused by people such as Major Stuart Lythen Murray of the Gordon Highlanders. This seems pretty obscure. Slightly less obscure is the view of
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Andrew Carnegie, who believed that there were two great racial Teutonic superpowers in the world; the British Empire and the Americans. An accident (somewhere about 1776!) had separated them. When he bought Skibo Castle he ran up the flag of his racialist empire a compound flag of the Union Jack and Stars and Stripes sewn together. What he promoted was the idea of an Anglo-Saxon racial union and in that racial union (he was no friend of kings and queens) he envisaged Britain being drawn into something of a Republican grouping in which Scotland would enjoy a bit of home-rule. But Scotland would be a bit like a state within the United States of the Saxon world. And closer to home, and to finish off, I discovered another little charming racial fantasy in the Orkneys and Shetlands, known as the Udal League. This is a grouping (established in the same year as the Scottish Home-Rule Association, 1886,) set up to promote home-rule for Orkney and Shetland. Here, another variety of racialism existed: the Norse version of Teutonism, because the Norse too were part of the Teutonic race. In the 19th Century a number of figures in Scotland, led by Samuel Lane, the Orcadian who produced a famous edition of Snorrie Stulesons Heimsckreimler an Icelandic saga of the kings of Norway written in
Im not sure if I have persuaded you of any of the things I initially set out to persuade you of but I hope at the very least I have shown you that the 19th Century view of the English was not quite the familiar 20th Century view. That is, the notion that the English were some kind of ethnic order to which the Scots did not belong. Discussion What is the importance of anomalies in demarcating race language in differentiating simply by language. They do try, nations of the same racial origin? when talking about Aryanism, but the tendency I detect during In the 19th century they were the course of the century is to very aware that there were two move increasingly towards a main branches of ethnology; one more hard-line physicalist looking at physical characteristics interpretation of race. and another very different one looking at language. With the emergence of the Indo-European model many scholars try to bring the two together. However a number of them have this view that language is not the ultimate test because a language can be acquired. They have the problem of dealing with, for example, English-speaking black slaves in North America or Frenchspeaking Haitians. They find
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the 1840s, promoted the notion that the Saxons, far from being virile, were actually the softies of the Teutonic race. The real hard men were the Norse and the reason why they were even more energetic and libertarian and democratic than the other branches of the Teutonic race was because of their Udal law - the antithesis of feudalism - by which land was split up, i.e. there was repartable inheritance. It was in effect a peasant democracy. The Udal League was led by an Alfred Windall Johnson (who curiously led the Udal League from Welwyn Garden City). Most of these people were actually exiles and
they also established a Viking Club for Northern Research in London. The intention was to revive Norse institutions such as Herad, Lawting and Althing (courts and parliaments) where Udal democratic representation would at last free Orkney and Shetland from corrupt feudalism.
Is it possible that the Scots determination to be more English than the English may have been an attempt to be at the forefront of the British Empire? I think this feeling of the Scots stems more from an understanding of the history of the peopling of the British Isles and the view that the Jutes, Saxons and Fresians were populating the south-eastern part of Britain
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whereas places like Northumbria and the Lothians were more purely Anglian. Why did Scots dress up in tartan and pretend to be Celts during the 19th century? Although I think the trend I have discussed was the dominant one during the 19th century, I dont think its exclusive. The cult of tartan is certainly another. I think whats significant is that there were Scots, who were otherwise Lowlanders, espousing racialist nonsense at the weekend, dressing up in tartan kilts or whatever. I dont see tartanry as anything other than cultural. It doesnt have the same political significance as this racialist ideology has. The racialist ideology provides an alternative meta-narratrive for the story of Scotland or Britain. It provides another way (to borrow Benedict Andersons phrase, of imagining community). I should also add that race works in different ways. One thing I havent mentioned in this talk is the way that Aryanism, in the pure philological sense (remember the Nazis are wrong in thinking that Aryanism was simply about the Germanic Nordic people of Europe). Aryanism was as much about the Celts, those people who speak Indo-European languages. The likes of John Stuart Blackie and other figures who supported
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Highland causes and who promoted the Celtic Chair, used Aryanism to promote Celtic, so that race wasnt working in a straightforward way there are other by-ways of this phenomenon that havent received as much attention. Would Dr Kidd like to turn his attention to the 20th century, particularly to two characters. Firstly, Sir James Ramsay, Laird of Banff and Regius Professor at Christchurch, Oxford, who wrote the history of the Middle Ages and was convinced that his family and tenantry were purely Teutonic. Secondly, Charles ODonnel, whose notion was that the major British stock in Britain was Celtic, not Teutonic.? Its very interesting that you raise this problem of inversion. Although the dominant school in English anthropology in the19th century was the Saxonist Teutonist one, there was another school developed in the 1860s by Luke Owen Pike which argued that the people of England were Celtic because they so outnumbered any subsequent invasion of Saxon, Norman and Danish migration. I didnt mention this because it doesnt quite invalidate my argument about a Celtic Fringe. Theres no Celtic Fringe because everybody is Celtic in that view of the world!
62nd Neill Medal Prize Lecture Professor Philip Corbet FRSE Dragonflies: Behaviour and Ecology of Odonata 3 February 2003
The Neill Medal was introduced in 1851. It is awarded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh approximately triennially, for a work or publication by a Scottish naturalist on some branch of natural history, completed or published during the last five years. Professor Philip Corbet has an honorary chair from Edinburgh University and is Emeritus Professor of Zoology at Dundee University. He has made truly significant contributions to zoology and human ecology. His book, Dragonflies: Behaviour and Ecology of Odonata is a classic. Sir David, Fellows, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am delighted, and honoured, to be able to deliver the Neill Medal Prize Lecture, and also to be able to devote it to my favourite subject: the natural history of dragonflies. From an early age I have been fascinated by dragonflies, and for most of my life I have derived intense pleasure from collecting and collating facts about their biology. Before launching into my favourite subject, I am glad to acknowledge help I have received, related to this lecture, from various sources: from friends and colleagues who have allowed me to use their illustrations, and from my friends Professor Aubrey Manning and Professor David Saunders, whose advocacy and support enabled me to spend eight years as an Honorary member of the Department of Zoology, later the Institute of Cell, Animal and
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Population Biology, in the University of Edinburgh, where I wrote the book on which this lecture is based. This lecture will focus on the natural history of dragonflies, but its existence is due to the Neill Medal, two aspects of which deserve brief mention by way of introduction: first, the Medal and its founder, Patrick Neill; and second, the discipline of natural history. The Neill Medal was awarded to me for a book, from which the title of this lecture derives. Patrick Neill was a distinguished citizen of Edinburgh. Born in 1776, seven years before this Societys establishment, he was one of its early Fellows. He headed a large printing firm in Edinburgh, Neill & Company, but from an early age devoted much of his time to natural history,
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especially botany and horticulture. For many years he was Secretary of the Caledonian Horticultural Society and of the Wernerian Natural History Society, where he would have met Charles Darwin as a visiting speaker. Patrick Neills interests included social reform, mineralogy, pteridology (the study of ferns), and especially horticulture, for which he endowed a second medal. His most evident legacy to the city of Edinburgh is to be seen in the West Princes Street Gardens, where about 77,000 shrubs were planted under his direction after the Nor Loch had been drained. He authored the article on Gardening in the 7th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, a publication that was still in its infancy during his lifetime. He died at Canonmills in 1851, only 8 years before the publication of Darwins Origin of Species. His tombstone in the cemetery in Warriston records that he was distinguished for literature, patriotism, benevolence and piety. I hope that this lecture will do justice to his memory, and to his munificence. I hope also that, after this lecture, you will realise that there is more to dragonflies than meets the eye. Now for some reflections on natural history. Much could be said about the development of natural history, as a science, since the time of the immortal Aristotle, but this
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evening I shall confine my remarks to emphasising two points: first, that natural history is an inclusive subject, intimately linked to observation of the natural world, and second, that it is a foundation subject, from which many other disciplines have sprung, and the practitioners of which include such luminaries as John Ray, Carolus Linnaeus, James Hutton and Charles Darwin. A useful, contemporary definition of natural history could be, The experience of the natural world through cataloguing the diversity of life and the day-to-day activities of living things. Or perhaps that ventured by the late Frank Fraser Darling, A delight in knowing how nature works and a love of beauty which may or may not be conscious. The standing of natural history as a foundation discipline was well expressed by the distinguished North American entomologist, William Morton Wheeler, when he wrote in 1923, History shows that, throughout the centuries, from Aristotle to Pliny to the present day, natural history constitutes the perennial rootstock or stolen of biological science and that it retains this characteristic because it satisfies some of our most fundamental and vital interests in organisms, as living individuals more or less like ourselves.
In the abstract prepared for this lecture, I likened the process of describing the behaviour and ecology of a single order of insects to assembling the tesserae of a mosaic, or the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, in order to construct a comprehensive picture of the natural history of one insect order, the Odonata, or dragonflies. This evening I shall be describing a few pieces of the mosaic that portray the behaviour and ecology of dragonflies. Some of these pieces have been obtained from planned observation and experiment, in the field or the laboratory, whereas others have come as windfalls, the significance of which has been evident only to the prepared mind. I shall mention examples of both. Likewise, some of the pieces derive from my own work, and some from the work of others. Dragonflies are the largest living insects, that is those with the greatest linear dimensions. Some living species have a wingspan of about 19 cm, and a body length only slightly less. In the past they have been much larger: some of the earliest fossil dragonflies had a wingspan of 68cm. The late Jacquetta Hawkes wrote hauntingly of these early giants in her book, A Land, Over the streams and pools, through the oppressive greenish light, with a clittering of glassy wings, twisted gigantic
dragonflies, the largest insects the earth will ever know. Here is the sort of evidence on which dragonfly history is based: the imprint of an anisopteran that lived about 140 million years ago, in what is now Bavaria. Ever since they first appeared on earth, indeed for more than 300 million years, dragonflies have retained their characteristic appearance, which probably means that they have always followed much the same lifestyle as they do today. The order Odonata, or dragonflies, contains two suborders, representatives of which are closely similar in structure but easily recognisable as distinct. These are the Anisoptera (meaning unequal wings) and Zygoptera (meaning similar wings). The larvae of the two suborders, like the adults, are robust in the Anisoptera and slender in the Zygoptera. The Zygoptera, which are usually smaller and more delicate, are sometimes called damselflies, but such terminology leaves one unsure of the meaning of the other word dragonfly which under such usage could mean either the order Odonata or the suborder Anisoptera. To allow the same word to have two different meanings would have made Linnaeus turn in his grave, being contrary to all the principles of
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biological nomenclature. So this evening I shall use the term dragonflies to mean members of the order Odonata and the terms Anisoptera and Zygoptera to denote members of the two suborders respectively. Before describing some of the ways that dragonflies have developed systems for survival, I should describe the life cycle that is common to all members of the order. The winged adult spends most of its life near ponds and rivers in which the eggs are laid, and in which the growth stages, or larvae, develop. The larvae, which are aquatic, vary widely in shape and size. The greatest evolution in body shape and behaviour has taken place in the larval stage, reflecting adaptations to concealment and respiration in the aquatic environment. Being insects, dragonfly larvae have an external skeleton and so must grow by shedding the skin, or moulting, a process that can occur many times during the life of an individual. The larva, like the adult, is exclusively carnivorous. When it has completed its growth, a process that may take up to 4 years, it must leave the water to disclose the winged adult. This event is termed emergence. By day or by night it can produce a spectacle of arresting beauty, especially if it is synchronised. After emergence, the adult flies away from the water, leaving
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behind it in marginal vegetation the cast larval skin. The young adult spends the first week or so of its life away from water, feeding, and becoming sexually mature. Then, when it is mature, it seeks a body of water that thereafter typically provides the rendezvous where the sexes meet and mate. As in many birds, the male dragonfly is often territorial, defending part of the margin of a pond or stream. This behaviour can improve his chances of mating, and therefore of becoming a parent. I shall now describe three biological functions which dragonflies perform conspicuously well and which enable them to survive and compete, both within a generation and between generations. 1.Foraging behaviour in the larva and adult 2.Migration, and 3.Reproductive behaviour The first of these biological functions is foraging, or prey acquisition. This behaviour reveals extraordinary plasticity in what many regard as primitive, generalised insects. Foraging is the means by which an animal maintains a positive energy balance, that is a balance whereby energy income equals or exceeds energy expenditure. Foraging is conducted in two very different environments: by the larva under
water, and by the adult in the air. For the larva, energy income derives from the prey that is captured and consumed; whereas energy expenditure comprises maintenance and growth, and activities such as changing position, avoiding predators, aggressive display and securing prey. For the adult, energy income derives from the prey that is captured and consumed; whereas energy expenditure comprises that needed for maintenance, maturation of the gonads, reproductive activity (including territorial defence, copulation and egglaying) and of course prey acquisition. Both larva and adult have to budget their time with finesse to ensure that energy expenditure does not exceed energy income. In describing how larvae and adults meet this challenge, I shall focus particularly on how they detect and secure prey efficiently. The dragonfly larva possesses a unique structure, the labium, specialised for catching prey from an ambush position. Positioned folded beneath the head, it comprises fused mouthparts and can be extended, almost instantaneously, using hydraulic pressure, to catch prey. The hydraulic pressure is generated by a transverse muscular diaphragm in the abdomen. In Anisoptera this diaphragm also serves to generate a respiratory current through the
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rectum and to power an emergency form of locomotion by jet propulsion. Obviously the diaphragm can only generate pressure in one direction at a time. So when the labium is being extended at the front end, the diaphragms functions at the rear end have to be suspended. For all dragonfly larvae ambush is the default foraging mode, and larvae devote time and effort to finding a profitable perch or a camouflaged position from which to hunt in this way. Only when a larva runs short of food at its ambush site will it walk or swim away in search of prey. There are of course costs attached to moving away: the energy cost of moving, and the cost to survival of increased exposure to other predators, such as fish. However, for most of the time, the ambush mode suffices. The ambush mode is a very energy-efficient mode of foraging and has been exploited successfully by other animals such as leopards, spiders and ant-lions. In the ambush mode, the dragonfly larva lurks, cryptic and immobile, until prey comes within range of the labium, which is then abruptly extended. This mechanism is unique to dragonfly larvae. While at rest the labium lies folded beneath the head, held there by a locking device. When prey approaches within range, a moment detected by stereoscopic fixation by the compound eyes,
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the locking device is released and blood pressure extends the labium to its full length. Extension of the labium involves a very rapid movement taking less than 25 milliseconds because it makes use of the latent energy accumulated while the labium was locked in position before the strike. After extension, the terminal hooks on the labium grasp the prey. Then the labium is drawn back beneath the head, bringing the prey close to the other mouthparts whereupon it is masticated and consumed. Prey capture usually occurs during daylight, but sometimes also at night, when tactile or olfactory cues are used for prey detection instead of the more usual visual cues. For such primitive, generalised animals, dragonfly larvae show great flexibility in their predatory behaviour, exhibiting a refined blend of innate and learnt behaviour. For example a larva will sometimes stalk immobile prey, such as a snail, using form perception (rather than movement) to recognise it, and then adopt a sequence for capturing and handling the prey which is tailored to each kind of prey. So a snail and a caddisfly larva will be stalked and handled differently. Such behaviour is not learned, but is innate. Also, dragonfly larvae can modify the predatory sequence, to reflect their experience. For instance, they soon learn to
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avoid organisms with impervious or distasteful bodies. Likewise, when employing the ambush mode of hunting, larvae choose their perches in relation to prey abundance and to immunity from their own predators, such as fish, and sometimes they may be obliged to defend these perches against occupation by other usurping dragonfly larvae. This they do by employing ritual confrontational behaviour which includes a repertoire of aggressive actions, ranging from staring at the opponent, sometimes for as long as 45 minutes, at one extreme (staring is also employed by gorillas and humans), to attacking it with the labium at the other. Besides the ambush mode and stalking, there is yet another, extraordinary, option available to some anisopteran larvae. By using the jet-propulsion facility, a larva can maintain itself, head uppermost, just beneath the water surface where some kinds of aquatic invertebrates, such as planktonic Crustacea and mosquito larvae, habitually congregate. Such behaviour gives the dragonfly larva access to prey that would otherwise be unavailable, unless a suitable foraging perch happened to be present just beneath the water surface. A larva foraging in this way presents a bizarre appearance, seeming to bounce up and down in the open water
without any visible means of support. And since they cannot use the diaphragm for swimming and prey capture simultaneously, such larvae must have to time their actions with precision. The adult dragonfly generally forages by catching other insects in midair, using its superior powers of visual acuity (primarily movement detection) residing in the upper facets of the compound eye (as a proportion of body volume the eyes in dragonflies occupy more space than in any other animal). They also use aerial manoeuvrability to do so. This is known as the midair foraging mode. Midair foraging can be practised in either of two ways: an adult may remain in flight, feeding the while, or it may make repeated sallies from a perch, to intercept prey that comes within range. Then, after each sally, it returns to the perch to consume the prey. Less often, an adult uses an ability to perceive form (rather than movement) to capture sessile prey, such as aphids or caterpillars, from a stationary surface. It swoops down to the surface and snatches the prey with its legs, much as a kestrel might capture a field vole. This is called the gleaning mode. Almost all adult dragonflies are generalised predators, exploiting almost any kind of prey that is sufficiently numerous and not too large to handle. Because they are
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so opportunistic, they are seldom likely to suppress one kind of prey enough to be attractive as biological-control agents (for example to suppress adult mosquitoes) or harmful as predators of beneficial insects, with one memorable exception. In southern Florida, apiarists (or bee-keepers) fear the largest Anisoptera which have the troublesome habit of assembling outside the hives of honey bees and picking off the worker bees, one by one, as they enter or leave the hive. The local beekeepers call these dragonflies bee-butchers and no doubt other names as well, and they do not underestimate the damage that the dragonflies can cause. It has been calculated that a hive of 50,000 worker bees could be exterminated in 20 days by 500 dragonflies or in 10 days by 1,000 dragonflies. Such densities of dragonflies are not at all unrealistic, especially as the adults of several species assemble from a wide area to forage at bee yards. Evidently the word soon gets around. As prey, hive bees present a special case because they are concentrated in space and time. Normally the challenge that the foraging dragonfly faces is to avoid any semblance of random search, a strategy that would almost certainly yield insufficient return for the energy expended in
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midair foraging. And so it happens that dragonflies have adopted an impressive range of alternative strategies for locating and exploiting concentrations of prey. These strategies, which conform to what has become known as optimal foraging theory, are surprisingly diverse; and once again one can marvel at the plasticity of behaviour they reveal. The first major strategy entails foraging where prey is concentrated in space and time, as in the example of the beehives I have just mentioned. Using this strategy under more natural conditions, dragonflies often exploit swarms of small flies or flying ants or termites, soon learning to be at the right place at the right time of day. Or they may assemble where prey has already been attracted to a point stimulus, such as a street light or a pile of fermenting fruit, sometimes taking up their positions before the prey arrives, thus exhibiting an appreciation for time of day. Localised thermals, or pockets of rising hot air, can also serve to concentrate small insects, and dragonflies exploit this situation also, flying into a thermal for a brief snack while foraging nearby. Other microclimatic features that dragonflies use for foraging are lee sites, and sunflecks on the forest floor, both of which provide assembly points for small insects. On a larger, physical scale, a gap
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or clearing in forest can be used in a similar manner. A second kind of strategy involves increasing capture success. Some dragonflies achieve this by facing west when foraging during evening twilight, so that prey appears in silhouette against the setting sun, or by facing into the wind so that prey is continuously brought towards them. A third kind of strategy is to take prey by surprise, a tactic used by a dragonfly hunting from a perch, when it makes a sudden, darting sally towards an insect passing nearby (essentially adopting an ambush mode). Perhaps the most remarkable strategy is that adopted by a few species that forage over open grassland in the Tropics. In such an environment, characterised by extreme dryness, small insects spend the heat of the day sheltering at the base of the herb layer where they are unavailable to flying predators like dragonflies. A few species of dragonflies there have taken a leaf out of the book of birds such as cattle egrets and swallows and assemble close to herds of ungulates walking slowly through the grass. The ungulates disturb the insects close to the ground, forcing them to fly up, whereupon they become accessible to the dragonflies. Interestingly, experiments have shown that such dragonflies are not assembling in response to the prey itself but in
response to an indirect (token) stimulus, namely the presence of large, slowly moving objects that they can readily detect from a distance. So a steamroller will elicit the same response, even if travelling over a tarmac surface from which no small insects can be flushed. If one looks closely at films of big game animals in grassland, which are frequently shown on television nowadays, one can often detect swarms of dragonflies assembling around them over the grass. Other species of dragonflies will themselves flush sessile prey in order to make it accessible. For example, an adult will sometimes hover close to vegetation in which small midges are sheltering, or even brush the vegetation with its wings, so forcing the midges to fly; or, on the African plains, an adult may buzz a settled locust hopper and then catch it when it leaps up. I have still not described all the possible strategies for improving foraging efficiency. There is one more. Some dragonflies concentrate on exceptionally large prey, such as butterflies, cicadas or other dragonflies. This gives the dragonfly a good return for the energy expended on prey capture. I hope I have said enough to show that foraging dragonflies, as generalised predators, have a rich array of options to choose from when trying to achieve a positive energy balance. I find it a stirring
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thought that, each day of its life, an adult dragonfly must repeatedly choose how it will spend its precious time and energy, striking a balance between the acquisition of energy, by foraging, and the expenditure of energy, of course through foraging, but more importantly through reproductive activity, which is the raison dtre of its existence. Each day will present a different set of possibilities, each demanding a decision, depending on the weather, the availability of prey and its hunger level. I mentioned that most dragonflies are generalised foragers. A few, however, are specialised foragers. They present a fascinating exception to the general rule and, in my view, support the maxim that truth is stranger than fiction. The only unequivocal specialists all belong to one family of Zygoptera, the Pseudostigmatidae, which is found only in the rainforests of Central America where they breed in the water that accumulates in tree holes, commonly found at the edge of forest clearings. The adults are among the largest and most handsome of dragonflies, having a body length of about 12cm. They prey only on web-building spiders in sunlit gaps in forest. By adopting this life style, they can combine foraging with reproductive activity in warm, productive pockets in otherwise cool, energetically
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inhospitable surroundings. Their foraging mode, which is of course a kind of gleaning (plucking spiders from their webs), probably makes specialisation possible for several reasons: first, the rich biomass found in forest clearings has already been harvested by a spider and sequestered within its fairly large body, giving the predator of the spider a large reward per unit of prey, despite the loss that results from energy conversion from one stage in the food chain to another; second, the dragonflies are probably farming their spider prey because in that habitat spiders tend to occupy vacant webs promptly. Thus, by learning the location of webs, and removing the spider in each, a dragonfly can be virtually assured of a continuing source of food. It follows that these pseudostigmatids are creaming an ecosystem in which net production is low, at the cost of their complete dependence on one kind of prey in a localised habitat in the forest. To encounter such an elaborate case of specialisation in an insect order consisting largely of generalised foragers leaves one in awe of the surprises that natural history can come up with. The aspects of dragonfly biology that I have described so far represent areas that can be investigated by planned observation and experiment. There are
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others, no less important or exciting, that can only be revealed by chance, when an observer with suitable background knowledge finds himself, or herself, by good fortune alone, in the right place at the right time. Some might call such an event pure luck. But, as the celebrated polar explorer, Raould Amundsen once remarked, Luck comes to the prepared mind. The incident I am about to describe represents an example of this kind of good fortune. It relates to the elusive phenomenon of dragonfly migration. Dragonflies that breed in temporary pools in seasonal-rainfall areas of the Tropics arrive promptly, often in large aggregations, in places where rain is falling. Their larvae then develop very rapidly in the rainwater pools that appear, usually completing development before the pools become dry. Then the newly-emerged adults disappear, to reappear somewhere else as the rain arrives there. For many years nothing was known about how these dragonflies accomplished their migrations because information about them came only from snapshots at the times of their appearance and disappearance. However, in the 1960s it was noticed that their pattern of behaviour and ecology closely resembled that of the migratory locust, the migration of which had recently been elucidat-
ed by some brilliant observations by Professor Reginald Rainey, working in a seasonal-rainfall area in Kenya. Rainey was employed as an entomologist by the Antilocust Research Organisation but his spare-time hobby was gliding and, during the latter pursuit, he acquired a direct and intimate knowledge of small-scale weather systems. He noticed that the appearance of locust swarms coincided with the arrival of the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). This is a belt of converging trade winds and rising air that encircles the world in the Tropics. The rising air produces heavy rain on either side of the belt, which moves north and south according to the seasonal position of the earth in relation to the sun. The convergence associated with this kind of weather front concentrates insects (up to 60x fold) from a large catchment area, as a cold front passes. A climate subject to the ITCZ typically features two rainy seasons each year close to the equator, and one rainy season each year, at the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. Rainey observed, sometimes from his vantage point in a glider, that when ready to migrate, locusts are aggregated by convergent winds whereupon they allow themselves to be lifted by thermals and then to be transported by rain-bearing winds (of the ITCZ) at considerable heights, and often over long distances. During their journey,
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each evening the thermals that kept them aloft during the day subside, as the ground becomes cooler, and the locusts descend to the ground where they remain overnight. Then they either remain to breed, if rain is falling, or they catch the next mornings thermal and continue on their way. This pattern of behaviour was discovered and confirmed by Rainey in the early 1950s. I hypothesised that certain dragonflies in seasonal-rainfall areas were using the same transport system but for many years I lacked confirmation of this. It had been noticed that large numbers of adults appeared at the onset of the rainy season and disappeared when the rains were over but they were never observed in transit. However, by analogy with locusts, dragonfly-watchers knew approximately what to expect. And then, one evening in 1962, almost exactly on the equator in Uganda, near the north shore of Lake Victoria, I witnessed the whole sequence of an evening descent, overnight roosting and a morning ascent of a large migration of dragonflies belonging to species that typically occupy temporary pools. I witnessed the descent only because at the time, about 45 minutes before sunset, I happened to be looking directly upward through binoculars, straining to keep a high-flying hawk in view. While so occupied, I became aware of small flying
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objects entering my field of view, mere specks, also high up in the sky. The specks became progressively larger until I could make out that they were dragonflies which were descending steadily from a height of at least several hundred metres, seeming to darken the sky as they did so. Because I had been watching the hawk, I could be sure that the dragonflies were indeed descending from a great height. The descending dragonflies levelled out at about 2-7 m above the ground, keeping to one direction and then, as the sun set, they chose their overnight roosting sites, the bare tips of tree branches a few metres above the ground on western faces warmed by the setting sun. There was an audible jostling as late arrivals tried to alight on perches that were already occupied. Then, as darkness fell, I left my observation post for the night, returning to it before sunrise the next morning. As the sky illumination gradually increased during morning twilight, the dragonflies on their perches briefly fluttered their wings, presumably to warm the flight muscles (because, facing west, they were now in shadow) and then one or two, then several, and then a tremendous wave of them took to flight. They departed en masse, flying steadily higher until lost to sight, maintaining the same direction in which they had been flying the previous evening. Knowing the pattern of locust
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migratory behaviour, I found it plausible to interpret this event as a migration of dragonflies making an overnight stop while travelling with the ITCZ. The observation was additionally informative because I was able to determine the species involved, and also to ascertain their state of sexual maturity and confirm that they had been feeding during the last 24 hours (one may suppose on small flying insects that were using the same means of transport). Many anecdotal records exist of large numbers of dragonflies suddenly appearing in a locality and then disappearing abruptly, but apart from the incident I have described none has noted their descent or ascent. My good fortune, in being able to witness the arrival and departure, depended entirely on the fact that I was watching a high-flying bird through binoculars at the time; and, because I already knew the pattern of locust migration, I was able to put my observation in context and complete part of the mosaic relating to the migration of tropical dragonflies. One of the several remarkable things about dragonflies, indeed a feature that is unique among insects, is their manner of copulation. Almost all other insects have the external genitalia of the male only at the tip of the abdomen, but not so dragonflies. The external genitalia of the male dragonfly, including the intromit-
tent organ or penis, lie underneath the abdomen and at the front. After grasping a female behind her head with the claspers at the end of his abdomen, but before copulating, the male transfers a packet of sperm to these external genitalia by bending the tip of his abdomen forward and upward, until the tip (which contains his genital orifice) engages with his external genitalia, where the sperm can be temporarily accommodated. Next, if the female is willing to mate, she bends her abdomen forwards and upwards so that the tip (which contains her genital orifice) engages with the males external genitalia. This action forms what is termed the copulation wheel, in which insemination takes place. As I shall shortly explain, remarkable things happen at this time. One of the strongest evolutionary imperatives that any species faces is the need to ensure that its genes are transmitted to the next generation, and preferably also to subsequent generations. This process entails strategies which pit male against male, and often male against female and which constitute the raw material of sexual selection. About 25 years ago a discovery was made about the mechanism of copulation in dragonflies that had a lasting impact on the science of biology as a whole. Not only did it provide the Rosetta Stone for
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understanding the unusual mating posture of dragonflies, but it also enlarged current perspectives of sexual selection throughout the animal kingdom. I refer to the phenomenon known as sperm competition which in dragonflies, as was later found in the Dunnock or Hedge Sparrow, takes the form of sperm displacement. By means of an elegant experiment, an investigator in North America demonstrated that, during copulation, the male dragonfly employs his penis for two quite different purposes. It was already well known that the female dragonfly mates several times during her life. So, when a male copulates with a female, she may already have the sperm of rival males in her sperm-storage organs, or spermathecae. It is obviously in the males interests to try to ensure that, when his copulation partner lays eggs, which she usually does soon after mating, he alone is the parent of those eggs. So, somehow, he must ensure that the female gives his own sperm precedence over that of rivals already in her body when she fertilises her next batch of eggs. In all dragonflies so far investigated, copulation begins with the male using his penis to remove or displace rivals sperm in the females spermathecae. In species that remove sperm, the tip of the penis is often furnished with minute, recurved spines or scales, discernible using the
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scanning electron microscope, and positioned so that they can draw sperm out of the spermathecae. In other species, in which the sperm of rivals is displaced, by being pushed into recesses where it will only be used later, the head of the penis resembles a club or pestle. It had long been observed that, immediately after completing copulation, some males remained close to females, sometimes nudging them towards the egglaying site. The significance of this behaviour now becomes evident. Within 24 hours after a copulation the sperm in a females body becomes thoroughly mixed, so that the sperm received last ceases to enjoy priority when she fertilises her eggs. So it is clearly in a males interest to make sure that his copulation partner lays eggs as soon as possible after mating is completed. The female also can exercise choice in this running contest between the sexes. She has several strategies available. She can choose which male to mate with, by selecting a territory that is being defended; she can choose whether or not to
copulate; and she can choose whether or not to lay eggs promptly after copulating. The discovery of sperm displacement in dragonflies was made by a brilliantly designed experiment in 1979. So it happened that the biological function of the unique copulatory posture of dragonflies, first described by the great Dutch naturalist, Jan Swammerdam, in 1669, remained an enigma for more than three centuries until the accumulated observations of naturalists provided the raw material needed to generate the hypothesis of sperm displacement. This evening I have described several parts of the mosaic that represents current knowledge of the natural history of dragonflies. Many more pieces of the mosaic remain to be put in place, but the picture we already have is colourful and rich because of the careful and sometimes inspired contributions of our predecessors. In the words of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: The dwarf sees farther than the giant, when he has the giants shoulder to mount on.
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Discussion Given the narrow margin between sourcing food and survival,how profligate was reproductive behaviour? There is a huge wastage and the percentage survival from one generation to the next is less than 1%. Female dragonflies can lay up to 5000 eggs, the minimum being 300. How have dragonflies managed to survive 300 million years when many contemporary species did not? Professor Corbet replied that, notwithstanding his bias, dragonflies must have immense ability to adapt to changes in the ecosystem and prey availability. Nowadays the main food source of dragonflies (especially those using the mid-air foraging mode) is small diptera which didnt exist until half way through the history of dragonflies. It isnt clear what they fed on previously. It is possible that the balance between mid air foraging and gleaning was different at other times. Have there been any successful attempts to reintroduce dragonflies in areas where they have become extinct? Professor Corbet did not know of any such attempts. One species has become extinct in Britain in the last 50 years but no attempt has been made to
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reintroduce it. However there have been successful attempts to increase the range of dragonflies but only where detailed studies of habitat requirements have been performed in advance. What impact might climate change have upon dragonfly distribution and behaviour? Professor Corbet replied that studies in Europe and Japan have shown significant changes in dragonfly distribution in the last ten years. It is tempting to explain this as local/global warming. How do adults catch prey in flight? Professor Corbet explained that dragonflies catch prey using their mandibles directly and also using their legs. In one remarkable species the legs interlock and act as a sweep net to catch prey. Are there many new species of dragonfly remaining to be described and also what species is Professor Corbets favourite dragonfly? There are about 5500 described species of dragonfly (including Anisoptera and Zygoptera). Species diversity is greatest near the equator and new species are being described at the rate of several dozen per year. His favourite dragonfly is the Emperor, the species that he studied for his PhD.
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CRF Prize Lecture Professor Richard Holmes Royal Military College of Science, Cranfield University 26 & 28 May 2003 Aberdeen and Edinburgh War Of Words: The British Army And The Western Front
You will all have a sense of what you think I am going to say before I have actually uttered a word. For a British audience there is no other event of world history that double-clicks on our collective memory icon in the way that First World War does. Mud, blood, barbed wire; shell-holes filled with dead bodies; subalterns with wispy moustaches staring out of sepia photographs, great aunts who never married. Contemporaries instinctively called it Great: La Grande Guerre, Weltkrieg, and we can easily see why. Of course it was not the largest single event of world history: that ghastly honour must go to the Second World War, which in terms of human suffering and material destruction was infinitely worse for the world as a whole. But for Britain alone the First World War actually caused more casualties, which partly accounts for the fact that it is remembered in a particular way here. Many who lived through both conflicts agreed with Harold Macmillan and J. B. Priestley that
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the First World War as a more significant watershed than the second. Barbara Tuchman may have been the first to use the analogy of 1914-18 as an iron gate separating the present from the past, and it has proved very appealing since. So there it lies, overgrown, like the trenches that still lace the landscape of Northern France, but somehow dug deep into our consciousness. And it usually enters that consciousness not as history, but as literature. One of the problems with trying to teach the First World War is that your audience has always read Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, Pat Barker and Sebastian Faulks before you get to them. My lectures are not generally total failures (I realise grimly that this may be an exception) but when talking to school-children about the First World War I often sense that I am on a loser: if it is Holmes versus Owen, then Owen wins every time. I want to look at the war in two ways. Firstly, by summarising how
we have got where we are today in terms of its historiography. This is relative simple and very unoriginal: a frontal attack with plenty of supporting fire. Then Id like to go a little deeper, and to examine what the war actually meant to the men who fought it: what do they tell us that we often forget? This is a more complex task, which takes me squarely up against a lot of uncut wire. So here we go: first the easy part. I am certainly not the first historian to complain that it was far too literary a war. Cyril Falls began the process even before the Second World War; Correlli Barnett continued the movement thirty years ago and only last year Brian Bonds The Unquiet Western Front fired yet another well-aimed burst into an enemy who shows little sign of falling, but lurches on, stick-grenades in hand, intent on doing yet more mischief to our understanding. Professor Bond suggests that the real historical war abruptly ceased to exist in November 1918.1 What followed was the resurrection and reworking of the war largely in terms of novels, memoirs and war literature in general. Indeed, Paul Fussell, in his influential book The Great War and Modern Memory, suggested that the war was uniquely awful and as such lay outside history, explicable primarily through its literature.
This process has not simply affected the way we think of history: it strikes a resonance through the present and on into the future. Omer Bartov described what he termed the invention of memory when he considered the effect of war literature in both France and Germany. Experience of loss and trauma extends beyond personal recollection, he argued, and comes to encompass both individual and collective expectations of the future.2 When Bartov presented this paper to an audience composed largely of military historians in Edinburgh seven years ago there was a good deal of muttering in the ranks (some of it, sadly, from me) about psychobabble. But the more I think about it, the more it seems to me that Bartov has identified a key element of the process. By studying the war as literature we do not simply colour our view of the past and make it all but impossible to teach the war as history. We go on to tint our picture of the present and our image of the future too. When Second World War soldiers wanted to describe something going particularly badly they spoke of The biggest balls-up since the Somme. For years it was impossible to attend a military presentation without a clip of Blackadder Goes Forth discussing the strategic imperative of inching
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Field-Marshal Haigs drinks cabinet closer to Berlin, and in the first Gulf War British camps in the desert were named after Captain Blackadder and his cronies. When I commanded a battalion my driver was nicknamed Baldric; my adjutant Percy, and I could guess the rest. No sooner had its last shot echoed away than some participants recognised that the war they knew was being hijacked. Charles Carrington, who won his Military Cross at Passchendaele, complained: It appeared that dirt about the war was in demand Every battle a defeat, every officer a nincompoop, every soldier a coward.3 Cyril Falls, another veteran turned academic, saw how: Every sector become a bad one, every working party is shot to pieces; if a man is killed or wounded his entrails always protrude from his body; no one ever seems to have a rest Attacks succeed one another with lightning rapidity. The soldier is represented as a depressed and mournful spectre helplessly wandering about until death brought his miseries to an end.4 In practice it was not that simple, for many of the men writing in the 20s and 30s Robert Graves and R. C. Sherriff amongst them were actually ambigious about the
war, and actively resented being termed anti-war authors. Ambiguity became less marked as the war receded. Oddly enough, this happened at precisely that moment when, had the war been considered primarily as history, the appearance of a wide range of new sources not least the first of the Official Histories might have been expected to have broadened understanding. Erich Maria Remarques All Quiet on the Western Front, first published in 1929 and made into a film the following year, was an important milestone. Remarques own experience of the war was very limited. The very undisillusioned Charles Carrington served at the front perhaps a hundred times longer than the horrified Remarque. But in a sense this is part of the problem. Ghastly though a couple of weeks at the front must have been, they were all Remarque had to go on: what we have is memoir as pastiche, which more accurately reflects the state of its author and his friends in 1929 than the condition of the German army twelve years before. Alongside the evolution of a literary cult which, by and large, came to see the war as waste built on futility and compounded by human error, there grew up a historical genre which was scarcely less influential. During the war there had been two major schools
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of strategic policy in Britain. One, the Easterners, took their tone from a letter written by Lord Kitchener to Sir John French, British Commander-in-Chief on the Western Front, at the very beginning of 1915. Kitchener suggested that the German lines in France might well be a fortress which cannot be taken by assault, and suggested that there might be merit in looking elsewhere. Gallipoli and Salonika were both offspring of this logic. The other, the Westerners, would have agreed with Sir Douglas Haig, who took over as C-in-C in late 1915, that the war would could only be won by beating the German army in the field. And as Haig announced in his final dispatch, this could only be accomplished by one great continuous engagement. Historians still squabble about Haigs honesty. Some detect a rock-line dedication to this continuous engagement throughout, and see a strategy justifiably based on attrition. Others detect genuine hope of a tactical breakthrough in the summer of 1916 on the Somme and a year later at Third Ypres, scent the most seductive of modern military buzzwords, manoeuvre, and say that the continues engagement was a post facto justification for a breakthrough that failed. I believe that, in a sense, both are right. Attrition and manoeuvre across
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history are often contrapuntal in time or place. First we attrit, and then we manoeuvre against a weakened enemy. Or we attrit in the north, to pin the enemy to his positions, in order to weaken him for our manoeuvre in the south. I am convinced that Haig expected a period of attrition to be followed by manoeuvre: that, surely, is the real reason for his retention of a cavalry corps, the basis of a pursuit arm which would turn manoeuvre into rout. That in itself was not wholly foolish, and a good deal of sensible opinion now tends to the view that the Germans might indeed have won in March 1918 had they retained a sizeable body of cavalry. But I digress. What happened in the 1920s and 1930s is that the Easterners, who had shown little sign of winning the war, certainly won the historical argument. Churchills The World Crisis lambasted offensives on the Western Front which were, he declared, as hopeless as they were disastrous. Churchill had served as a cavalry officer, charging at Omdurman in 1898, and had been a battalion commander on the Western Front in early 1916. I can forgive him much on those counts alone: whatever he lacked it was not physical courage. But what of Lloyd George, whose mid-1930s Memoirs announced the bankrupcy of narrow, selfish and unimaginative strategy and
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[the] ghastly butchery of a succession of vain and insane offensive. He accused generals not simply of professional incompetence and ignorance of the real conditions, but of personal cowardice. These accusations gloss over the fact that, as Prime Minister, Lloyd George had a personal responsibility for the very strategy he criticised. It would be rather like Tony Blair lamenting that the Chief of the General Staff was dead set on going to Baghdad and there was not really a lot that he as Prime Minister could do about it. And Lloyd George was not right to carp about the cowardice of First World War generals. About 58 were killed, or died of wounds received. Three divisional commanders were killed at Loos in September 1915, more British divisional commanders than were killed by enemy fire in the whole of the Second World War. Generals were many things; but they were not cowards.5 There was a more weighty combatant in the wings. Basil Liddell Hart, whose evergreen captaincy veiled about six weeks service at the front followed by a longer stint in the Educational Corps, argued that Britains commitment to the Western Front clearly violated his own, oft reinvented, strategy of indirect approach and clear-sighted description of the British way in
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warfare. Britain should have avoided that lethal concentration of troops and gone somewhere else. Gallipoli had been promising, and T E Lawrence had done really well in the desert. He could produce no evidence that the destruction of railways in the Hejaz made the teacups rattle in Berlin, but no matter. What had really brought German down, he argued, was naval blockade and internal collapse. I must not trivialise Liddell Hart, for he remains a commentator of rare insight, was helpful to students and, even late in life, was capable of surprising generosity to Haig. But he is the archpriest of the argument that there must have been a better way: his liturgy, after all these years, still has the power to inspire. The historical debate not really the right word, for there was never much debate about it was rejuvenated in the 1960s. Things like the growth of an independent youth culture, the Cuban missile crisis, the Aldermaston marches and the Vietnam War encouraged iconoclasm, and the generals of the First World War received unprecedented critical attention. But although the reduction in the release period of Public Records from fifty to thirty years meant that most documents on the war became available in 1968, there was no immediate rush to reinterpretation based on this
evidence. Indeed, perhaps the most influential book ever written on the war, A J P Taylors The First World War: An Illustrated History was little more than a triumphant flambeeing (with the blow-torch lit by Liddell Hart) of the left-overs of the 1930s. On re-reading it I am stunned by its brilliant, incisive, overweening juxtaposition of bons mots, real insights and excruciating, unmitigated garbage. Failure [at Third Ypres in 1917] was obvious by the end of the first day to everyone except Haig and his immediate circle, it declares. Obvious, that is, to everyone except the German high command, which grew gloomier as the battle wore on, and thousands of British participants, whose letters and diaries testify to a confidence not shared by those writing in the foreknowledge of failure. Even the Australian official history, its volumes not generally accused of excess affection for the Poms, speaks approvingly of 2nd Armys attacks up the Menin Road in September, almost two months after everyone was meant to have lost confidence in the battle. Leon Wolfs In Flanders Fields, whose publication actually predated that of Taylors book, was in many respects a more respectable work. A study of the 1917 campaign around Ypres, it is well-written, and makes good use of memoirs and inter-war histo94
ries. But it confirmed the primacy of a school of historiography which is not interested in the facts because it has already made up its mind. There is no real sense of the campaigns strategic purpose. However much or little we admire Haig, it is worth asking quite what he was meant to do in 1917 with his main ally in a state of mutiny and the navy begging him to get German submarines off the Flanders coast. And there is no feel at all for the British armys vast improvement in tactical method. Alan Clarks The Donkeys applied the same method to the wars earlier years, although and I say this with respect for a man who brought some much-needed colour into British politics it contained a streak of casual dishonesty. Its title is based on the Lions led by Donkeys conversation between Hindenburg and Ludendorff. There is no evidence whatever for this; none. Not a jot or scintilla. Liddell Hart, who had vetted Clarks manuscript, ought to have known it. It is history delivered with all the flair of a late-night speech in the Commons after supper at Wheelers with a bottle or two of Bolly: amusing, malicious and gassy. The real problem is that it sold well then and still does so now. It is the sort of book that the ordinary man on the Clapham omnibus reads because it tells him what he wants to know.
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But help is at hand. The scrabble of feet on duckboards announces the arrival of supports. First there was John Terraines Douglas Haig: The Educated Soldier, published in 1963, and really a brave and remarkably impartial piece for its day. Terraine held his ground alone for some time, assailed by pastiches like Oh What a Lovely War, but by the mid 1970s revisionism with some real scholarly weight behind it crashed into the argument. Historians like Tim Travers, Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson worked with the documents to look at the British high command, Peter Simpkins examined at the New Armies, Paddy Griffith charted the improvement of British tactics, and John Bourne, of the admirable centre for First World War Studies at Birmingham University, initiated a mass of work on the background of British generals. It is a cruel reflection on book-buying that some of the most important work was not the most widely read: J. G. Fullers Troop Morale and Popular Culture and Gary Sheffields Leadership in the Trenches have never enjoyed quite the sales of Alan Clarks Donkeys. I do not applaud the appearance of these works just because some of them are revisionist as it happens I find myself in the uncomfortable No Mans Land of historiography, collecting salvoes from both extremes but because
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they are serious and scholarly in a way that an awful lot of earlier work simply was not. Last years publication of the first volume of Hew Strachans magisterial First World War does, in a way, mark a turning-point in the whole process: here we have scholarship blended with emotion, and a successful attempt to look at the conflict as a world war, not just as the Western Front with attached sideshows. So why am I still unhappy? Partly because of a question of focus. Many of the wars historians are preoccupied with the big political, strategic and operational issues: Was the war avoidable? Had Britain any other course of action in 1914? Were British generals actually geniuses rather than donkeys? Was the Treaty of Versailles too hard or too soft? How well understood was the post-Somme doctrine for divisions in the attack? In the process they often lose sight of the men who actually fought the war. True, they get anthologised, and we have lots of examples some of them actually very good of the historian as copy-typist. And there is an ever-widening use of oral history, so that the words of this fast-disappearing generation can reach out to tell us what it was really like. Or can they? I make this point as gently as I can, for it is no conventional politeness to say how much
I admire the men who fought on the Western Front. But the interviewing of veterans in the 1980s and beyond concentrated, as it must, on those who had survived. Sometimes this survival was, in and of itself, the most remarkable thing about them. And sometimes they played their roles too well: they became Veterans, General Issue, neatly packed with what we wanted to hear, exploding at the touch of a tape-recorder button. Up to my neck in muck and bullets; rats as big as footballs; the sergeant major was a right bastard; all my mates were killed. And, in part at least, they tell us this because they have heard it themselves. Let me give you an example, which has actually influenced the way that historians have written about the war. Here I must give credit to David Kenyon, one of my research students, who has dug out the facts and figures. On 15 July 1916 the British attacked and overran much of Longueval Ridge, the German second position on the Somme battlefield, in a wellexecuted night attack. They had planned to bring cavalry forward to exploit and, in the event, failed to do so. Why? I think you already know. The silly old cavalry, not a chin between them, charged into High Wood and were cut to pieces by machine guns. And an artillery officer actually watched it happen:
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It was an incredible sight, an unbelievable sight. They galloped up with their lances and pennants flying, up the slope to High Wood and straight into it. Of course they were falling all the way Ive never seen anything like it! They simply galloped on through all that and horses and men dropping on the ground, with no hope against machine guns, because the Germans up on the ridge were firing down into the valley where the soldiers were. It was an absolute rout. A magnificent sight. Tragic.6 Casualties were certainly heavy. German casualties, that is. The war diary of the attacking cavalry brigade, compiled at the time, reports that large number of Germans perhaps more then fifty - were ridden down and speared in the initial charge, and 32 prisoners were taken. When German machine-guns opened fire, the brigades machine-gun squadron came into action and silenced them, and yet more prisoners were taken. The entire cavalry brigade lost eight men killed the whole day, most of them, incidentally, not in the charge at all. It was a lucky infantry company which did not suffer more heavily. Nobody tried to gallop into High Wood: the contemporary accounts of British infantry on its edge make that absolutely clear. What would have been the point? The cavalry plan
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was to exploit across the open ground between the woods, and even the densest dragoon would have realised that a partly-shelled wood in full summer foliage, filled with wire and trenches, is not the place to gallop into. In short, this poignant vignette of an old-fashioned charge into the mouth of death is the purest moonshine. But A J P Taylor rises magnificently to his task: This glorious vision crumbled into slaughter as German machineguns opened fire. And the far more serious Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson talk of the machine guns taking care of the cavalry, when the reverse is true. The eyewitness was a brave man. He was not consciously lying. He was telling an interviewer what he believed the truth to have been. And that truth reflected, inter alia, half a century of reading precisely those books which Ive already talked about. So we should be somewhat cautious about oral history: sometimes forgotten voices tell us about imaginary incidents. Far better, I think, to go back to what people thought at the time. And in the case of the First World War there is really no excuse for not doing so. Both the Department of Documents at the Imperial War Museum and the Liddle Collection in the Brotherton Library at the University of Leeds are bursting with letters, diaries and an
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assortment of ephemera. And when I say bursting, I mean just that: new material is arriving faster than a single diligent historian can keep up with. However gloomy I get about being an historian, I am always excited by opening one of those big brown archive boxes, and tipping out letters on YMCA notepaper from the Infantry Base Depots at Etaples, a leather-bound Jermyn Street diary, or a Field Message Book with its flimsy, carboned paper and waterpoofed cover. There is something unutterably poignant about a diary entry written by somebody who didnt know whether he would be alive to eat his supper that day. I am not suggesting that we ought not to read Sassoon and Graves, Campbell and Carrington, all published after the war: but the closer we get to events the better our chance of finding out how people really felt. What do these documents tell us that the wider literature does not? Time limits me to just one essential point: this was an army of extraordinary diversity, and this, the result of its wholly unprecedented expansion and accompanying social transformation, coloured absolutely everything it did. Personal accounts stress this diversity, and emphasise not only the danger of generalisation and the utter futility of deconstructing the wars
history to focus on experience out of context. This is Rule One: I am not altogether sure that there is a Rule Two. It is as rash to speak of the British army in the First World War as about the British University in 2003. Even Oxford and Cambridge Colleges are not the same, and there is rather more of a difference between, say, Balliol College Oxford and a former Polytechnic in the West Midlands. Thus a Regular footguards battalion had almost nothing in common with a New Army battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers. A battery of Territorial artillery, hailing from the same bit of Yorkshire and retaining a deep sense of regionality and civilian identity, was nothing like J Battery Royal Horse Artillery, tangibly old army throughout the war. It is not just that some units were better than others. It was that they were different, often markedly so: to understand the armys microsociology we need to look at the way that soldiers saw the closed world inside the regiment. Units dressed differently (in the British army uniform really means multiform), fought differently, behaved differently in the line and out of it, and had different ways maintaining discipline. Private Bill Shotter of the 5th Lancers always called his troop sergeant Charley, and got a job for him after the war. The regiment was informal
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off parade, and pre-war relationships were not swept away by heavy casualties. No 5th Lancer was executed during the war. In contrast, Driver James Mullaney of 72nd Battery Royal Field Artillery shouted what about some bloody tea when his battery was harnessing up, and then struck his Battery Sergeant Major when the teabreak did not materialise. He was shot for it, shortly after Gunner Thomas Hamilton of the same battery was shot for hitting Second Lieutenant Oates. There was no easy informality in that unit: Oates was struck after he brushed aside Gunner Hamilton, who began the conversation with a perfectly reasonable: Beg pardon, Sir7 There were at least four armies: Old, New, Borrowed and Blue. They may not look distinct to us, but at the time a man was perfectly well aware of which tribe he was in. The Old army, the Regulars, sent 100,000 men to France in August 1914, and by Christmas its battalions, 30 officers and 1000 men strong that summer, had only 2 officers and 20 men of the original compliment left. The Regular army looked pretty much as we would expect: officers who needed private income, and soldiers who, in a majority of cases, were able to cite no civilian trade on their enlistment forms. Wellington would have understood it well.
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But it did not last. Regular ranks were winnowed yet again by the spring offensives of 1915, and by the rough and tumble of another three years of war. The keen-eyed Dr James Dunn, regimental medical officer of the regular 2nd Royal Welch Fusiliers, charted the steady decline of Regulars in his own battalion, until by the end there were perhaps a couple of dozen left.8 There were some exceptions. The Guards Division, formed in 1915, retained a distinctive character because it always kept control of its recruittraining depot at Caterham, which turned out guardsmen in a prewar image, and always ensured that Grenadiers went to Grenadier battalions, and so on. At least one of the reasons for the divisions fine fighting record is exactly this: insistence on high standards, and sufficient clout within the army to ensure firm links between the training organisation and units in the field. A similar process of transformation went on in the New Armies, battalions of wartime volunteers who were often recruited, as Pals Battalions, from specific areas. For instance, Accrington and the surrounding cotton towns of East Lancashire produced the Accrington Pals, and Glasgow formed three battalions of Highland Light Infantry: the Tramways battalion, the Boys Brigade battalion and
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the Glasgow Commercials. There were middle class men, who would never have joined the regular army in a month of Sundays, proud to serve as private solders, and some wholly bizarre phenomena like Company Sergeant Major Stewart Roberston of B Company 5th Cameron Highlanders: a Roberston of Struhan, the son of a colonel, the grandson of a major-general, and an undergraduate of Magdalen College Oxford.9 It is hard to exaggerate just how good was the human material in many of these units. Lieutenant Talbot Kelly, a gunner officer supporting the New Army 9th Scottish Division, describes a parade shortly before the battle of Loos in September 1915: Our Scottish infantry created an enormous impression on our minds, Never again was I to see so many thousands of splendid men, the very heart and soul of the nation. These were they who, on the outbreak of war, had rushed to enlist, the best and first of Kitcheners New Armies. And here we saw them, bronzed and dignified, regiments of young gods.10 Loos was a worse day for Scotland than Flodden: When shivered was fair Scotlands spear, and broken was her shield. Lance-Corporal Andrew, serving in a company of Glasgow university students, wrote that: it was clear that 6th
Camerons as a fighting force had ceased to exist. He saw RSM Peter Scotland looking at his prostrate colonel and asked if he should get a stretcher bearer. No use, replied the RSM, the old mans dying. The division lost six thousand officers and men at Loos: 5th Camerons went into action 820 strong and emerged with two officers and 70 men. I know that Britains war dead of 700,000 are not, in that ghastly term, statistically significant, and that there was no lost generation in a literal sense. But I am constantly struck by the qualitative loss, especially at battles like Loos and the Somme, when the nation really did lay upon wars altar its dearest and its best. Most New Army battalions faced their first and sometimes last real test on the Somme in the summer of 1916, and many never really recovered their regional character after that. Indeed, such was the impact of heavy casualties on small communities - attacking Serre on 1 July ripped the heart out of Sheffield and Accrington that the War Office abandoned regional recruiting, and New Army battalions were, increasingly, simply topped up by replacements who came through the Infantry Base Depots at Etaples. The Territorial Force borrowed, in my jargon, because its members
were civilians who carried out part-time military training retained regional identity longer, in part because its members had different terms of service and enjoyed some political support for their argument that they should only serve in the regiments they had enlisted in. It sheer diversity mirrors that of the army more widely. The all-Territorial London Regiment included battalions like the 5th London (The London Rifle Brigade), in which all ranks were on first-name terms off duty, and private soldiers paid an annual subscription equivalent to a months pay for a regular soldier. The latter practice was continuing as late as 1915: regulars were genuinely mystified that men had to pay for the pleasure of serving in France. The London Regiment also had the decidedly downmarked 11th London, allegedly the Finsbury Rifles, but known, from the location of its Drill Hall and the alleged propensity of its members, as the Pentonville Pissers.11 One of the best divisions in the war, 51st Highland, was a Territorial Division, and although it is clear that fewer and fewer of its soldiers actually came from the Highlands, it retained a distinctive Scottish flavour to the very end. A gunner officer saw the division, already very hard hit, coming up bravely through the wreckage of
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his battery to counter-attack in March 1918 : It was magnificent and too moving for words. No music, not even the trumpets of the French cavalry which I heard screaming their wild song of triumph after the armistice, has stirred me as deeply as the sobbing, skirling pipes of the 51st Division playing their survivors back into battle, and I stirred with pride as I watched those glorious Highlanders swinging by every man in step, every man bronzed and resolute. Could these be the weary, dirty men who came limping past us yesterday in ragged twos and threes, asking pitifully how much further to Achiet le Grand? Who could behold such a spectacle and say that the pomp and circumstance of war is no more?12 Territorial units often retained a strong sense of regional identity, and their discipline, at its best, reflected the tradition of the civilian workplace rather than the manual of Military Law. Men retained a strong sense of what they had been once, and would be again. A sergeant in the Northumberland Hussars was outraged to be reprimanded by his RSM, and said as much: the RSM was only a regular warrant officer but he was Forester to the Duke of Northumberland. His
troop commander, masquerading as an officer but really a local landowner, took the point perfectly. My Blue army refers to the conscripts. Over five million men served in the army during the war, and almost exactly half of them were conscripts, called up in consequence of a series of Military Service Acts who took effect in early 1916 and became more stringent as the war went on. Some waited to be conscripted on point of principle: they would come willingly when called, but they would not volunteer. Others struggled hard against going, and the government became increasingly draconian in doing away with exemptions and re-examined men who had failed medicals earlier. There were those who, like Alfred Hale, whose journal in the Imperial War Museum was published as The Ordeal of Alfred M. Hale, found the whole business an agony. An Oxford-educated middle-aged man of independent means, in 1916 he found himself thrown into a training organisation which ground the individual into nothing. Bullied, sworn at, despised because of his ungainliness, he became an officers servant, and spent his war polishing Sam Browne belts and scrubbing out dixies. But we must not judge all conscripts by Alfred Hale. In 1918 the
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British Army in France was composed of just over 50% 18-year-olds. They had grown up during the war, had seen older brothers and senior schoolmates go, and expected to go themselves. Frederick Hodges and his school-friends went to enlist in March 1917, before being formally called up: My friends and I had been quite determined not to be classified as anything but A1 when we joined up so half a dozen of us had gone into strict training during the winter. We went for long runs through country lanes outside the town, and we formed a boxing club and spent two evenings a week boxing in a room in one of the local shoe factories. He went to France in April 1918, and found himself, as so many reinforcements were, preremptorily transferred from the Northamptons to the Lancashire Fusiliers, but he quickly bonded with his new battalion. When issued with ammunition he reflected: We accepted that our young lives were no longer our own in this crisis, and that our country expected us to sacrifice them. I felt no fear. The grave situation overwhelmed personal fear. He was a full corporal by the time he was nineteen. He saw only two cases of shell-shock and one of cowardice, and has nothing but
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praise for his officers. He saw some British graves in October 1918: I walked slowly past them, and noted that Captain Hamilton now had a posthumous MC, and that Lieutenant Gibbs was a captain I noticed that both these fine young officers were aged twentyfour and at the time I thought this was quite a mature age; in the circumstances of their young lives, it was.13 By this stage Etaples, with its hated Bull Ring training area, simply posted officers and men to battalions that were short. The old armys regimental system had ceased to exist: there were Brummies in the Black Watch, Scousers in the Royal Fusiliers, Jocks in the Kensingtons and Irishmen everywhere although by way of compensation the Connaught Rangers had a Frenchspeaking company of Jerseymen. What comes across so clearly from personal accounts is the way men took on the tribal markings of their new regiments. Percy Smith, who has left his own little mark on history in a few scribbled notes in the Imperial War Museum, was not enthusiastic about the war in 1917: If the relatives and wives of us boys knew the real state of affairs out here they would worry more and more and most likely there
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would be an unrest in the country. But soon he was very proud of his regiment whatever it was, for he doesnt tell us. He told his mum: The regiment I am in is a fighting regiment. We are always on the move we never stop at one place long, it was the first regiment out here when war is declared and we have some fine fellows. Fritz sure knows when we are about.14 We can get a good feel from letters like this about the conundrum of 1918. How did this army of 18-year-olds push the Germans back across France, capturing twice as many prisoners as the French, Americans and Belgians put together? It cannot be that the Germans stopped fighting: about 80,000 British casualties a month proved that. In part it is true that the German practice of putting the bravest and the best into stormtroop battalions, which inevitably suffered most heavily, had done serious structural damage to the German army. But the real reason, I think, is that in 1918 the British army had become the sort of force that military historians traditionally have a high regard for: inexperienced but generally enthusiastic soldiers led by young and very experienced commanders. So contemporary documents and subsequent memoirs illustrate the extraordinary diversity of this army,
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and show us just what a difference even individuals of comparatively low rank a battery commander here, a company sergeant major there, could make to mens lives. It is very striking to see just how well-regarded officers and NCOs are in the majority of private soldier accounts. I say majority, and remember my earlier warning about generalisation. Of course I have references to the brutal and the incompetent, the cowardly and the snobbish. But I have read nothing written at the time which portrayed officer-man relations in as black a light as W H A Grooms Poor Bloody Infantry, published in 1975 with the explicit aim of preventing the war from becoming romanticised. Romanticised? In 1975? There is plenty of admiration for officers like: Captain Haybittle, who stood in full view of the enemy on No 1 gunpit. Our brave Captain Haybittle, whose conduct that day was beyond all praise. Private George Fortune of 18th Lancashire Fusiliers wrote: Our officers and NCOs were wonderful the way they used to do their duty. They were always watching over us and seeing we got a hot drink. We used to have a drop of water out of our water bottles to help make the tea. One day I had drunk all of mine and could not give any. I told our officer I did not want any tea. He
said you must and come and see me when we are out of the line. I went to see him and he gave me another water bottle. But remember the danger of generalising. Sergeant Watts, in contrast, was not popular: He made me clean the metal washbasins with sand. The water was ice cold, and the sand got into my broken chilblains. Since 1919 I have been looking for that Bastard, mused George Fortune. Its not too late yet to kill him.15 Corporal Robert Iley saw his commanding officer, Charles, Earl of Feversham, fall leading his battalion in the assault on 15 September 1916. When people scoff the aristocracy, he wrote, they should look at Duncombe Park Helmsley and see what that man left to die in action.16 . And even those who did complain, noisy and often, about the aristocracy, and who welcomed the Russian revolution (surprisingly the case with as many officers as soldiers) often saw no inconsistency in becoming NCOs or officers themselves; their political views had little impact on their own conduct of the war. On 23 January 1917 Will Fisher, a lifelong socialist, recorded in his diary: DEATH OF MY BOY GEORGE. The lad is better off: he is free from wage slavery and the insults of class rule.
Yet he volunteered at the very start of the war and then soldiered on, despite the TB which eventually killed him, rising through the ranks of the Royal Engineers, happily noting in his diary on 2 May 1919: Promoted Company Sergeant Major. The top of the tree.17 And regard for officers by soldiers cut the other way too. I have come across only one account in which an officer consistently reviles his men as worthless and idle. The war brought many middle-class officers into close contact with men they would not normally have met in their ordinary daily lives, and many of them were transformed by the experience. There are constant references to mens courage; to their endurance; to their resolution when wounded. Many officers found it hard to understand (as have many historians) how men who owed their country so little could do so much for it. A staff officer gives a fly on the wall account of a conversation at Headquarters 4th Army in 1916: none of the officers present could understand why their men fought on: it was, just as Baldic would have said, a mystery. Many historians have overplayed the role of harsh discipline in maintaining morale, and we have become almost indecently obsessed by the death penalty. The surprising thing about the
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death penalty is not how many diarists comment on it, but how few. Lieutenant Colonel Rowland Feilding and the Reverend Julian Bickersteth were amongst those who deplored it, the latter all the more because he shared the last minutes of two condemned men. But a private in the Royal Fusiliers noted in his diary, having just read the official notification of three capital sentences, that the army needed an extreme sanction, or more might fail. Private Frederic Manning and his comrades thought that Miller the deserter deserved to be shot: it would, as Corporal Hamley cheerily put it, encourage any other bugger whos thinking of deserting.18 What soldiers resented far more was No 1 Field Punishment. This, introduced in the 1880s, was specifically a substitute for flogging: it punished a man but did not let him off duty. He was tied to a fixed object, often a wagon wheel, for two hours a day. It was nicknamed crucifixion, though apologists maintain that the victims arms were left by his side. But in the summer of 1916 tank gunner Victor Archard wrote: I saw No 1 Field Punishment inflicted for the first time. The prisoner has been strung for several hours against the railings at the main entrance to camp, with his arms tied to the rails about a foot above his shoulders.19
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The punishment was widely reviled by officers and men alike: diarists are outspoken on the subject. It was an insult to citizens who have volunteered to fight for their country; a reflection of the brutal ways of the old army; and inhuman and degrading. Its prevalence meant that many soldiers felt that it might easily happen to them, whereas it was actually quite hard to get shot by firing squad. Between August 1914 and November 1918 there were some 238,000 courts-martial in all theatres of operations, resulting in 3,080 death sentences, of which 346 were actually carried out, three of them for murder, itself a capital offence in civil law.20 What is striking is just how close most mens horizons were. The next meal; the rum ration; getting out of the line; going on leave. Money or its lack was a constant worry. The infantry private got a shilling a day, and by the wars end his teenage daughter would be doing much better as a munitions worker, and, as an Essex vicar recorded with horror, spending fourteen shillings and sixpence on a hat. Money was subtracted for all sorts of things, usually items that the soldier needed but did not want; rates of exchange seemed designed to disadvantage the British, and there was not much cordiality to the Entente in towns like Haze-
brouck or Amiens where omelette and chips cost a days pay and a moment of stolen pleasure cost three times as much. Much as historians might wish to believe otherwise, men spent little of their time talking about the high command. An army padre, Harold Davies, wrote on 17 October 1916 that: There is a curious difference in the interest which is taken in generals at Divisional Headquarters and lower down in the brigades and battalions. At divisional headquarters they were full of [the new general] and could talk of nothing else. In a battalion nobody talks of the general or cares a hang about him. At present I am one of the very few officers in 4th Bedfords who knows his name.21 Douglas Haig, Commanderin-Chief of the BEF from December 1915 until the end of the war, features as arch-donkey in much of the literature. In contemporary accounts he scarcely features at all. In dozens of diaries I have come across a handful of mentions, most of them favourable. He looked very tired indeed by 1918, but till then his soldierly manner made a favourable impression. Even the army commanders are rarely mentioned. Sir Edmund Allenby features because of his obsessive regard for discipline. His nickname was the Bull, and the
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Morse code BBL for Bloody Bull Loose announced that he had left his headquarters. Sir Herbert Plumer (Daddy to his soldiers but Drip, because of a long-running sinus problem, to irreverent young officers) features for just the opposite reason. He was regarded as competent and thoughtful: men liked serving under him, and said so. Start to finish this was a tribal army: introspective, suspicious of outsiders, the Jocks or Micks or Geordies next door, the gunners behind, the new company commander or the dug-out brigadier. Its war aims embodied a general belief in British superiority one officer wrote that if the Germans won and invaded England they would still be laughed at in the villages as ridiculous foreigners. There were a deeper sense of personal obligation, ties between man and man that were part-feudal and part-industrial. It was generally bad at hating. Men killed prisoners when the general mood favoured it: the German gas attack of April 1915 generated a wave of brutality. In the British case this was informal and unstructured. Major Lord Stanhope was shocked to see a French general interview a prisoner, ascertain that he had been involved in the gas attack, and then order a sergeant major to take a file of men and take that
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man to the wall at the bottom of the garden..22 A quarry-full of prisoners was grenaded at Arras in 1917 for unwisely applauding the success of a German counterattack which had included the bayoneting of British wounded. Or they killed for personal reasons: A Scots Guards sergeant always asked permission to shoot prisoners after a battle to avenge his brother. Or perhaps they killed for sheer convenience: it was sometimes quicker and safer to kill a man that to take him back through the barrage. The Germans, for their part, behaved in just the same was. Ghastly game, hard rules. But do not deconstruct hostility: there were rules for it as for everything else, and they varied from place to place and tribe to tribe. The army varied, too, in its approach to the increasing volume of very good publications that chart the British armys tactical progress. There remained a wide difference between theory and practice. Even the muchpraised emphasis on platoon training, initiated by Lieutenant General Sir Ivor Maxse, the first director-general of training in France, often fell on stony ground. Why? Because as personal accounts tell us, platoons were often too small and their membership too turbulent to enable the system to work. What happened during the war, though, was that
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the four armies became wellintegrated. Leaders from generals to lance-corporals learnt, and the system grew better at codifying that experience. Promotion became open to talent in a way that it never had been before. I despair when I read that most officers came from Eton or Winchester. Most of the nearly 100,000 officers commissioned in the last two years of the war came from Ikley Grammar or Mean Street Board School by way of a sergeants stripes, and very good they were. And that, I suppose, is where we came in. The army of 1918, warts and all, represented the greatest collective endeavour of the whole of British history: over four million men went to France and nearly three quarters of a million stayed there forever. As the war went on they drifted apart from the land that had raised them, and lived in a world with its own rules, values, beliefs and language. They celebrated the armistice in silence, not with wild rejoicing. And then they went back to pick up their lives. For most of them the war was not, pace Paul Fussell, a break, a sundering. It was, as Private David Jones termed it, in parenthesis, bracketed into a busy life.23 It soon became evident that they had won the war but lost the peace, and the corrosive effect of this sense of collective betrayal can hardly be over-emphasised.
The positive diaries become the bitter memoirs as Military Crosses and Military Medals went to the pawnshop. And so we remember the war not as we might, through
the eyes of 1918, as a remarkable victory dearly won, but through the eyes of 1928 as a sham which had wasted mens life and squandered their courage.
1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
Brian Bond The Unquiet Western Front (Cambridge 2002) p.26. Omer Bartov Trauma and Absence: France and Germany 1914-1945 in Paul Addison and Angus Calder (eds) Time to Kill: The Soldiers Experience of War in the West 1939-45 (London 1997) pp 348-358.. Charles Carrington Soldier From the Wars Returning (London 1965) p.264. Cyril Falls War Books (London 1995) pp.i. ix. See Frank Davies and Graham Maddocks Bloody Red Tabs: General Officer Casualties of the Great War 1914-1918 (London 1995). Quoted in Lyn Macdonald Somme (London 1983) pp.137-8. Cathryn Corns and John Hughes-Wilson Blindfold and Alone: British Military Executions in the Great War (London 2001) p.357. Captain J. C. Dunn The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 (London 1987) pp.503-4. I. G. Andrew Papers, Liddle Collection, Brotherton Library, University of Leeds. R. B. Talbot Kelly A Subalterns Odyssey (London 1980) p.50. Personal information from the late Field-Marshal Lord Harding, who chose to join this battalion before the war because, as a post-office clerk, he would not have obtained a commission in a smarter one. He rose to the rank of temporary lieutenant colonel during the war and transferred to the regular army at its end. Arthur Behrend As From Kemmel Hill (London 1963) p. 82. Frederick James Hodges Men of Eighteen in 1918 (Ilfracombe 1988) pp.21, 41. Percy Smith Papers, Department of Documents, Imperial War Museum George Fortune Papers, Family Collection. Robert Iley Papers, Liddle Collection, Brotherton Library, University of Leeds. William Fisher Requiem for Will (privately printed by his nieces, Monmouth 2002) pp.63. 99.. Frederic Manning Her Privates We (London 1930) p.81. Victor Archard diary, Tank Museum Archives, Bovingdon, Dorset. Corns and Hughes-Wilson Blindfold and Alone pp. 102-3. The Reverend Harold Davies Papers, Department of Documents, Imperial War Museum. Lord Stanhope Papers, Department of Documents, Imperial War Museum. David Jones In Parenthesis (London 1961) p.xv. 108
LECTURES
Professor Murray Pittock Professor of Literature, University of Strathclyde 7 November 2002 Robert Burns and British Poetry. British Academy Chatterton Lecture on English Poetry
Professor Pittock began by outlining his theme: the argument that since 1945, Burns reputation has been confined by a critical introspection. This is visible both in the tradition of celebratory anaphora in discussion of a poet and also by a definition of Romanticism which has increasingly excluded him; even though paradoxically the cult of his personality places him squarely in the Romanticist category of artist as hero. His politics of vision and prophetic role fit easily into the Romanticist definition of MH Abrams. On the other hand the growing post-war interest in imaginative and subjective Romanticism, understandable in terms of the history of the 1930s and 1940s, has turned aside from Burns as it has expanded interest into Coleridge and Blake. In his lecture, Professor Pittock looked to uncover, through dialogue, Burns relation to the poetic concerns over the generations, and to argue that Burns deserves to be free from the introspection of class, language, periodicity and theory which have begun to erase him from British poetry. Burns significance in
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global culture remains out of all proportion to this erasure; over 1000 societies are dedicated to him, in at least 18 countries. He has statues in three continents, his books have been translated 3000 times into 51 languages and over 200 editions of his work have been published. Burns has been compared to the leading writers of Japanese haiku, and to the national Bards of other countries. His work has been set to music by Haydn, Mendelssohn, Shostakovitch and Britten. This status does not differ greatly from that accorded Burns by many writers and pre-war critics. A succession of pre-war critics described Burns as a Bard and in the late 1930s more articles were published on Burns than on Coleridge and Blake; he was on a par with Byron. By the 1960s he had sunk to a quarter of Coleridges total and half of Blakes. The decline continued unabated despite occasional recognition. Even after a bicentenary in 1996, articles devoted to Burns had shrunk to one sixth of those accorded to Shelley, the least popular of the six central English Romanticist poets. This decline is
not uniform; he is still well represented in anthologies and dictionaries of quotations but is virtually absent from textbooks and works of reference. The 1993 Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism cites him three times, compared to twenty for Southey and seventy for Blake. The 1998 Clarendon Press Literature of the Romantic Period gives around twenty pages to the six main Romantics, fourteen to Clare, yet only two to Burns. Why should Burns, demonstrably a writer of global status,have become British literatures invisible man. The most popular argument is Burns use of unfamiliar language. However if this was a barrier, why was Burns so popular in British and American culture before 1960? And why did his work feature as a set book in English Schools until 1945? Ironically, it is Burns highly varied use of language itself which appears to have distanced him from the hieratic high cultural activities of the poet as a theoretician of art, imagination and language. Burns decline may be more to do with an aesthetic/theoretic Romantic paradigm. Scottish cultures sometimes repetitive and critically undemanding celebration of its national poet is no doubt another cause for neglect in a world increasingly in love with novelty. Various attempts have
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been made to separate Burns from his natural relationship with the English Romantics. The overlooked Britishness of Romanticism lies at the root of both the introspective neglect and introspective celebration of Burns. Burns recognised his debt to a broad British literary tradition (Pope, Shenstone, Thomson, Sterne) and his intellectual roots in the age of sensibility have long been noted. Furthermore, his radical energy is evidenced in writings such as The Prelude and The Death of Wallace. The complexity of his radical energy can be seen in his 1787 letter comparing the Jacobites to Miltons devils after their unhappy Culloden in Heaventhrown weltering on the fiery surge. At this time Burns was still involved with Edinburghs remaining Jacobite Club at which he addressed A birthday Ode to Charles Edward on 31December 1787. Burnss use of epigraphs is both implicit and explicit. The Address to the Deil may be headed by an epigraph from Milton but its first lines contain another submerged epigraph: O Thou, whatever title suit thee! / Auld Hornie, Satan, Nick, or Clootie. His addressed poems promote a range of speakers who both frame and intervene in their narratives from the Devil himself to the sly bard posing in folk naivety. Unlike
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Wordsworth, Burns poetic voice conflates with its subject, the commentator as participant, the agent as spectator. Both the sympathy of the benevolent spectator and the objective correlative of the imagined sensuality of nature are present in an alliance of sentimental object and Romantic subject. This inward outwardness may explain the flexibility of Burns register. In poems of apparent folk naivety, such To a Louse, Burns consciousness of hygiene combines with the radical energy of the louse, whom the speaker repeatedly appears to blame for its impertinence in infesting a member of the upper middle class. Burns apparently simple language conceals the density of his allusion and conceit. In To a Mouse, Burns combines local event and the larger politics of the sentimental era with a universal stance suited to his emerging prophetic status as a bard, a term which he constructs to his own advantage. The animal is many different things; a sentimental object like Smarts cat; the inheritor of tradition of political fable reaching back to Robert Henryson and before; an avatar of the misery of the poet and, on some level, an anticipation of the Wordsworthian solitary, the victim of a changing countryside. The local event is a moment in the speakers life as a
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tenant farmer, which is poor as the mouse he encounters. It was this situation which nearly brought Burns to emigration. He wrote that he could almost exchange lives at any time with farmyard animals. The initial voice in this poem is the register of the rural poor but another register supervenes, that of a benevolent bystander of Enlightenment theory. Elsewhere Burns compares the oppression of the poor to cats at a plundered mouse nest, his standard English indicative of both of his sympathy and the speech of the spectator. Burns linguistic flexibility is the key to a hybridity of experience outwith and within a number of dominant cultures, not only in England but in Edinburgh, not only national but social. Burns direct and indirect influence on other poets who followed was considerable. For example, John Clare called him imitable and perfect and developed Burns nature poetry and use of the language of regional location for his own purposes. Burns cultural hybridity was critical in denominating the scope of British Romanticism which drew so much of its strength from the imagined recreation of the familiar yet alien particular: leech gatherer, mariner, Grecian Urn, the chartered streets of London. In this, Burns idea of the Bard is
important because for him the familiar and alien were comprised in himself as subject, not the objects of his gaze. Burns adopted the persona of the Bard not as a ventriloquist but as a means of hybridising his own cultural origins to the literary expectations of a wider audience. Burns bard was only at the margins a fatalistic doomed figure; he is more centrally part of the living community. Yet much as he might claim to own the appellation of Scotch Bard who sought only to please the rustic, Burns always aimed to do more than this. In Tam o Shanter he united the popular dialect poet of local anecdote with the detached satirical voice of written culture, which is then inverted by the orality it seeks to control. In mediating the bardic ability to speak both the language of locality and that expected of the more universal figure of the Noble Savage, Burns adopted a variety of linguistic registers, much more sophisticated tools than the predictable tone and oblique narration of MacPhersons Ossian poetry, which in its own way also sought to give the intensely localised bard a universal appeal. Burns Kilmarnock Edition of 1786 begins to emplace this notion of the Bard. One of the most remarkable things about Burns criticism is how often his playful characterisa112
tions of the bard and bardic rules have been taken as authentic, even autobiographical. Like the much lesser poets of the 1890s, Burns reputation is polluted by biography. In conclusion, Professor Pittock examined Burns bardic voice in The Cotters Saturday Night and Tam o Shanter, chosen in order to discern the unfamiliar in the familiar works of Burns. The latter begins as a written report of an oral tale told about another tale, then develops into a satire of the genesis of the oral tale as a fanciful product of alcohol and lechery, which at the same time conspires to celebrate the liberating quality of the secret life of the locality, represented by the witches freedom from control. Professor Pittock argued that by understanding that what was, in Burns time, called polish was present in the self conscious nature of his bardic and imaginative vision, and is to begin once again to give him his due, and to deliver him from being that humorous, parochial and ultimately naive figure, the Ploughboy of the Western World.
Lectures
Professor Tom Mullin Professor of Physics, University of Manchester and Director of the Manchester Centre for Nonlinear Dynamics Monday 11 November 2002 From Chaos to the Indian Rope Trick
Professor Mullin introduced his subject by explaining that the principal impact of his talk would be via demonstrations; a progression through the simple pendulum, not so simple pendulum, excited pendulum, and up-side-down pendulum. He began by examining the term deterministic chaos, an apparently contradictory term, and asked why disorder should arise in a deterministic system, if no randomness is added. The answer is that non-linear systems can show deterministic chaos. The simple pendulum, the movement of which is governed by Newtons equations of motion, is part of a predictable system and real-world examples include the orbits of satellites and solar eclipses. The period of this pendulum is entirely predictable and is determined by the angle through which the pendulum swings (amplitude); hence its use in traditional clocks. Despite being entirely predictable, the system is non-linear because the greater the amplitude, the greater the period. Other systems, again governed by Newtons equations can exhibit chaos. Among other definitions, chaos can be defined as apparent randomness. This is a fundamental issue because most systems in the real world are nonlinear (like the simple pendulum) and have sufficient freedom to display chaos (unlike the simple pendulum). In his first demonstration of chaos Professor Mullin split the simple pendulum to produce a double pendulum (in effect a second pendulum hanging from the tip of the first, i.e. a not so simple pendulum). Every time the double pendulum operates, it traces a different path, although the final resting position, hanging vertically, is always the same. The double pendulum is a very simple system but behaves in an apparently random way. Professor Mullin extended this demonstration to a computer screen to represent the motion of a double pendulum in a geometric format. The screen showed the path traced by two such pendulums, differing in their starting position by only 1 part in 1012.
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After an initial period following the same path, they soon embarked on entirely different paths; predictability breaking down. Complete predictability in such a system is impossible. Given infinite precision it would be possible to predict the pendulums path, but infinite precision is impossible. Drawing on the analogy of weather forecasting, Professor Mullin described how data, of finite precision, is gathered from various sources and used by a computer to predict weather in several days time. Typically a prediction can be no more than a few days because the data used has limited precision. In further explanation he demonstrated a simple battery-driven toy (driven by an eccentric motor) which always traces a different path when set in motion. Professor Mullin then moved to exciting pendulums. He demonstrated parametric resonance, in which a simple pendulum, excited to bob up and down, can be made to swing regularly from side to side. The frequency at which it swings from side-to-side is half that of the frequency of excitation and its movement can be represented geometrically as a circle (known as an attractor). If the frequency of excitation is further reduced, the amplitude of the side-to-side movement
becomes chaotic. In this situation the attractor is no longer a circle and at first glance its geometric representation appears as a ball of wool, i.e. random movements within a confined area. However, a plane taken through this pattern displays structure, a feature characteristic of chaos, but not characteristic of noise. Hence the attractor (known as a strange attractor) has an element of predictability. Professor Mullin gave an audible demonstration of the difference between chaos and noise; noise is what is heard when a radio is incorrectly tuned. In contrast, chaos contains a repetitive quality. Professor Mullin then demonstrated a computer simulation of two excited pendulums, differing in their starting position by 1 in 106. As with the double pendulum, the two excited pendulums begin by tracing the same path but then diverged on entirely different paths, again confined to a given region. He then asked whether these properties have relevance outside of pendulums. He demonstrated a forced buckling beam in which a thin steel beam, excited at a given frequency, shakes from side to side between two magnets. He used a laser to project the beams path onto a screen and showed that above a certain frequency the beams movement became chaotic.
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Professor Mullin concluded his talk by addressing upside-down pendulums. His demonstration consisted of a horizontal metal beam fixed at one end; its other end attached to a pendulum. The beam was excited at its fixed end by a motor and at high frequency the pendulum made to stand upright. Professor Mullin credited David Mullin of Jesus College, Oxford, who first suggested the extension of this principle to multiple upside-down pendulums. In providing the worlds first demonstration of four standing upside-down pendulums Professor Mullin explained that (in principle) any number of pendulums could be made to stand upside-down, given a high
enough frequency of excitation. A piece of rope can be regarded a sequence of pendulums and, given an infinite frequency and zero amplitude, it too could be made to stand upside-down. Finally he demonstrated how a wire (a length of curtain wire long enough so that it does not support its own weight) can be made to stand upright when excited at a given frequency. Current theory suggests that the frequency to create this effect should be infinitely high, given that the wire can be regarded as a series of many pendulums. It is not yet understood why the wire can be made to stand upright at relatively low frequencies.
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Professor RJP Williams FRS Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory, University of Oxford 2 December 2002 Chemical Constraints on Biological Evolution
Professor Williams introduced his lecture by noting that life evolved in a geological environment and that he would be developing this theme by examining the effect of the coming of living organisms on the chemistry of the environment. Biologists have largely been interested in macromolecules and their interactions, for example proteins and nucleic acids. However this preoccupation with dead molecules is difficult to understand when the requirement is to study living flow systems. That is, the nucleic acid DNA, could not originate in the absence of material to code. Present and past research work has not adequately emphasised the role of the environment as the driving force behind the evolution of internal cellular mechanisms. Cellular life began with prokaryotic organisms evolving in a reducing environment, i.e. one that is anaerobic, or lacking in oxygen. Early life-forms reduced oxidised carbon to such molecules as sugars, proteins and nucleic acids. In doing so they used the hydrogen from gases such as H2S, discarding sulphur as a by-product. The hydrogen in water was also used, and oxygen
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discarded as a by-product. This latter action was seen as a painful mistake as the oxygen released acted as a poison for organisms suited to an anaerobic environment. As a result the oxygen in the air changed the geological nature of the earth and it is this that drives evolution. Is it that the only way for life forms to survive in an oxygenated environment was for new compartments to develop within the cell? Thus, inside all would be reducing and outside all would be oxidising. Eventually this would lead to the formation of multicellular organisms. This is driven by processes depending on the use of space rather than by considerations involving DNA. Dawkins blind watchmaker may well have been blind, but he was also placed in an unavoidable one-way tunnel. The tunnel was the environment, changed by the excreted oxygen of the life-forms within it. Bioavailability of the elements depends on such variables as their individual solubilities and how in turn these depend on their chemical properties as well as on environmental variables such as temperature. The more soluble a
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metal complex, the more available it is to life. Sodium, magnesium, calcium and potassium were very common in the sea and these were used by early life forms. However, copper was relatively unavailable as it had a very low solubility in a reducing environment. Thus early life forms did not use copper in their metabolic processes. However as oxygen levels increased, copper became more and more available. At the same time hydrogen sulphide became increasingly oxidised (to sulphate). The entry and exit of inorganic substances is controlled by a cell mechanism, in which a cell balances its internal environment with equal numbers of positive and negative charges. As time went on, oxygen accumulated, ammonia was converted to nitrogen and methane was converted to carbon dioxide and life forms continued to adapt to a changing environment Living cells began to develop internal vesicles and organelles which specialised in different types of metabolic activity. Aerobic biochemistry got under way and additional elements became involved in these new metabolic
processes. Cells began to come together to form multicellular organisms held together by connective tissue. Copper, in association with specific catalytic proteins, found a role in the formation of connective tissue. In an oxidising environment, available iron is present in very low concentrations. One of the main struggles of life is obtaining sufficient iron to satisfy internal oxidative processes. These developed as oxygen levels increased. Cells differentiated to form internal vesicles which could carry out oxidising chemistry protected from the reducing environment of the cytosol. Any waste products formed in the vesicles would not damage the reducing chemistry carried out in the cytosol. Thus cells with a complex array of vesicles and organelles developed in response to changes in the external environment. In his concluding remarks, Professor Williams expressed his dismay that the study of inorganic chemistry - fundamental to the understanding of life and evolution - has been removed from undergraduate biology courses.
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The Rt Hon Lord Robertson of Port Ellen Secretary General of NATO 13 December 2002 A New Russian Revolution: Partnership with NATO Part of the Edinburgh Lecture Series
Ladies and Gentlemen, I have just returned this week from Moscow, where I opened a NATORussia conference on combating terrorism the second one of this year. While I was there, I also held talks with President Putin the fifth time we have met in the past fourteen months. What is striking about these meetings is precisely that they were not striking. No drama. No fuss. No shoes being banged on tables. Instead, pragmatic discussions, in a friendly and workmanlike atmosphere. In fact, our thinking on certain issues has grown so close that a Russian newspaper, Izvestia, speculated that the Russian Defence Minister and I might share the same speechwriter which I assure you is not the case. As revolutions go, it has been a quiet one. But it has been a revolution nonetheless. To my mind, the partnership between NATO and Russia today marks the end of a dark century for Europe a century which, in a very real sense, began with the storming of the Winter Palace in 1917, and ended with the collapse of the World Trade Center in September 2001.
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The First World War and the Bolshevik Revolution triggered Russias mutation into the Soviet Union. The Second World War allowed Russia and the West to join forces temporarily in the face of a common threat, but failed to resolve basic differences in values and strategic philosophies. After the war, the Iron Curtain fell across Eastern Europe, as Winston Churchill described so vividly. The Cold War divided the continent, and indeed the world, into two massive armed camps: one threatening to export its repressive model through intrigue or violence; the other a group of democracies determined to protect their security and their values. The damage done to European security during those long years was massive. The threat of World War III was a lens which distorted our whole view of the world, and allowed many of the security challenges we face today to fester and grow, while our energies were diverted by the compelling task of avoiding mutual annihilation. Most dialogue between Russia and the West took place at the
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occasional high-pressure and adversarial Summit meeting. And of course, there was no question of sharing the benefits of democracy and growing prosperity with the countries of the Warsaw Pact including with the Soviet Union and Russia herself. The end of the Cold War opened something of a Pandoras box. The fall of the Berlin Wall unleashed a flood of security challenges that we were, frankly, largely unprepared to face. But it also released a great opportunity to unify Europe in security, democracy and prosperity. And, as an essential part of that mission, to bring Russia in from the cold, and into the European family of nations. Few people would have guessed, in 1990, how integral a role NATO would play in this process. After all, NATO was certainly seen by Russia as a threat, if not the enemy. How could we possibly envisage not only a trusting dialogue between NATO and Russia, but cooperation? Even partnership? A decade ago, this would have seemed to most observers like Mission Impossible. In fact, the NATO-Russia relationship did begin almost exactly 10 years ago in NATO headquarters in Brussels, on the evening of December 20th 1991. And it was a rather dramatic moment.
It took place at the first meeting of the North Atlantic Cooperation Council. NATO created this body, usually called the NAC-C, almost as soon as the Berlin Wall came down. The NAC-C brought together all the newly liberated countries in Europe, together with the Soviet Union, to sit around the same table with NATO nations. It was an unprecedented gathering. It gave a first political voice to peoples who for so long had not had one. And it gave a first hint of the role NATO would play, in the coming years, in guiding EuroAtlantic integration. For all those reasons, that first NAC-C meeting was full of drama and history. But it soon got more interesting yet. At a certain point in the evening, a messenger came into the room and whispered in the ear of the representative of the Soviet Union. He excused himself and left the room. A few minutes later, he returned. He took his chair, and asked for the microphone. He announced that he could no longer speak for the Soviet Union, as the Soviet Union had, in the past few minutes, dissolved. He would henceforth represent only Russia. As you might imagine, the meetings agenda was derailed. But that moment opened up the possibility of creating something new in Europe. Where Russia was no longer feared by its European
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neighbours, but trusted. Where mutual mistrust and recrimination could be replaced by regular dialogue and frank exchanges. And where Russia and NATO could cooperate in solving mutual security challenges, rather than simply challenging each other. That was the beginning of the revolution in NATO-Russia relations. And throughout the 1990s, our practical cooperation slowly deepened. First, in the Balkans, where Russian soldiers worked alongside NATO soldiers in Bosnia to help keep the peace, after the war came to an end in 1995. This, alone, was an almost unbelievable event. I still remember a photograph of a young American NATO soldier shaking hands with a young Russian soldier in Sarajevo, as that mission began. It illustrated the massive potential for peace, if NATO and Russia could only work together towards that common goal. Practical cooperation set the stage for political relations. In 1997, we signed the Founding Act on relations between NATO and Russia, and established the Permanent Joint Council. In the Permanent Joint Council or PJC, Russia met with all the countries of NATO to discuss common security concerns, and to work towards mutual understanding and, where possible, cooperation.
This, too, was an historic development. For the first time, a permanent, organic relationship between Russia and her Western partners was established. And like our cooperation on the ground, it offered the potential for so much better cooperation in future. But this potential was not realised immediately. On the contrary. Too many Russian generals had targeted NATO for too long to accept that the Alliance had now changed. For them, and for many Russians still mired in Cold War prejudices, NATO was still an enemy, to be watched, and perhaps grudgingly worked with, but not trusted. And, to be honest, there were some sitting around the NATO table whose views were a mirror image, based on decades of mistrust. To these people, whether on the Russia side or in NATO, security in Europe was still what we call a zero-sum game. Any gain in security for one country had to mean a commensurate loss of security for another country. Which is why Russia protested so bitterly against one of the most positive developments in modern European history: NATOs enlargement. To Alliance members, and to the aspirant countries, NATO enlargement has always had one simple purpose: to deepen and broaden Euro-Atlantic security through
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integration amongst democracies. From our perspective, increased stability and deepening democracy in Europe is of net benefit, even to those countries not in the Alliance. But those Russians who still clung to the zero-sum perspective had a different word for enlargement: encirclement. Even President Yeltsin - who played such a key role in bringing the Soviet era to an end - made his opposition to enlargement very clear. He protested bitterly. He threatened vague countermeasures. And he drew imaginary red-lines on the map, designating those new democracies which, in his estimation, Russia could never accept to join the Alliance. The message was a familiar one: that Russia still viewed the West with suspicion, and would try to maintain a geographic buffer zone beyond Russias borders. A similarly outdated view was demonstrated over another event in the same year: the Kosovo campaign. Despite our many political declarations of partnership and shared values and interests, the Russian leadership still felt compelled to define itself in opposition to the West, regardless of what was manifestly taking place on the ground. What we saw as a compelling case for military intervention in support of humanitarian relief and
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regional stability, they saw, initially, as an attempt to extend NATOs geographic sphere of influence again, through the out-dated zero-sum prism. This attitude sparked the hasty dash by a few poorly-equipped Russian troops to seize the main airport in Kosovo a reckless piece of brinkmanship in political and military terms. And even though it was clearly both pointless and dangerous, it was hailed in some circles in Russia as a restoration of national pride. There are more examples, but the point is clear. Ten years after the Cold War ended, the practical foundations for NATO-Russia cooperation were in place -but the psychological foundations were not. Our future cooperation was a helpless hostage of Cold War ghosts. We needed a breakthrough. And we got it. Two events, in particular, played a key role in taking our relationship to a new level. The first was Vladimir Putin succeeding Boris Yeltsin as President, on the first day of the Millennium. A few weeks before that I had met Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov for the first time, in Istanbul, at a Summit meeting of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He invited me to come to Moscow in February 2000, where I
met President-elect Putin, also for the first time. That meeting was a real gamble for the new President. After all, he had only been in office a few weeks, and one of his first decisions was to crack the ice on which his predecessor had put the NATO-Russia relationship. It was no surprise, then, that our first meeting was cautious in tone and in substance. It was very bold, however, in symbolism, considering how difficult the previous year had been. President Putin and I agreed, in February 2000, to take a step-by-step approach to improving NATO-Russia relations. What was really important was that the show was back on the road. A tragic event a few months later demonstrated the potential of our cooperation. When the Kursk submarine sank on August 12th, 2000, NATO immediately, that same day, made an offer to help try to rescue the sailors trapped inside. Soon after the accident, Russian Admirals were in NATO Headquarters, working with their NATO counterparts on potential solutions. In the end, there was no way to save the sailors of the Kursk. But the lesson was clear in times of crisis, ad-hoc cooperation wasnt enough. We needed more. And the importance of
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making progress was understood in Moscow as much as in Brussels. My second meeting with President Putin a year later, in February 2001, proved that we were on the right path. Many of you will recall that there was a furious international debate underway at the time about US plans for missile defence and in particular, whether these plans would critically damage relations between Russia and the West. My meeting with President Putin turned what was a divisive debate into a productive discussion. He put forward a proposal on missile defence that acknowledged that we face a common threat; that there was a military response to it; and that we could cooperate in addressing it. This was already unprecedented common ground. What was equally significant was that he handed that proposal to me, as NATO Secretary General, rather than to the United States or to the other NATO nations. In doing so, President Putin made it clear that he acknowledged that NATO had an important role to play in EuroAtlantic security. And that he intended to work with NATO, even on controversial issues, rather than trying to engage in a counter-productive policy of confrontation. Two months later, in April 2001, I met with President Bush in
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Washington. And I predicted that he and Putin would work well together. Why, he asked? I told him, because both came to politics late in life. Because both come to their capitals from elsewhere Bush from Texas, Putin from St Petersburg. Both Bush and Putin were exciting major expectations, for change and improvement, especially in the economy. Both were managing big countries, with all the challenges that this holds. And both, in my experience, were unlikely to accept the answer, But Mr. President, we always do it this way. These predictions proved to be correct. So the first element of a fundamentally new relationship between NATO and Russia was already in place a much more pragmatic leadership in Moscow, which saw the West as a Partner, not a rival. But the real opportunity sprang, ironically enough, from a real tragedy September 11 2001. The terrorist attacks in New York and Washington did more than just destroy buildings and kill thousands of people including, by the way, nearly 100 Russian citizens. They also created an earthquake in international relations including relations between NATO and Russia. They
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made clear that todays threats can come from anywhere, and that spheres of influence and other traditional notions of geographic security are irrelevant in the modern world. On September 12th, NATO invoked its mutual defence clause for the first time in its history. During the Cold War, it was designed to be invoked against a Soviet attack. Now, it was invoked in response to terrorism the most vivid proof to Russia, if any were needed, that the Alliance truly had changed. It also brought NATO and Russia firmly onto the same side in the fight against international terrorism. It was clear, from the moment of the attacks, that the broadest possible coalition was necessary to counter these terrorists. It was also clear that there was no more time for outdated fears. We needed a new approach to security: cooperation at all levels, across the full spectrum of security issues that we actually face today. I dont mean to imply that last years terrorist attacks led to a fundamental change in direction in the NATO-Russia relationship. Many on both sides, not least President Putin himself, had already grasped the idea that we must join forces if we are to defeat terrorism, proliferation, regional instability and the other threats we all face today. But
September 11 made a real breakthrough in our relations an immediate necessity, rather than a theoretical long-term goal. Instead of asking, How much cooperation can we tolerate, we began to ask, How can we achieve the full promise of partnership quickly? President Putin demonstrated immediately that he understood the importance of putting aside old prejudices, and embracing true, and immediate, cooperation. With a heavy emphasis on immediate: of all the leaders in the world, President Putin was the first to call President Bush on September 11. From that moment, Russia was a staunch partner in the international response to the attacks. Russia offered to open its airspace to US war planes for the campaign to topple the Taliban and rout AlQaida. Moscow also demonstrated its openness by having US and other Western troops based in the Central Asian Republics, an area Russia had considered until recently to be her exclusive area of influence. And Moscow was willing to share the most sensitive intelligence on terrorism itself, and on the region around Afghanistan an area they know well, through grim experience. This was more than just cooperation. It demonstrated a sea
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change in the relationship between Russia and the West. It proved to NATO that President Putin was serious about being a true Partner in security. And it proved to Russia that NATO, and the West, were serious about having Russia as a Partner in facing new threats. It was this breakthrough that led to the creation, in May, of a fundamentally new framework for NATO-Russia cooperation. It is called the NATO-Russia Council or NRC. I cannot claim to be the author of the initiative. Like all success stories, it has many godfathers. The Prime Ministers of Britain, Canada and Italy, and the US President, can all take some of the credit. What is important is not who initiated the NATO Russia Council but what it has already achieved. The way it has done business in its first six months demonstrates that we truly have achieved a revolution in NATORussia relations. The seating arrangements alone speak volumes. In the old PJC, a cumbersome troika shared the chair. We called it 19 plus one. Russia called it 19 versus one. In the new NATO-Russia Council, there is no 19, and no 1. All participants sit as equals, in alphabetical order great powers and small powers together. Russia sits between Spain and Portugal, fully comfortable as one
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of twenty participating nations. We meet monthly, in NATO Headquarters a building that was on the target list of every Soviet nuclear missile commander. And I - the Secretary General of NATO - chair the meeting. It is hard to exaggerate how much of an advance this is. It proved that Russia is now ready to take her place as a full, equal and trusting partner in Euro-Atlantic security. And it shows that NATOs members are equally ready to take that step. The seismic change was vividly on display in Pratica di Mare Airbase near Rome on 28 May this year, when NATO and Russia held the first meeting of this new NATORussia Council, at the level of Heads of State and Government. In 20 days, Prime Minister Berlusconi had constructed a complete Summit headquarters in grand Italian style. But the real drama came at the table itself indeed, by the table itself. Here, around one table, were the Presidents of the USA and Russia, of France and Poland, the Chancellor of Germany, the British Prime Minister, the Italian Prime Minister, the Prime Ministers of Iceland and Luxembourg and others. Twenty of the key EuroAtlantic leaders at one big table. And heres the history they were there not to carve up the world like the assembled leaders at
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Potsdam and at Yalta, but to unite it. Unlike any gathering in European or transatlantic history, the great powers and a lot of other like-minded countries were launching a body to build lasting cooperation and interaction across a part of the world fractured and laid waste by the same countries for centuries. I have to say that being the Chairman of such an assembly was for me a moment of real significance and of momentary intimidation. More importantly, that day changed the world for ever. We have made a quick start in ensuring that this revolutionary new relationship delivers substantial new security. First and foremost, we have dramatically deepened our cooperation in the struggle against terrorism. The NRC nations are completing common assessments of specific terrorist threats in the EuroAtlantic Area. We are also assessing much more closely the terrorist threat to NATO and Russian soldiers in their peacekeeping missions in the Balkans. And as I mentioned, we have just held the second NATO-Russia conference on improving the military role in combating terrorism. We looked at how best to use the militarys unique assets and capabilities to defend against terrorist attacks, and against
attacks using weapons of mass destruction. And we are looking at how best to transform the military to better address these new threats. Part of that transformation has to cover purely technical or technological changes, such as buying chemical and biological defence kits. But the transformation must go beyond the kit, to also change the culture. In Moscow, I took the opportunity to stress to our Russian friends the importance of proportionality in responding to threats, and of training the military to act also as policeman and diplomat. I shared with them the experience of so many NATO countries: that a political solution to conflict was the only lasting solution. Blind, brute force only turns political opponents into future terrorists. It was a tough message to pass in Russia but I could make my case, at a high level, and be listened to, because of the new character in our partnership. Of course, military reform goes beyond preparing for terrorism. It means fundamental adaptation: to jettison out-dated Cold War heavy metal armies, and to create modern, light and flexible forces that are trained and equipped to meet 21st century threats. NATO armies face this reform challenge. Russia faces it in spades. Which is why we are
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exploring options for co-operating in this area as well to share best practices, and to see where we can cooperate to make best use of our collective resources. Our new partnership extends to many more areas. For example, we are deepening our military-to military cooperation including talks about having Russian air tankers refuelling NATO aircraft. Imagine that idea, even just a few years ago! We are also laying the groundwork for future joint NATO-Russia peacekeeping operations. We have already agreed broad political guidance for such future missions. And we are discussing holding a crisis management exercise together in the coming year. We are deepening our cooperation on short range Missile Defence, to better protect our deployed forces against attack. We are jointly assessing the threat to Russia and NATO nations posed by chemical, biological, radiological weapons, and their means of delivery. And we are preparing to work together in the event of such an attack, or indeed in any civil emergency. We held a joint exercise in September, in Russia, where we practised responding together to a terrorist attack on a chemical factory. This was truly a groundbreaking event. Fourteen
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countries from across Europe, including Russia, sent teams to participate, along with the UN. More than ten other countries sent observers. And together, all of these countries and international organisations practised working together to help those who might be injured in an attack, control contamination, and evacuate those at risk. This was a truly new coalition, training together to take on new threats. We are also deepening our cooperation on search and rescue at sea. I have already mentioned the Kursk disaster, and how it sparked deeper cooperation between us. Well, our Search and Rescue Work Program already includes Russia participation in our exercises. And we aim to sign a framework document on our search and rescue at sea cooperation in the next few weeks. I could go on, but you get the picture. There truly has been a revolution in NATO-Russia relations. And to me, one of the most vivid illustrations came from our recent Summit in Prague - a city once deep behind the Churchillian Iron Curtain. In Prague, NATO invited seven new democracies to begin accession talks to join the Alliance. Before September 11th, 2001, Prague was foreseen by all to be an enlargement Summit. And to a great extent, it still was.
A Wall Street Journal article a few days ago said that, by inviting seven countries to join, NATO has achieved the greatest victory in the five decades of its existence, by finally erasing the effects of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact and the Yalta Agreement, which had shackled Europe for half a century. Three years earlier, as the previous round of enlargement was finalised, Russia, still furious over the Kosovo crisis, shunned any contact with NATO. By contrast, two weeks ago, Russian Foreign Minister Ivanov attended a NATORussia Council meeting in Prague, on the margins of the NATO Summit, the day after the invitations were issued. He offered a glowing assessment, both in public and in our closed-door meeting, of the progress that had been made in the NATO-Russia Council in the past six months. And then he hopped on Air Force One, and rode back to Russia with President Bush, who was warmly received by President Putin. A revolution indeed. In 1917, Lenin said, How can you make a revolution without executions? And true to his call, the Bolshevik revolution ushered in one of the darkest eras in modern European history. A period in which Russia was isolated from Europe, and during which Europe was divided by Russia.
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That era is now finally over. And it could not come too soon. In the 21st Century, it is simply impossible to preserve our security against such new threats as terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, or regional conflicts, without Russia. In an increasingly globalised world, we need the broadest possible cooperation. And the new NATO-Russia relationship has created what has been missing for almost a century: a strong security bridge between Russia and her partners in the West. But the new NATO-Russia relationship has a benefit that is more political than practical. It is also a platform for Russias return from
the political and economic isolation of the past century. With her nuclear arsenal, her 11 time zones, her 150 million citizens, and her borders stretching from the Caucasus through Central Asia and the Far East, Russias fate remains vital to the security of the Euro-Atlantic community. Nothing could be of more long-term benefit to our common security than for Russia to take her rightful place as a full, trusting and trustworthy member of the EuroAtlantic community. And we have begun to make that vision a reality. Thank you.
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Professor John Lawton Chief Executive of the Natural Environment Research Council 14 February 2003 Life on a Little Known Planet and Unsustainable Development Joint RSE/ECRR/IoB Lecture
In this lecture, Professor Lawton sought firstly to review what is not yet known about diversity of life on Earth and secondly to look at what we do know about lifes diversity and how we are impacting it, in the context of unsustainability. He stressed the undeniable conclusion that we are not using it sustainably, with very profound implications for our lifestyles and economies. Relatively little is known about the range of species inhabiting Earth. We know some groups, such as birds, very well, but other groups, such as beetles, not at all well. In total we know of approximately 1.7 million species on the planet but this is only a fraction of the true picture; there could be anywhere between six and 30 million different species, probably around 12 million. Our view of species diversity is often skewed and it is worth remembering that the vertebrates (animals, birds, fish, amphibia and mammals) make up only 2.7% of the total. The vast majority comprises insects and microscopic life-forms of which we know very little. Estimates of how many organisms might inhabit Earth come from
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studies looking at species diversity in plots of rainforest. In one particular study, several years of work did not reveal any new bird species. However 1% of the butterfly species detected were new, 80% of the beetles were new, and 90% of nematode species were new. Such studies indicate that vertebrates make up less than 1% of species diversity. What are we doing to life on Earth, and why does it matter? As far as we know Earth is the only planet in the universe with life on it. However we are not treating it carefully and there is an extinction crisis underway. The fossil record tells us that the species around today make up between 2% and 4 % of all the species which have ever lived, i.e. 95% of species which have ever lived are now extinct. From the fossil record we can also determine the expected lifetime of a species, and therefore calculate the underlying background extinction rate for the 600 million years for which we have a fossil record. For the number of species we have on Earth, the average background rate equates to one or two species becoming extinct each year but human
impact alone has pushed up this rate in the last 100 years from 1-2 to 10-100 species / year. In this century it is likely that the rate will increase to 1,000 or even 10,000 species / year. There have been previous mass extinctions, but each time resulting from natural causes; vulcanism, meteorite impact or climate change. This time the cause is humans alone; there are too many humans making too much demand upon Earth. There are three ways of knowing mass extinction is occurring. The first comes from an order of animals that we know a lot about: birds. About 10% of the 10,000 bird species are seriously endangered and it is likely that 1,000 bird species will become extinct unless we intervene in the next 10-50 years. Perhaps more startling, up to 25%-40% of all vertebrates will become extinct over a similar time-scale. The second is through the speciesarea relationship. This shows that the bigger the island (or area of habitat), the greater is the number of species to be found. Therefore if rate of habitat reduction is known, the species-area relationship can predict how many species will be lost. Thirdly the international Red Data Book lists all species under threat. Over the next 50-100 years we stand to lose at least 15-20% of all the organisms on Earth, including
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those we care most about. Unless we are very careful, spectacular animals such as the cheetah will disappear in the lifetime of our grandchildren. There are five principal arguments as to why we should be concerned about loss of species. First, the simple moral argument: all life forms have a right to exist and in our role as stewards of the planet we should hand it on in good shape. Second, they enrich our lives and we should celebrate them. Third, the utilitarian reason: we will lose organisms which are genuinely useful for food and medicinal purposes. Fourth, the multiple canaries in the coalmine warning us that we are not using the planet sustainably. Fifth, we know that ecosystems that are species poordo not appear to work as well. Since we depend on ecosystems services for water and biomass production this represents a significant threat to humans. Political and economic systems also have a role to play. Why are we stupid enough to fish the earths fisheries - a renewable resource that could be harvested indefinitely - to the verge of extinction? The answer is simple: money in the bank grows faster than fish. Therefore under our present system it is economically rational (but biologically stupid) to fish a population to extinction,
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take the money and put it in the bank. As the North Sea fishery declined we gave fishermen perverse subsidies to use even bigger boats to catch even more fish. Governments refused to grasp the nettle and somehow believed the laws of biology would be suspended. When the last cod is gone there is no technology that will find another. The following figures well demonstrate the human impact on Earth. Humans take 4% annual plant growth for food. However to get this useful material humans take a staggering 40% of primary production. Most of the earths oceans are less productive than the Sahara desert. In areas where they are productive, between a third and half of ocean primary production ends up used by humans. This is why we have a fisheries crisis. Humans take 60% of all the readily accessible fresh water. The united impact of these three facts is that the ark is roughly half the size that it was before humans arrived. The financial analogy is that we are treating the Earths natural capital as income. The way we look after the planet makes Enron look like a paradigm of virtue. Even more concerning, these numbers are growing exponentially, with a doubling time of between 30 and 50 years.
Therefore, at this rate, within the lifetime of our grandchildren humans will be taking 100% of the planets resources. Clearly this cannot happen and even politicians are now waking to this alarming fact. How can we redress the balance? Species can be rescued, e.g. the Californian Condor. To restore the populations of all the 1000 endangered species in North America would cost just $650 million, the same as three days of war in Iraq. In addition, setting aside just 10% of the planets habitats could carry forward about half of the planets species. Furthermore, by concentrating on biodiversity hotspots, significantly more than half could be carried forward. These measures will buy us time. We have a window of opportunity, perhaps 25 years, to fix our accounting systems, political systems, and lifestyles. Otherwise sustainability is ruled out. The huge discrepancy between rich and poor must be remedied, as the worlds desperate poor will make ever-greater demands upon biodiversity until they are lifted out of poverty and into a fairer world. On a planet with environmental destruction, food and water shortage we will be unable to prevent the pressure of refugees entering developed countries.
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Professor Paddy Nixon Head of Global and Pervasive Computing Group, University of Strathclyde 17 February 2003 The Disappearing Computer Science & Society Lecture
In 1947 experts predicted only six computers would be needed to satisfy the worlds computing needs. Yet in 2002 there were 200 million hosts on the Internet alone. However, the market is beginning to saturate and PC sales are beginning to drop, despite the fact that only 5% of the worlds population use computers. In 1948 the first computer (The Baby) was built, in Manchester. It performed 714 calculations/ second. In 1964 machines were built capable of 3 million calculations/second. 1974 saw the development of the mouse and windows based system representing the first attempt to make interaction between computer and user more meaningful. In 1981 the first PC was released, and in 1984 the Apple computer appeared; the latter machine set the standard for interaction between user and computer. In 2002 web-servers the size of a 10p piece were developed. Throughout this fifty-year period the defining trends have been: increasing computing power, decreasing size, and decreasing cost.
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Gordon Moore, co-founder of Hewlett Packard, predicted in 1970 that computing power would double every 18 months. Roughly speaking this has been true to the present day, and technological development in molecular and quantum computing will probably ensure this trend continues for the foreseeable future. Four or five years from now computers will have the computational power of an insect and by 2023 computers may have the same computational power as the human brain, and cost less than one penny to produce. By 2050 the computational power of the whole human race will be available on a single microprocessor. There is a concurrent advance in the development of communication technology; this gives rise to Neilsons law which suggests that Internet access will increase by 50% per year. But have users seen a corresponding increase in the speed of the programmes they use, such as Microsoft Word? We have not, and the problem lies in trying to funnel the enormous power of todays computers and bandwidth through the traditional mouse
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and keyboard system. We need to change the way the user interacts with the computer. The next wave of development is not just in computing power but encompasses the social and interactive aspect, the networking aspect, and the physics underlying communication technology. The goal is an unobtrusive computer, rather than increasingly impressive graphics. The experiment currently being performed by Kevin Warwick, inserting chips under his skin, serves to show how the computer is disappearing in many ways and some commentators believe that in the next twenty years computers will recede into the background; so-called calm technology. An unobtrusive computer system could be in the background of an office environment for people of varying physical ability where many computing devices would be required to communicate in order to provide a people-centric environment. As an individual walked into this environment the computing facility would determine what information that individual should have access to and automatically relay any urgent information to them. The only way to make this service personalised to an individual is to recognise the context of that individuals history and the environment in which they are located. The identity of the individual and their character133
istics has to be observed, but at the same time remain anonymous. Issues of data ownership and data sharing present subtle challenges. In some respects they correspond to managing the identity and personal information of individuals. The instructions required to set up these rules must be in plain English, not programming language, e.g. anyone from my company can look at these files. Furthermore, the system should work on a global scale so that if an individual walks into an office in America, the system there should recognise the individual and react accordingly. The task ahead involves building systems requiring much greater flexibility than those we currently experience. In Professor Nixons own area of research, temporal logic - observing what happens in a given time frame to understand how different events are grouped - one of the major hurdles is equivalence, i.e. how you determine if one thing is the same as another one. The research necessary to realise this vision involves advances in programming and user-interface and is being tackled by the Global Smart Spaces Initiative (GLOSS). GLOSS aims to investigate the barriers, both user-centred and technical, to the construction of flexible and powerful living and working environments for all European citizens. It aims to do
this seamlessly, by integrating many services including application services, information and environments. It will do this by paying close attention to the interaction between user, space, device, and information. In order to demonstrate the facilities that might be offered by such computing advances, Professor Nixon proceeded to show a cartoon animation of a fictional character travelling from Brussels to Paris. The character receives a message highlighting a nearby coffee shop that he might enjoy, and is able to write digital postcards upon the fabric of a caf tablecloth. The kinds of devices which might relay this information could be similar to
the tags attached to shop goods, which use radio frequency to start an alarm if taken illegally through the shop doors. Professor Nixon concluded by stating his belief that this topic represented a new era in Computer Science that required radical rethinking of computer architecture, network infrastructure and the user interaction paradigms that computers currently use. He also reinforced the need to think very carefully about identity and privacy, as the implications of exposing all our data are immense. Engineers must incorporate this issue into their designs from the very start.
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Mr David Bayliss OBE FREng Former Planning Director of London Transport 3 March 2003 Public Transport and Public Expectations: Can the Gaps Be Bridged?
Mr Bayliss highlighted the advantages of using public transport, but conceded that there were several valid reasons for people not making greater use of the services currently available. These include: changes in the places where people live and work, increases in car availability, shortcomings in transport pricing and a number of attributes of public transport systems themselves. Public transport networks are sparser than the road network used by cars, and buses and taxis have to compete with cars and lorries for congested road space, resulting in slower and less reliable journeys. They are also disjointed and therefore require interchange. The result is that most public transport journeys take longer and are less convenient than going by car. This disadvantage is reinforced by public transport prices rising faster than motoring costs compounded by improvement in the quality and reliability of cars. Mr. Bayliss then identified the attributes of public transport that people most want improved reliability, frequency, fare structures, comfort, cleanliness and personal safety.
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Planning controls to limit dispersal would help but would take a long time to have much effect. Substantial improvements to bus services would require a package of traffic priorities, more modern vehicles, safe and convenient stops and stations, together with better information and easier fare and ticketing systems. Light rail systems can boost the appeal of public transport but are cost-effective only along busy travel corridors. Their effectiveness is improved when co-ordinated with bus services and integrated ticketing and information services. Metros have the greatest capacity to serve the densest urban corridors and whilst the opportunities for new lines are few nationally, there is considerable potential for expanding and modernising the London Underground. Similarly, improvements to stations, modern trains, information and ticketing systems would increase the appeal and use of rail. Mr. Bayliss concluded his lecture by stating that although new
technology and systems have important roles to play in making existing modes work better, the scope for entirely new systems is small. However, new operational concepts such as demandresponsive bus/taxi systems and mobility packages combining car and public transport use are emerging and have the potential to close the gap between the two
forms of transportation in some circumstances. There is no silver bullet that can eliminate the present shortcomings of our public transport system, but there is a wide range of measures which, together with better co-ordination, can reduce the gap between expectations and reality. However, implementing these is a challenge to which we have not yet adequately responded.
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Professor Kevin Warwick,IEE, FCGI Professor of Cybernetics, University of Reading 18 March 2003 I Cyborg The Royal Society of Edinburgh and Royal Academy of Engineering Joint Lecture
This lecture tells the story of the self-experimentation implant research carried out over the last few years. The term Cyborg has been widely used in the world of science fiction, yet it aptly describes a field of research still in its infancy. The Oxford English Dictionary describes a Cyborg as a person whose physical abilities are extended beyond normal human limitations by machine technology (as yet undeveloped). Meanwhile others see the class of Cyborgs (cybernetic organisms part human, part machine) as including those with heart pacemakers or artificial hips, even those riding bicycles (Hayles, 19993). In this discussion however, the concept of a Cyborg is reserved for humans whose physical and/or mental abilities are extended by means of technology integral with the body. One interesting feature of Cyborg research however is that technology developed can be considered in one of two ways. It can be seen either as potentially augmenting all humans, giving them abilities over and above those of other
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humans, or as helping those who have a physical or mental problem, such as a paralysis, to do things they otherwise would not be able to do. This dichotomy presents something of an ethical problem with regard to how far the research should be taken and whether it is a good thing or bad thing to evolve humans in a technical, rather than biological, way. Reasons for Experimenting The primary question is why should we want to extend human abilities? Yet despite the success of humans on earth, this is something we have generally always been trying to do. Indeed it could be regarded as an important part of what it means to be human. We have obvious physical limitations and in the last few centuries in particular we have employed technology to dig tunnels, lift heavy loads, communicate instantly around the world, accurately and rapidly repeat a mundane task and, perhaps most diversely of all, to enable us to fly. But due to a finite, limited brain size, humans also exhibit only a small range of mental abilities.
Such a statement can though be difficult for some humans to accept, largely because of their finite, limited brain size. By comparing the human brain with a machine (computer) brain, however, one can witness distinctly different modes of operation and, in some ways, advantages of the machine in terms of its performance. Some of the machines mental advantages have been put to good use in recent years. For example, a computers ability to carry out millions of mathematical calculations accurately, in the same time it takes a human to do one calculation inaccurately. Also, the memory capabilities of a networked computer are phenomenal in comparison to a humans memory. Surfing the web for a host of information that the human brain cannot hope to retain has become commonplace. Such mathematical and memory abilities of machines have led to considerable redefinitions of what intelligence is all about and have given rise to an ongoing controversy as to just what machine intelligence is and what it might be capable of. (Warwick, 20014). Technology has also been used to improve on the humans limited range of senses, and to give us some sort of picture of the world around us that we do not have any knowledge of in everyday life. So now technology can give us
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information about X-ray signals, whats going on in the infrared spectrum or the ultraviolet and even ultrasonic pictures of the world around. In most cases such signals are converted into visual images that humans can understand. Computers are nowadays also employed to process data, to think, in many dimensions. One reason for this is that human brains have evolved to think in, at most, three dimensions, perhaps extending to four if time is included as a dimension. Space around us is, of course, not threedimensional, as humans categorise it, but quite simply can be perceived in as many dimensions as one wishes. Machines therefore have the capability of understanding the world in a much more complex, multidimensional, way in comparison to humans. This multidimensionality is an extremely powerful advantage for machine intelligence. When one human communicates either with a machine or with another human, the human brains relatively complex electrochemical signals are converted to mechanical signals, sound waves in speech or perhaps movement with a keyboard. Realistically this is a very slow, limited and error-prone means of communication in comparison with direct electronic signalling. Human languages are, as a result, finite
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coding systems that cannot appropriately portray our thoughts, wishes, feelings and emotions. In particular, problems arise due to the wide variety of different languages and cultures and the indirect relationships that exist between them. Machine communication is by comparison tremendously powerful, partly because it usually involves parallel transmission, whereas human communication is, by nature, serial. When witnessing the physical and mental capabilities of machines, in comparison with those of humans, some of which have just been described, it is apparent that in the physical case humans can benefit from the technological abilities by external implementation. In other words, we sit in cars or on planes, but we dont need to become one with them. When it comes to the mental possibilities, humans can also benefit, as we already do in many cases, with external cooperation. As examples, a telephone helps us communicate or a computer provides us with an external memory source. But a much more direct link up could offer us so much more. For example, by linking human and computer brains together could it be possible for us, in this Cyborg form, to understand the world in many dimensions? Might it also be possible to directly tap the
mathematical and memory capabilities of the machine network? Why should the human brain remember anything when a machine brain can do it so much better? What are the possibilities for feeding other (non-human) sensory information directly in? What will a human brain make of it? And perhaps most pertinent of all, by linking the human brain directly with a computer might it be possible to communicate directly person to machine and person to person, purely by electronic signals a phenomena that could be regarded as thought communication? All of these questions, each one of which is valid in its own way, provide a powerful driving force for scientific investigation, especially as the technology is now becoming available to enable such studies. It is a challenge that perhaps provides the ultimate question for human scientists. Can we technologically evolve humans into a post-human, Cyborg, state? The 1998 Experiment By the mid to late 1990s numerous science fiction stories had been written about the possibilities of implanting technology into humans to extend their capabilities. But also at this time several eminent scientists started to consider what might be achievable now that appropriate technology had become available.
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As an example, in 1997 Peter Cochrane, who was then Head of British Telecoms Research Laboratories, wrote Just a small piece of silicon under the skin is all it would take for us to enjoy the freedom of no cards, passports or keys. Put your hand out to the car door, computer terminal, the food you wish to purchase, and you would be dealt with efficiently. Think about it: total freedom; no more plastic. (Cochrane, 19971). Despite the predictions of such scientists, little or nothing had, perhaps surprisingly, been done with research in this direction. In particular no actual scientific tests or trials had been carried out by that time. As a first step, on 24 August 1998 a silicon chip transponder was surgically implanted in my upper left arm. With this in place the main computer in the Cybernetics Building at Reading University was able to monitor my movements. The transponder, being approximately 2.5 cm long and encapsulated in glass, was in fact a Radio Frequency Identification Device. At various doorways in the building, large coils of wire within the doorframe provided a low power, radio frequency signal, which energised the small coil within the transponder. This in turn provided the current necessary for the transponder to transmit a uniquely coded signal, such that the computer could
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identify me. In this way signals were transmitted between my body and the computer the reverse transmission also being possible. In order to demonstrate the capabilities of an individual with a transponder implant, the door to my laboratory opened as I approached, the computer was aware of exactly what time I arrived at certain rooms and when I left, the corridor light came on automatically and a voice box in the entrance foyer of the cybernetics building welcomed my arrival each morning with Hello Professor Warwick. As far as we were concerned the experiment was successful, and hence the implant was removed 9 days after its insertion. One reason for carrying out the experiment was to take a look at some of the Big Brother tracking and monitoring issues. In fact, as a one off test, it was difficult for me to assess this. Personally I was quite happy with the implant in place, after all, doors were being opened and lights came on. It is therefore difficult to conclude anything with regard to the Big Brother issues. If I did have to make some statement however it would be that if we feel we are gaining from more monitoring then probably we would go ahead with it all, i.e. we would gladly move into a Big Brother world.
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One surprise was that mentally I regarded the implant as being part of my body. Subsequently, I discovered that this feeling is shared by those who have artificial hips, heart pacemakers and transplanted organs. However it was clear that the implant only had a limited functional use. The signals it transmitted were not affected by what was going on in my body and any signals sent from the computer to the implant did not affect what was going on in my body in any way. To achieve anything along those lines we needed something a lot more sophisticated. Hence after concluding the 1998 tests we immediately set to work on a new implant experiment. The 2002 Experiment On 14 March 2002, at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, an array of one hundred silicon needle electrodes was surgically implanted into the median nerve fibres of my left arm. The array itself measured 4mm x 4mm with each of the one hundred electrodes being 1.5 mm in length. The median nerve fascicle was estimated to be approximately 4mm in diameter, hence the electrodes penetrated well into the fascicle. A first incision was made centrally over the median nerve at the wrist and this extended to 4 cm proximally. A second incision was made 16 cm proximal to the wrist,
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this incision itself extending proximally for 2 cm. By means of a tunnelling procedure, the two incisions were connected, ultimately by means of a run of open tubing. The array, with attached wires, was then fed down the tubing from the incision nearest the elbow to that by the wrist. Once the array and wires had been successfully fed down the tubing, the tubing was removed, leaving the array sitting on top of the exposed median nerve at the point of the first (4 cm) incision. The wire bundle then ran up the inside of my arm to the second incision, at which point it linked to an electrical terminal pad which remained external to my arm. The array was then pneumatically inserted into the radial side of the median nerve under microscopic control, the result being that the electrodes penetrated well into the fascicle. With the array in position, acting as a neural interface, it was possible to transmit neural signals directly from the peripheral nervous system to a computer, either by means of a hard wire connection to the terminal pad or through a radio transmitter attached to the pad. It was also possible to stimulate the nervous system, via the same route, sending current signals from the computer to the array in order to bring about artificial sensations (Warwick et. al., 20036). By this
means a variety of external devices could be successfully operated from neural signals and feedback from such devices could be employed to stimulate the nervous system. (Gasson et.al., 20022). The project was conducted in association with the National Spinal Injuries Centre at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Aylesbury. One key aim was to see if the type of implant used could be helpful in allowing those with spinal injuries, either to bring about movements otherwise impossible or at least to control technology, which would, as a result, bring about a considerable improvement in lifestyle. In an extreme case the aim would be to implant the same device directly into the brain of a severely paralysed individual to enable them to control their local environment, to some extent, by means of neural signals in popular terminology to perhaps switch on lights or drive their car just by thinking about it. Our experiment of 2002 was therefore a first step in this direction, and in that sense provided an assessment of the technology. The electrodes allowed neural signals to be detected from the small collection of axons around each electrode. As the majority of signals of interest, e.g. motor neural signal, occurred at frequencies below 3.5 KHz, low-pass
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filters were used to remove the effects of high-frequency extraneous noise. In this way distinct motor neural signals could be generated quite simply by making controlled finger movements. These signals were transmitted immediately to the computer, from where they could be employed to operate a variety of technological implements. In experiments to ascertain suitable voltage/current relationships to stimulate the nervous system, it was found that currents below 80 uA had, in the first instance, little perceivable effect. Unfortunately, such results are not fixed in time, due to the human brains ability to firstly process out initially unrecognised signals and subsequently to gradually recognise stimulation signals more readily as it adapts to the signals input. In order to realise this current, voltages of 40 to 50 volts were applied to the array electrodes. The exact voltage depended on the electrical resistance met by each individual electrode, which, due to the variability of the human body, was not strictly the same from day to day. It was further found with stimulation experimentation that currents above 100 uA had little extra effect, the stimulation switching mechanisms in the median nerve fascicle exhibiting a non-linear, thresholding characteristic. The
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current was, in each case, applied as a bi-phasic signal with 100 usec inter signal break periods. This signal waveform in fact closely simulates the first harmonic of the motor neural signals recorded. In the first stimulation tests, whilst wearing a blindfold, a mean correct identification of 70% was achieved. In simple terms this indicates that, without prior warning, I could successfully detect when a signal had been injected, and when not, 7 times out of 10 on average. But this figure is somewhat misleading as it would usually take a few sets of tests to get my brain into the mood for an experimentation session. Subsequently, after about an hour of inputting signals, my brain would appear to get fed up and results would tail off. Hence experimental sessions usually lasted for an hour at most with about one hour for alternative activities before the next session commenced. Results from the middle time period of a session were frequently a lot higher than the 70% average. Towards the end of the entire 2002 implant experiment, which concluded with its extraction on 18th June 2002, a mean perception rate of stimulation of over 95% was being achieved. Given the nature of the tests being carried out, as described in the previous paragraph, what this in
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reality meant was that, to all intents and purposes, the recognition of stimulation was, by this time, usually 100%. All sorts of side effects were likely to disrupt a pure 100% return though, ranging from phantom signals, to local mobile phone texting to, in extreme cases, potential pickup from local radio stations. The applications carried out were quite wide ranging (Gasson et.al. 20022; Warwick, 20025) and included the bi-directional control of an articulated hand. The aim of the hand, known as the SNAVE hand, is to mimic the control mechanisms apparent in a human hand. Sensors in the fingertips allow for the grip shape to be adapted as well as for the applied force to be modified as necessary. In this way tension applied to an object can be adjusted to avoid slippage or to apply a force appropriate to the object being gripped. In tests, during which I wore a blindfold, the articulated hands movements were controlled directly from signals taken from the implanted array, i.e. my motor neural signals. Further to this, sensory data was fed back via the implant and the grip force was recorded. The object of the exercise was for me, without any visual stimulus, to apply the lightest touch to an object, just sufficient for a very light grip. As more force was applied to an
object, so the amount of neural stimulation was increased. Over the course of a two-week period, I learnt to judge, to a very fine detail, a force just sufficient to grip an object. On 20 May 2002 I visited Columbia University, New York City, and an Internet link was set up between the implant, in my arm in New York, and the SNAVE hand, which was still back in Reading University in the UK. Signals from the neural implant in the USA were transmitted across the Internet to control the remote hand. Coupled with this, with myself wearing a blindfold, feedback information was sent from the UK to the implant to successfully stimulate my nervous system in a series of trials. A 100% signal recognition rate was achieved and the SNAVE hand was controlled adequately despite the apparent delay in signal transmission. Data taken from the neural implant was directly employed to control the movement of an electric wheelchair, by means of a simple sequential state machine. Neural signals were used to halt the machine at a point related to the chosen direction of travel forwards, backwards, left, and right. In the first instance, experiments involved selectively processing signals from several of the implant electrodes over time, in order to realise direction
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control. With only a small amount of learning time, (about one hour), reasonable drive control of the wheelchair was achieved. For this task however, a short-range digital radio link was established between the implant and the wheelchairs driver-control mechanism. The radio transmitter/receiver unit was worn on my lower left arm, being housed in a lightweight gauntlet. Extensive trials were subsequently carried out around a fairly cluttered outdoor environment, with considerable success. Another application was the use of neural stimulation to feed in extra sensory input. Two ultrasonic sensors were positioned on the peak of a baseball cap. The output from these sensors was fed down to the gauntlet, to bring about direct neural stimulation. When an object was positioned adjacent to the sensors, the rate of stimulation was high. As the distance between the object and the sensors increased, the rate of stimulation was reduced in a linear fashion with regard to distance. In this way I was able to obtain a highly accurate ultrasonic sense of distance. Tests were carried out in a normal laboratory environment and, with a blindfold on I was able to readily navigate around objects in the
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laboratory. My personal, albeit one-off, experience was that my brain adapted very quickly, within a matter of minutes, to the new sensory information it was receiving. The pulses of current being witnessed were clearly directly linked to the distance of a nearby object. Furthermore, when an object was rapidly brought into my ultrasonic line of sight an automatic recoil type response was witnessed, causing my body to back away from what could have been a dangerous situation. The final experiment of scientific note involved the assistance of my wife, Irena. She had two electrodes inserted into her median nerve in, roughly speaking, the same location as my own implant, a process referred to as microneurography. Via one of the electrodes in particular, motor neural signal responses could be witnessed. The output from the electrodes was then linked directly to a computer. In tests, signals generated by my wifes nervous system were transmitted through the computer in order to stimulate my own nervous system, with the process also being initiated in the reverse direction. Effectively we had brought about a direct electrical connection between the nervous system of two individuals. We then employed this link to send motor neural signals directly from person to person. So if Irena generated three such signals, I witnessed three signal stimula145
tions on my own nervous system and vice versa. In this way we had successfully achieved a simple radio telegraphic signalling system between our nervous systems. Clearly, with implants positioned not in the peripheral nervous system but directly in the motor neural brain region, the same type of signalling could be regarded as the first, albeit rudimentary, steps in thought communication. Conclusions So Far The range of applications carried out with the 2002 implant, a full description of which is given in Warwick, 20025, gives rise to a number of implications. With implants subsequently positioned in the motor neural brain region it means we can look forward to a variety of technological control schemes purely initiated by thought. For those who are paralysed this should open up a new world, with them being able to switch on lights, make the coffee and even drive a car just by thinking. Extra sensory input, such as the ultrasonics employed already, could also provide an alternative sense for those who are blind. Issues of infection and rejection were also high on the agenda during the experimental period. It can be reported that at no time was any sign of infection witnessed. As regards rejection of the implant however, results are
perhaps far more encouraging than could have initially been hoped for. When the implant was removed, 96 days after implantation, no signs of rejection were observed. Indeed fibrous scar tissue had grown around the implant itself, firmly pulling it towards the median nerve bundle. It appeared that the implant had neither lifted nor tilted from the nerve trunk and the electrodes were still embedded. One negative aspect to the trial was the gradual loss of electrodes, most likely due to mechanical wire breakdown at the point of exit from my arm. By the end of the 96-day study only three of the electrodes remained functional, all others having become opencircuit. Post-extraction examination indicated that the electrodes themselves appeared to be still intact and serviceable. However, the gradual decline in the number of channels still functioning was one of the main reasons that the experiment was brought to an end. Clearly, for long-term implantation, the mechanical design aspects will need to be looked at in detail. Our research in this area has now been clearly refocused towards a potential brain implant, possible in the motor neural area. However many decisions need to be taken in the meantime as to the exact positioning of implanted electrodes, the number and type
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of electrodes to be implanted and the extent of signals it is wished to investigate. High on the list of experiments to be carried out though are a series of tests involving thought communication. Necessarily this will involve the implantation of more than one individual other than myself, which may present ethical difficulties in attempting to bring it about. The whole programme presents something of an ethical dilemma however. Very few would argue against the development of implants to help those who are paralysed to control their environment, including some aspects of their own bodily functions. Alternative senses for those who are blind or deaf would also be seen by most to be a good cause. But the use of such technology to upgrade humans, turning them into Cyborgs, presents a much more difficult problem. Who gets an implant and who doesnt? Who controls their use? Indeed, should humans be allowed to upgrade their capabilities and become super humans? Humans themselves now have the potential to evolve their own destiny. It will be interesting how quickly and easily this will be brought about. I, for one, will be at the front of the queue
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References 1. P. Cochrane, Tips for the Time Traveller Orion Business Books, 1997. M. Gasson, B. Hutt, I. Goodhew, P. Kyberd and K. Warwick, Bi-directional Human Machine Interface via Direct Neural Connection, Proc. IEEE International Workshop on Robot and Human Interactive Communication, Berlin, pp. 265-270, Sept. 2002. N. K. Hayles, How we became Posthuman, University of Chicago Press, 1999. 4. K. Warwick, QI: The Quest for Intelligence, Piatkus, 2001. K. Warwick, I, Cyborg, Century, 2002. K. Warwick, M. Gasson, B. Hutt, I Goodhew, P. Kyberd, B. Andrews, P. Teddy and A. Shad, The Application of Implant Technology for Cybernetic Systems, Archives of Neurology, to appear, 2003.
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5. 6.
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A full colour report of Professor Warwicks lecture has already been published by the Society. ISBN No 0 902 198 68 8.
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Dr Jenny Wormald St Hildas College, Oxford 24 March 2003 O Brave New World? The Union of England and Scotland in 1603 Joint Royal Society of Edinburgh and British Academy Lecture
24 March 1603 witnessed a stunning event: James VI became James VI and I. So the British Isles were at last united, under a king with the wrong nationality, the wrong accent, the wrong experience of kingship. Thus the English saw it. The Scots rejoiced - until they realised the level of English hostility to union, and began to worry about neglect. So those people who inhabited the brave new world were timorous rather than courageous; and opportunities to make Britain a major European power were missed. Who the leading players were, how they coped with the unpalatable challenge created in 1603, and why the ramshackle union survived, were the themes of this lecture.
A full transcript of Dr Wormalds lecture, part of a series of joint RSE and BA events, is available on the RSE website, or can be obtained from the RSE in hard copy. The British Academy hopes to publish a report on the series later in 2004.
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Professor C Doherty, FRS The University of Melbourne, Australia 9 April 03 at Moredun Research Institute Cell Mediated Immunity in Virus Infections Joint RSE/SABRI Lecture
Speakers Abstract The biology and role of the CD8+ killer T cell response was discussed in the context of recovery from virus infections. The nature and durability of immune memory was considered in the context of viral vaccines, together with the limited protection conferred by the T cell recall response.
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Professor Angus MacDonald Department of Actuarial Mathematics and Statistics Heriot-Watt University
Monday 12 May 2003
Genetics and Insurance: Can They Live Together?

Advances in human genetics seem to cause excitement and fear in equal measure: new understanding of diseases and new treatments, even gene therapy, but also GM crops, cloning, and the possibility of creating a new genetic underclass. These are people who would be turned away by insurance companies, or charged unaffordable premiums, because their genes would reveal whether or not they would die prematurely, or require expensive medical treatment. Any kind of underclass is a bad outcome. On the other hand, as long as the NHS continues to provide universal health care, the decision to buy life, health or other kinds of insurance is made voluntarily, or largely so. An insurer has to ask, why does any particular applicant want to buy insurance? Is it genuine insurance against unforeseen events, or is that person in possession of information that suggests a greatly elevated risk, such as a diagnosis of cancer? The NHS would not work if people could opt out of paying taxes to fund it until they felt the need, and equally, private insurance does not work if it can be obtained after the event being
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insured against has become too likely to happen. Insurance can cope quite well with everyday risks, however. The cost of life insurance may depend on someones age, sex, smoking habitsand general health, but until the signs are so bad that the chance of premature death is excessive, this degree of variation neither creates any obvious underclass nor leaves the insurance industry exposed to hidden information. In fact if social policy were to over-ride commercial freedom, some of these factors could quite well be ignored: information that implies different insurance risks is no great threat unless it is so strong that it changes peoples behaviour. So the question is: will genetic testing, in future, reveal risks of illness and premature death much more extreme than knowledge of age, sex, smoking habits and general health? The answer in most cases is likely to be no. Many of the great advances in future will be into the genetic component of the major killers like heart disease and most cancers. Most likely, they will uncover immensely complicated
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networks of interacting gene variants, environments and lifestyles, within which the genetic contribution will be hard to isolate, and even harder to measure. And, any important ones that are identified ought to lead to better health, which is hardly an insurance problem. However, that leaves aside those rare disorders where a defect in a single gene really does signal a very high chance of premature illness or death. These were discovered long before genetic testing became possible, because they were exactly the diseases that were seen to run in families, and in fact insurers have taken account of such family histories for a very long time. To the extent that an underclass exists, it is not new; it is just that it only recently acquired the genetic label, and all the attention that that brings. Actuarial models are mathematical models of the progression of diseases, the resulting mortality, and other aspects of a persons life history can be included too, such as when and why they choose to buy insurance. They allow us to quantify the costs of genetic information to individuals, in terms of possibly higher insurance premiums, and to insurers, in terms of being unaware of information about the
true risk of illness and premature death. Broadly, they lead us to the conclusion that if insurers would agree to ignore the results of genetic tests (as they do just now, except for very large policies) it would have hardly any noticeable effect. Research into common illnesses is unlikely to find lots of clear-cut genetic risks to compete with smoking, poor diet and lack of exercise, and the single-gene disorders are rare enough that a mature insurance market could absorb any extra costs, which would be very small. So, such models show that the answer to our main question, most of the time, is yes, genetics and insurance can live together. If this should be a surprise, it is perhaps because arguments that proceed purely from philosophical considerations (abhorring discrimination) or purely from commercial considerations (abhorring interference in the free market) make it less obvious, rather than more obvious, where to find the pragmatic ground upon which they might meet. However, does this pragmatism solve a problem, or create a bigger one? What about the person with a non-genetic impairment that means they might be excluded from insurance? How should we answer their question?
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Professor Chris Stringer Human Origins Group, The Natural History Museum, London Monday 9 June 2003 The Fate of the Neanderthals
The Neanderthals evolved in Europe over at least 200,000 years of the Pleistocene. But about thirty five thousand years ago, they were joined by early modern humans, known as Cro-Magnons. This period was also marked by the major technological and behavioural changes of the Upper Palaeolithic (Upper Old Stone Age), apparently coinciding with the arrival of modern people. The Neanderthals disappeared soon afterwards, but the factors behind their demise are still fiercely debated. While some workers argue that incoming early modern populations genetically absorbed them, other data suggest that they became extinct. Explanations for their extinction have ranged from suggestions of disease or warfare, through to economic competition from early modern humans, but most of these hypotheses imply Neanderthal adaptive inferiority. More recently, with improved archaeological, dating and environmental evidence, it has been possible to examine this time period in greater detail. This has led to new ideas and a greater emphasis on palaeoclimatic or palaeoecological factors in
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Neanderthal extinction, as well as a recognition that Neanderthals apparently shared many elements of modern human behaviour. Increased knowledge of the vagaries of Europes climate over the past 100,000 years has been particularly influential. Cores from the Greenland icecap, from the floor of the North Atlantic, and from lakebeds in continental Europe, reveal remarkable, rapid, short-term oscillations in temperatures. These show how severe the effects could have been on both Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons in reducing environmental capacity to support populations of either type. One recent view holds that the Neanderthals became extinct because they could not cope with the increasing open country environments of Europe around 30,000 years ago. The CroMagnons, who in this model were better adapted to the changing conditions, then simply colonised the vacant habitats. An alternative view is that extinction probably stemmed from various factors, including climatic instability and resource competition from CroMagnons. In particular, modelled data for the effect of millennial-
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scale climatic oscillations on the Neanderthals suggest that cumulative climatic stress could have played an important part in their extinction. Overall there was probably no single universal cause of Neanderthal extinction, which actually took place across western Eurasia over many millennia. But
in Western Europe, increasing environmental instability probably both seriously reduced Neanderthal numbers and gave selective advantage to early modern populations with greater technological and social support for survival.
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Professor Neil Hood CBE FRSE Professor of Business Policy, University of Strathclyde, Monday 1 September 2003 Goals, Greed and Governance
This lecture was set in the context of a number of widely-published scandals that had emerged in the business world over recent years. These events in themselves, together with a number of important trends such as globalisation, had served to heighten reputational risk and focus attention on both public and private morality. In total, they raised questions as to whether there were fundamental behavioural problems at the heart of the economic system. In addressing this subject, it was noted that it had been of interest to some of the early Fellows of the Society. Both Adam Smith and David Hume testified to the powerful influence of avarice, yet alerted their readers to the need to govern it. Professor Hood acknowledged that in the contemporary environment there was much interest in this topic not least because of the negative public sentiment about business that some of the scandals had served to fuel. While concerns about the governance of business are not new, in each of the dimensions of goals, greed and governance there were new dimensions in recent years. In the
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area of goals, there is more pressure to meet short-term performance measures; greater stakeholder interest; more complexity in both business models and through the diversity of relationships and so on. The net effect is that there are more (and potentially more conflicting) goals to be achieved the pursuit of which can put pressure on governance structures. These goals are subject to ever-increasing forensic examination from shareholders. As regards greed, there is a perception that the interests of executives and shareholders are not always well reconciled especially in the area of rewards. This is reflected in scepticism about the relative returns of senior executives and other stakeholders. Further, although implicit in concepts such as entrepreneurship, the role of personal avarice as an economic driver is less well understood. The challenge remains how this basic human motivation can be allowed to flourish within acceptable limits, and with due attention to both ethics and values. Finally, on the matter of governance, many changes are evident including the
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adoption of different types of voluntary and mandatory codes of conduct. So extensive have been these developments in some countries that there are concerns about the costs of compliance, the role of self-regulation, and the limits to governance. This in turn leads some business interests to view governance structures and regulation as ever more intrusive and capable of limiting corporate development. On the other hand, there are grounds for arguing that governance alone will never resolve the tensions between goals and greed not least because of the low levels of trust that prevail in some situations.
The final section of the lecture examined alternative behavioural outcomes to resolve these tensions. Most business leaders had approaches to goals, greed and governance that espoused enlightened self-interest. It was acknowledged that there were high costs to business of not being able to address these issues and resolve tensions between them. This in turn called for an ever-more proactive business stance of reviewing goals and correcting perceptions of greed and excess. It was concluded that governance though essential was not enough, and that the responsibility of business included that of constantly reviewing its system of values.
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Professor John F Smyth Director, Cancer Research Centre, University of Edinburgh 6 October 2003 How Cancer Chemotherapy Works
Professor Smyth began by stating that chemotherapy has been used for the treatment of cancer for over 50 years and is capable of producing cures in some of the rarer diseases and palliation for many of the commoner forms of malignancy. From the early excitement of curing childhood leukaemia, Hodgkins disease and testicular cancer came expectation of similar success in breast, lung and colorectal cancer but this has not been realised. Disappointment has been tempered however by recognising the value of slowing the advance of cancer, resulting in extension of good quality life the purpose of most medical prescribing. For example, in breast cancer, a recent 20-year update has shown the persistent advantage of chemotherapy administered after surgery in more than doubling survival from 22% to 47%. In patients with colorectal cancer a recent analysis of three separate trials including over 1500 patients has shown that chemotherapy reduced mortality by 22%. The enormous effort expended on clinical research has been matched by intensive laboratory research to understand how and why chemotherapy
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works. Our present knowledge is partial and almost counter intuitive. It is remarkable that such simple chemicals as alkalating agents (eg. Cyclophosphamide) or antimetabolites (eg. Methotrexate) can have such useful results in patients. We understand the chemistry but the biology is still a partial mystery. Current research is focused on applying molecular biology to the development of more selective even individualised anti-cancer medicines. Rapid progress in understanding how cells signal metabolic messages from the surface to the nucleus to alter protein expression has lead to the identification of new targets for therapeutic design. Oncogenes code for growth stimulants in tumours and recently the first highly selective drug which prevents oncogenic expression has been licensed for the treatment of chronic myeloid leukaemia. The consequences of reciprocal translocation between chromosomes 9 and 22 results in an oncogenic fusion protein (bcrabl) functioning as a cell surface receptor tyrosine kinase on myeloblastic cells. The resulting
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leukaemia is reversed by a synthetic, potent and specific inhibitor of bcr-abl (Gleevec). Tumour suppressor genes (TSG) normally serve a house -keeping function to prevent tumours, but their loss inherited or environmentally caused - allows tumour formation. In women with ovarian cancer, loss of a TSG on chromosome 11 has been shown to correlate with poor prognosis, and characterisation of the function of this gene is in progress, with the aim of developing a therapeutic to reinstate the tumour suppressor effect. Such gene therapy offers realistic promise of developing much more selective anti-cancer
therapies for which individual patients will be selected on the basis of genetic phenotyping. The relative success of cancer chemotherapy over the past 25 years has been largely serendipitous. The future will be focused on exploiting the new scientific understanding of how cancer cells grow and what controls them. Professor Smyth ended with the thought that this is no more likely to cure malignancy than existing drugs, but therapy will be used in continuous (non-toxic) administration, to prolong useful life, reflecting an acceptance that like most diseases, cancer is a chronic condition associated with ageing from which there is eventually no escape!
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Dr Tsugio Makimoto Corporate Advisor, The Sony Corporation 7 October 2003 Semiconductor Devices for Entertainment Robots Joint RSE/SDI Lecture
Introduction: Robots Are Coming Dr Makimotos lecture was illustrated with computer graphics. He began by describing an entertainment robot as a toy with cutting edge technology. He showed examples of robots from Robodex 2003, Japan, the largest annual touring robotics exhibition and explained that the 70,000 visitors who attended the event gave a strong signal that the age of the robot is coming. Brief History Dr Makimoto gave a brief history of robotics, from the origin of the word about 80 years ago to Isaac Asimovs insight into the future; Joseph Engelbergers, the Father of Industrial Robots, inventions between 1960 and 1970; and the latest robots, designed to coexist with human beings. Sonys Entertainment Robots Dr Makimoto showed a picture of AIBO, a dog-like robot that took six years to develop. When AIBO went on sale on the Internet in 1999, all of the 3,000 units that had been produced, with a price of $2,000 per unit, were sold within 17 minutes. This was a symbolic event for Sony, signalling the beginning of the new age of entertainment robots. Semiconductor Devices for Robots Semiconductor devices: the chips, sensors and applicators are important basic elements for robots, and they are all related to semiconductor technology. Besides intelligent chips, there are other various types of sensors used for humanoid robots, the SDR-4X for example has a total of about 80 sensors, which is a much larger number than AIBO which has just 15. The larger number allows more motion performance and more sophisticated interaction with humans. Future Prospects The first example was Robocup, a long-term international research group, whos goal is to create a soccer team of robots which can beat a champion human team by 2050. Dr Makimoto emphasised that it is a very ambitious role and explained that a great deal of new technologies will be required to meet this target but in time they will also contribute to many other fields of robotics including construction, transportation, agriculture, etc.
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The second example was R3, or Real Time Remote Robotics. This concept is a technology to enable us to virtually visit anywhere by staying in one place. He illustrated this by showing a conceptual picture of a mountain climbing R3 type robot. Other examples were the DARPA Grand Challenge, a race on 13 March 2004, where robot cars will navigate 300 miles of rugged terrain between Los Angeles and Las Vegas within 10 hours; and a Robonaut Project at NASA.
He went on to explain the evolution of robot intelligence and the prediction that the level of robot intelligence will reach that of a monkeys by 2020 and that of a human by 2040. Conclusion Dr Makimoto concluded by saying that the robot will become the most dynamic technology driver for our industry, creating a synergistic spiral effect between chips and robots and an exciting future ahead.
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Professor Chris Touamzou Imperial College London 16 October 2003 The Bionic Man Joint RSE/Heriot-Watt Lecture
Speakers Abstract We are entering an exciting new wave of technology inspired by lifestyle, healthcare and the environment. Professor Touamzous lecture showed how we can enhance biological functions with implantable microelectronics, explore the natural analogue physics of silicon technology to replace biological behaviour, and demonstrated how a new generation of analogue computing results can bring significant power savings in security and telecommunications applications.
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Professor Etienne-Emile Baulieu President, The French Academy of Sciences 27 October 2003 European Science in Difficulty
Science is at the heart of society and determines society, and plays no less a role for those who have been elected to take societys decisions. The present day is perhaps no richer in artistic and literary achievement than were previous centuries, but science moves so fast, progresses with such feverish determination, that it requires society to invent radically new modes of organisation, which is no easy matter. We need no reminder of the part played by birth control in changing the activity of women in todays society, nor of how a longer lease of life has modified the economics of savings and pensions, nor of how internet reshapes international trading and dealing. However, science is very much criticised. The scientists acknowledge that progress does not consist of classical scientific progress alone, but they also insist that fundamental research, at the core of any scientific process, is still going to develop. There should be no expectation of a plateau of scientific stability, or of a moratorium on change : that is a totally unrealistic hypothesis and many a quiet conservationist
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(and I sympathise with them) will regret it. Man invents, constantly seeks to know more about the earths climate and its evolution, the neighbouring planets, or the possibility of prolonging life in good health and complete lucidity. This cannot be repressed. It is up to men, and to women, to their representatives, to their civilisations, to fashion this into happiness, to abide by these advances, and to forge the rules of life that turn them into steps forward for the human species. In our countries, specifically there is at this point reason to fear that we shall succumb to the temptation of letting others take the lead, the United States in particular, and rest content with importing principles, patents, objects. Has scientific research become futile ? Is this the true destiny of Europe, of its ideals, of its economy, of the continent that gave the world Newton, Darwin, Jenner, Lavoisier, Pasteur, Marie Curie ? Scientific Europe : a novelty Each nation treats science differently. The United States who believe in it, are currently piling on real pressure by endowing their research including funda-
mental research with colossal means of public and private origin, in the universities and the research institutes, in industry, at all levels. Our students who have completed their postdoctoral education across the Atlantic are not returning. Fully mature 30-40 year olds are not finding here the working conditions which enable them to express themselves: no independent structures, no laboratories equipped in a modern manner, no technical support staff, no reasonable personal situations or careers: there is no money for that, or so little, and I am afraid that we are becoming used to it. Our young colleagues, some of the best, are leaving for countries which are only too happy to welcome them. European industry is relocating its research services, with their best personnel, mainly to American universities where they find the complementary and necessary skills in fundamental research, often paradoxically abandoned in Europe. The immediate intellectual loss will be added to tomorrow by formidable economic consequences with patents taken out in America, and the day after tomorrow by the loss of the best potential teachers. Only the European dimension can enable us to attempt to reverse matters. We all congratulate ourselves on the success of the European Organisation for
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Nuclear Research, CERN, in Geneva, and on that of the European Molecular Biology Organisation, EMBO, in Heidelberg. The example is there, Europe can win if the course is well set and firmly held. There is an urgency, as the representatives of the European nations recently recognised, in Lisbon then in Barcelona, without yet going beyond good intentions. That is why I propose that we should debate the following essential points proposed by a number of colleagues. The spirit of it has been basically accepted under the signature of the presidency of the Royal Society, the French Acadmie des sciences among ten European Academies, and currently also included in the Report from an expert group officially installed during the Danish EU presidency in December 2002, led by Federico Mayor and which was released on December 15, 2002. 1 It is necessary to at least double the budget allocated to research by the European Union. Furthermore, and this is a strong symbol, it would be in my opinion appropriate to request an exception in principle from the European stability pact in favour of investments in research, which, in addition to supplementing resources in each country, could provide a quasi-constitutional indication
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of Europes confident approach to human progress. 2 A redirection of European research giving priority to fundamental research and strengthening or creating of several outstanding supercentres and laboratories, with the ambition of becoming both the best and at the same time a very great cultural and economic force of attraction at World level. 3 A policy to train and put in place young scientists, not only those from our countries which are now favoured but also from European regions which are still in difficulty and from the countries of the South. Their initial training courses must also be remunerated and they must be guaranteed several years of work on their return, together with the necessary means for their research work. It is totally inadmissible that in France, our young researchers, 10 or 15 years after the Baccalaureate, should earn only 2000 Euros per month and do not even have a fixed-term contract : even apart from their financial circumstances, it is a degrading situation.
Additional financing, fundamental research, an elitist policy which is also open to young researchers, all that should come under the remit of an independent European Research Council, different from and complementary to the present institutional mechanisms of the European Union. It might also address the difficult problems resulting from the diversity of the European university systems and their links with research in each country. The time has come to propose to Europe an important objective which is both achievable and a call to action, now, when the Constitution is being written. My hope is that scientific research may become this new frontier for young Europeans and that the Royal Society and the French Academy will contribute to that. We have to change. Let us demonstrate that we know how to ask the right questions and define an objective and open procedure for replying. There must never be a preset answer. I would like to add the slightly strained smile of George Orwell: the enemy is the gramophone mind, whether or not one agrees with the record that is being played at the moment ...
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CONFERENCES, WORKSHOPS, SEMINARS AND DISCUSSION FORA

Conference Hearing , Deafness and Social Inclusion 13 November 2002
On 13 November the Society held a one-day conference looking at the personal, social, educational and professional consequences of hearing impairments and deafness in both adults and children. Speakers included Professor John Bamford, University of Manchester, on Epidemiology of hearing loss in adults and children; Professor Quentin Summerfield, The University of Nottingham, on Deaf and Deafened Children: the Impact of Cochlear Implantation; Ms Heather Fisken, RNID, on The Transition from Education to the Workplace and Professor Phil Hanlon and Dr Sheila Beck, Public Health Institute for Scotland, on Hearing Impairment in the Elderly. The event closed with a panel discussion featuring Mrs Janet Allan, Donaldsons College for the Deaf, Professor Bamford, Ms Lillian Lawson, Scottish Council on Deafness, Mr David Breen, Public Health Medicine Consultant, Dumfries and Galloway Health Board and Mr Andrew McLeod, Head of Health Planning and Quality Division for the Scottish Executive. More than 80 deafness professionals and service-providers attended the Conference which was organised with the help of representatives of RNID, Donaldsons College for the Deaf and the MRC Institute of Hearing Research. The Conference was supported by the William Demant Foundation and A & M Hearing Limited.
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Seminar Funding Opportunities Through The 6th Framework Programme 12 December 2002
To support Scotlands research and SME sector interests in the European Commission 6th Framework Programme (launched on 11-13 November 2002) the Society, in partnership with the United Kingdom Research Office (UKRO) and the European Commission Office in Scotland, held an information seminar and network reception on funding opportunities through the Framework Programme. The seminar was attended by around 50 people from across the research and SME sectors. It was chaired by Elizabeth Holt, Head of the European Commission Office in Scotland, and through presentations by Dr Clair Watts,
European Adviser, UKRO, Brussels, Peter Walker, European Funding Adviser, Innovation Relay Centres Scotland, and Catherine Holt, European Research Funding Officer, Beta Technology Ltd, it provided an overview of the programme and specifically, information on funding opportunities through its Structuring the European Research Area theme. The event also provided an opportunity for participants to seek individually focused advice from the presenters, which a number of those attending sought. And, it served as a platform for networking between individuals and the research and SME sectors.
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Conferences, Workshops, Seminars and Discussion Fora
Wellcome Research Workshop Event-related potential studies of memory and attention: How does Neuroimaging increase understanding of human cognition? 13 January 2003
The meeting was a great success; 35 people from laboratories all over Scotland and England came for a day of talks and discussions about the state-of-the-art scientific investigation of the electrophysiological basis of memory and attention . The attendance list was designed to be inclusive, and included undergraduates, post-graduates, post-doctoral fellows, lecturers and professors, representing some of the most highly regarded laboratories in Britain. In addition, a guest speaker was invited from the Rotman Research Institute in Toronto, Canada, giving the meeting an international flavour. Feedback from those attending indicated that the event was considered worthwhile and productive in essence it was an extremely enjoyable and educational day. A series of presentations were made over the course of the day, interspersed with open discussion sessions. Several of the talks briefly introduced important methodological and technical questions that are faced by everyone in the field, allowing extremely useful airing of views, sharing of knowledge, and debate
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about best practice. Questions asked by the attendees were used to stimulate open discussion, ranging from practical issues about how to do our science, to theoretical concerns about the analysis and interpretation of our data. Further, several speakers, including junior scientists, provided excellent up-to-theminute reviews of work in the field. This really was an excellent learning experience for all concerned, challenging our own assumptions and hearing alternative views and approaches things that are difficult to achieve within a single laboratory, but are essential if our science is to thrive. One sign of the success of the meeting is that one of the attendees has begun to set up a web-based discussion forum, with the aim of facilitating on-going debate and sharing of knowledge between laboratories. The meeting has lead to an interesting and fruitful collaborative research project with Drs Richard Schillcock and Scott Macdonald at Edinburgh University. Organised by Dr David Donaldson, University of Stirling.
Wellcome Research Workshop Tissue and Vascular Remodelling 24 January 2003
On 24 January 2003, the Royal Society of Edinburgh was host to a highly successful workshop entitled Tissue and Vascular Remodelling in the Female Reproductive Tract. The workshop was funded by the Wellcome Trust in collaboration with the Royal Society of Edinburgh and supported by the Munro Kerr Society. Tissue remodelling and angiogenesis are pivotal cellular processes in the female reproductive tract. This is a dynamic area of research particularly within Scotland. The disparate groups studying these processes tend to be organ- and tissue-specific. It is, however, very clear that many of the key questions, therapeutic targets and cellular processes involved are generic in nature and cross the boundaries between tissues and organs. In addition, novel techniques utilised by some groups have particular relevance to other groups and experimental models. The workshops aims were to bring these disparate groups of researchers from across Scotland together to discuss the main issues in their respective areas, common cellular processes and novel investigative techniques and their development. We felt that
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this would lead to new opportunities for research collaboration and greater integration of reproductive research throughout Scotland. Forty participants enjoyed 17 short talks by experts in specific areas, as well as three briefings by international authorities in the field. The first session identified current research questions in tissues of the female reproductive tract. Dr Richard Anderson from The MRC Human Reproductive Sciences Unit described how the life-span of the ovary was set in fetal life and how mcl-1 and neurotrophins may be key to oogonial turnover. Dr Norah Spears from the University of Edinburgh demonstrated the ovarian remodelling during follicular growth and migration with elegant in vitro models designed for its study. Professor Steve Hillier from the University of Edinburgh then provided one of the many meeting highlights by describing his studies on ovarian surface epithelial cells and how their metabolism and inflammatory environment during ovulation may sow the seeds for malignancy. Dr Colin Duncan from the University of Edinburgh demonstrated how regulation of paracrine cell-
cell communication was fundamental in tissue and vascular remodelling using the corpus luteum paradigm. The focus them moved from the ovary to the uterus. Dr Steve Campbell from the University of Glasgow described the complex vascular remodelling during endometrial growth and development. Dr David Howe, also from the University of Glasgow, used clinical paradigms to highlight current understanding of placentation and remodelling of the fetal membranes in pre-term labour and pre-eclampsia. The session was completed by another participant from the University of Glasgow, Dr Jane Norman, who described studies investigating the role of leukocytes, cytokines, and nitric oxide in the tissue remodelling of the cervix as labour is initiated. Professor Steven Smith from the University of Cambridge, an international expert in vascular remodelling in the female reproductive tract, gave the first of the expert briefings. He described his experience studying human endometriotic implants using mice models and how angiogenesis is stimulated. In addition he highlighted a multifaceted approach to problem solving with the use of array technology, computer modelling, therapeutic intervention, animal models and clinical collaborations. Professor
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Andrew Calder from Edinburgh, who chaired the session, then led a round-table discussion looking at key areas where further synthesis of therapeutic targets and strategies could be obtained. The second session focused on generic cellular processes at reproductive tissue sites. Professor Hilary Critchley from the University of Edinburgh started the session with some exciting data revealing for the first time that uterine natural killer cells have steroid hormone receptors, linking expertly the hormonal and immune systems in the endometrium. Dr Henry Jabbour from the MRC Human Reproductive Sciences Unit looked at second messenger systems as a therapeutic target with particular regard to prostaglandin action. Dr Simon Riley from the University of Edinburgh has published widely on matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) in tissue remodelling during pregnancy and delivery. He gave an authoritative update on MMPs, their specific inhibitors and methods of detection. This was followed by a talk by Dr Richard Lea of the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen on immune cells, focusing on uterine natural killer cells and the lessons from knock-out studies of mice. He also provided clear insights into the relationship between nutrition and the immune system.
The session ended with the second expert briefing. Professor Carlos Simon from Valencia, Spain, gave, arguably, the best talk of the workshop. Descriptions of his studies on human blastocystendometrial and epitheliam interaction demonstrated how much critical information could be obtained when using novel, highly characterised, co-culture models. The audience was clearly enthused and this formed the basis of the next round-table discussion chaired by Dr Des Gilmore from the University of Glasgow, which looked at common approaches to the physiology and pathology of the female reproductive tract. The third session concentrated on advances in investigative techniques. Dr Paul Fowler from the University of Aberdeen described the technique of proteomics and used his studies on endometriosis to highlight its usefulness. Professor Peter Ghazal from the University of Edinburgh gave a very clear account of chip array technology and the increasing application of this modality. The GTI unit that he heads collaborates widely and the delegates were informed about how such collaborations could lead to crucial discoveries. Dr Phillipa Saunders from the MRC Human Reproductive Sciences Unit examined the laser capture technique. This allows the
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extraction of RNA from specific cell populations in tissue sections and reduces the dilution effect of other cell types when the cell population is small. It is a difficult technique but she has had particular success in studying gonocytes in the testis. Professor Rodney Kelly gave an illuminating account of the principles behind quantitative RTPCR using the light cycler and the Taqman machines. It is clear that these techniques will be increasingly fundamental to reductionist medical research in the future. Professor John Mullins from the University of Edinburgh had to pull out at the last minute with a medical problem. Luckily his deputy, Dr Matthew Sharpe, was available to talk about the creation, techniques used, uses and potentials of transgenic animals and knock out models. Dr Shabaz Hamid from the University of Glasgow then described a simple technique for studying whole blood vessels in tissues. This technique generated great interest and provided some incredibly detailed pictures of the endometrial vasculature. The final expert briefing was given by Dr Hamish Fraser of the MRC Human Reproductive Sciences Unit. He is an international authority on the inhibition of physiological angiogenesis. He described how inhibition of vascular endothelial growth factor
can inhibit follicular growth, luteal development and possibly endometrial development. The delegates were left in no doubt that they had heard, at first hand, of some of the most significant recent breakthroughs in the manipulation of tissue and vascular remodelling. The third round-table was chaired by Professor Alan McNeilly of the MRC Human Reproductive Sciences Unit. It focused on a framework for advancement and collaboration. It was evident during the formal and informal discussions that everyone had derived some new insight from
the meeting and several new collaborations were being discussed. In summing up, Professor Hilary Critchley reported that the meeting had succeeded in all its primary objectives. Oral input from half of the delegates had ensured a healthy involvement and an excellent balance of senior and more junior researchers. However it had been a very full day and one lesson learnt was that the talks gave fodder for discussion that could have easily gone on into a second day. Maybe next time the meeting should be over two days.
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Discussion Forum GM Gene Flow: Scale and Consequences for Agriculture and the Environment 27 January 2003
As part of the UK GM science review, the RSE hosted a debate on gene flow and detection on 27 January 2003 to identify the extent of current scientific knowledge in this area. Speakers were : Dr Geoff Squire (Scottish Crop Research Institute) reviewing research into gene flow via pollen and seed from GM crops to non-GM crops Dr Mike Wilkinson (University of Reading) reviewing research into gene flow via pollen and seed from GM crops to other plant species Professor Tony Trewavas, FRS, FRSE (University of Edinburgh): reviewing research into how gene flow can be prevented/ minimised (including the implications for detecting GM genes in non-GM supply chains), and Dr Riccarda Steinbrecher (Econexus) reviewing research into Horizontal GM gene flow from GM crops, via the breakdown and direct transfer of GM DNA Over 100 delegates attended, including the Chief Scientific Adviser for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural
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Affairs, Professor Howard Dalton, FRS, and scientists from the Scottish Agricultural College; Scottish Crop Research Institute; Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh; Roslin Institute; Scottish Agricultural Science Agency; the Macaulay Institute; Scottish Natural Heritage; and the Universities of Aberdeen, Abertay, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow and St. Andrews. Delegates also attended from BBSRC-Rothamstead and the Universities of Reading and East Anglia. There was a lively discussion, ably chaired by RSE General Secretary, Professor Andrew Miller, CBE, FRSE. The UK GM Science Review Panel was represented by Dr Brian Johnson, Terrestrial Wildlife Team, English Nature; Professor Michael Wilson FRSE, Chief Executive, Horticulture Research Institute and Professor Philip Dale, John Innes Centre. One general point of agreement was that gene flow to nearby crops and into wild relatives would happen, albeit at a low level, with a 99% crop purity rate being achievable, but with difficulty. Where there was disagreement was the significance to the environment of the gene flow into the wild relatives, with
recognition that there was a need for more research into agricultural ecosystems. The speakers papers and a transcript of the event are availa-
ble on the RSE and OST websites (www.royalsoced.org.uk; www.gmsciencedebate.org.uk) and are feeding into the UK GM science review process.
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Oral Health Workshop What Research Would Benefit The Practice of Primary Dental Care? 31 January 2003
Consideration of the questions why is evidence-based dentistry important for primary dental care? and what research would benefit the practice of primary dental care? are timely from a number of different perspectives. Professor Nigel Pitts outlined the aim of the days conference as a debate of issues including lessons learned from elsewhere in primary care, the systems currently in place for conducting research in primary dental care in Scotland and policy considerations for the future. The meeting was organised by the Royal Society of Edinburgh and members of the Dental Health Services Research Unit. The day began with an overview of what evidence-based practice is and how at national and international levels modernisation in dentistry is pursuing different models. Embedding research in the service could help to identify the best way forward for primary dental care. The future of evidence-based practice was considered by disaggregating it into three essential components: research and its synthesis, dissemination of evidence and implementation. Dr Fay Crawford discussed the need for valid information about diagnosis, therapy and prevention and the challenge that the high volume of literature presents. The importance of research being of clinical and topical relevance to gain the support of policy makers, practitioners and funding bodies was demonstrated by Professors Frank Sullivan and Christine Bond, who reiterated the need for teamworking across health care professionals. Systems in place in Scotland to promote evidence-based practice include the Scottish Consortium. Dr Jan Clarkson and Professor Richard Ibbetson presented current activity, which includes the Scottish Dental Practice-Based Research Network to facilitate the conduct of high quality research and dissemination of research evidence. The role of the Scottish School of Primary Care in supporting dental research was described by Dr Sally Wyke, reinforcing the key principles of partnership and collaboration. A clinical device with potential for caries prevention is a slow fluoride release bead and Professor Richard Welbury presented the
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current evidence with a proposal for a multicentre trial in Scotland. In an example of capacity building for research dental primary care, Chris Southwick presented the experience of a general dental practitioner taking an idea through to a funded CSO fellowship. How research evidence can lead to improvements in the quality of dental services was considered by the Deputy Chief Dental Officer Mary McCann. In a modern Scotland, robust research should inform health policy; however, there is awareness that effective communication is necessary. The impact of payment systems on dental services was considered by Dr Colin Tilley, who presented evidence of differences between the intensity of treatment delivered according to the dentists remuneration method. How education might influence the quality of service was presented by Dr Tony Anderson.
The role of the NHS Scotlands new clinical effectiveness agenda was described by Professor Karen Facey, in a presentation that outlined how the new organisation will take forward the quality improvement agenda. The meeting then split into four working groups. The scene for the workshops was set by Anna McGowan describing the Glasgow Research Initiative in Dental Primary Care (GRID) and Dr Jimmy Steele presenting an idea for a trial based upon a pilot project conducted by general dental practitioners. The report back from these workshops has been compiled into an agenda for future action with recommendations for changes to systems of service and education to improve the conduct of research in primary care and the implementation of evidence.
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Workshop Quark and Gluon Physics 8th Particle Physics Workshop 6 February 2003
The eighth Particle Physics Workshop was held again in cooperation with the Durham Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology and with additional support from the Italian Embassy. Eighty-three research workers heard three authoritative reviews from world-leading experts in the theory and experimental aspects of Quantum Chromodynamics, the strong force that binds the quarks and gluons that together make up 99.95% of the mass of the observed Universe. Dr A M Cooper-Sarkar (Oxford) worked from first principles up to the most modern challenges in the measurement of the internal structure of the proton, concluding with the question of understanding the evolution of gluons in very high-density regimes. Professor E W N Glover (Durham) described progress in putting the theory of high-energy interactions into systematic comparison with data. Finally, Professor Guido Altarelli (CERN, Geneva and Rome) gave a critical review of the measurement of the strong coupling constant by a wide range of techniques. Four shorter talks presented work done close to home. Professor C T H Davis (Glasgow) showed how the precision of lattice gauge calculations is dramatically improved by the inclusion of dynamical quarks. Dr V Kartvelishvili (Lancaster) presented the phenomenology of the search for states containing hidden supersymmetry. Dr T Binoth (Edinburgh) described calculations of the backgrounds to light Higgs boson searches at the Large Hadron Collider, and Dr G Zanderighi (Durham) described newly-studied effects in jet physics.
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Conference The Future of Retailing: Prospects for Town Centres 27 February 2003
The fourth in the series of meetings sponsored by Archibald Campbell & Harley WS was held on 27 February 2003 with the theme of Prospects for Town Centres. In most cities and large towns there has been a steady shift in the location of new investment in retailing away from town centres and towards out-oftown and edge-of-town locations. Town centres have attracted new investment and new shopping developments but the balance between the centre and the periphery has been changing inexorably over the last 40 years. This feature of urban development is not limited to Scottish cities and towns but is part of a much wider shift in the structure of cities across the EuropeanAmerican culture realms. The Conference addressed some of the issues and implication of this shift, considering Scottish changes in the context of the wider patterns apparent in the UK as a whole. Mr John Bullough, Retail Director of Grosvenor Limited, explained the market background against which shopping centre development takes place. A number of economic forecasts point to the
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need for an additional 12 million sq. m. of shopping centre space being needed in the UK by 2020. Given it can take well over 5 years for a centre to move from initial concept to opening, these long term views are integral to understanding the potential changes in Town Centres. The emerging trends are for shopping centre schemes to be ever bigger and more multi-use, containing a variety of commercial, social and cultural space. In order to develop these new centres, there is a greater need for partnership between the private sector developer and the public sector agencies charged with planning and managing urban areas. With the long-term project, both groups of partners have to recognise the risks and rewards for all parties at each stage of the project. These issues and the possibility of successful partnership were illustrated with reference to Grosvenors development of the Paradise Street area in Liverpool. A total of approximately 25,000 sq. m. of retail, residential, civic, leisure, hotels and offices are being developed comprehensively in a 16 ha. site in the centre of Liverpool.
Mr David Millburn, the Scottish Regional Director of Sainsburys, presented Mr Ian Coulls paper on the history and development of supermarkets in the last 50 years. Particular reference was made to the innovations undertaken by Sainsburys, first in developing the concept of the supermarket and later in the moves to locate these stores in different types of locations, both edge-of-town and in city centres. From the perspective of the large food retailer there is not a perceived conflict between the development of stores in town centres and at edge-of-town locations. The types of supermarkets now being developed in the different locations serve different needs of consumers and so are operated in different ways. The realisation by the food retailers of the presence of a market in city centres was somewhat slow in appearing after the widely-held view of the 1970s and 1980s that new stores should be at the edge of towns. Nonetheless, when it was appreciated that workers and residents in city and town centres required locally-available supermarkets, development followed quickly. Tesco and Sainsburys, through the 1990s, have developed a number of different types of smaller supermarket located within and adjacent to town centres. The current view is that more of these smaller supermarkets will continue to be provided in city centres as suitable sites
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become available, but that the large stores will not be acting as anchors to development schemes in town and city centres. Mr Peter Cummings, Director of Integrated Finance at the Bank of Scotland, explained how a financier looked at shopping centre investments and the risks associated with these schemes. Retail property continues to attract significant investment despite a recent slowdown in rental growth, with planning constraints ensuring that there is not over-supply. The Bank of Scotland operates an integrated approach to retail investment, often through a joint venture arrangement. It has 22 joint venture partners associated with 21 shopping centre projects. In searching out a suitable investment the key elements are the presence of market leaders in the scheme, a viable location for the scheme, a high quality scheme with a diverse offering of uses and tenants, and an experienced management team. Mr David Stathers, Policy Advisor on Property and Planning to Boots Property Plc, emphasised the role of planners in shaping the relative importance of different locations within cities and towns and also amongst them. The early application in planning of the concept of urban hierarchy, over 40 years ago, led to a very rigid and oversimplified approach to planning
for retailing. It is only in the last decade that this rigidity started to be relaxed, although the changes in retailing have been enormous over the last 40 years. The mismatch between planning policy and retailers requirements has been considerable. The location policy of Boots derives from a need to address the demand side issues, for example the growth of home ownership and increased wealth, and the supply side of the changes in the operations of retailers. The evaluations of customer travel patterns and the catchment of a store become even more important as new forms of retailing enter the network of retail provision. With the changes in demand and supply, it is now necessary for planning policy to become more flexible and accommodate plans for the decline and even phasing out of existing underperforming town centres that can not compete as viable nucleations of retail activity. Whilst improving the vitality of town centres is important, there are cases where such improvements are not possible and policy approaches have to be sought that identify which town centres can and which cannot be improved. The final speaker was Ms Maureen Johnson, Chief Executive of The Store, a consultant and advisory group that is deeply involved in forecasting future patterns of retailing development.
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A picture of the future consumer was drawn that suggests a very fragmented structure to demand, with time-pressured ageing consumers confused by a surfeit of choices, but more discerning and demanding in their purchases and more concerned about wellbeing. Retailers will need to respond in a variety of ways to provide for this plethora of consumer needs. Shopping behaviour for groceries, for example, shows several different behaviour patterns with, into the future, less large-volume planned purchasing, more immediate convenience-orientated purchasing and more specialist expert shopping. Retailers then need different types of store for these different shopping occasions. The implications for property will reflect these different consumer requirements, with shopping developments geared to these different behaviours. Town centres still have much to offer, and are likely to respond to the more leisure-orientated aspects of behaviour. Although the conference explored both generic and UK issues on the changes in town centres, there was much that was relevant to developments in Scotland. The increasing levels of personal mobility, both physically and in peoples minds, means that Central Scotlands town centres will increasingly compete with each other. Inevitably some will
grow more quickly than others and some may even decline. All the speakers stressed the dynamism that is present in the ways that retail firms innovate and respond to consumers the
challenge for the property sector is to react on a similar timescale to the retailers and provide Scottish town centres with a property base that attracts retail investment.
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Conference 2020 Science Education 5-7 March 2003
The RSE was invited by the Scottish Executive to administer a Science in the Community Award as part of the 2020 Science Education conference held in Edinburgh from 5-7 March 2003. This award recognised organisations or groups who take science education out to the community and, in so doing, promote the public understanding of science. Representatives of the short-listed organisations - STEM Strategy from Sensation Dundee, the Glasgow Science Centre, The SCI Fun Scottish Science Technology Roadshow and NESciE & SESEF (Natural Environmental Science
Education & Scottish Earth Science Education Forum joint nomination) were invited to an awards dinner on 6th March at the Sheraton Hotel, Edinburgh, where Iain Gray, MSP, announced NESciE & SESEF as the winners, with the runner up being Glasgow Science Centre. The Careers Scotland Business Awards were also announced and presented at this event. The trophies were designed by Jonathan Crawford, a final year art student from Edinburgh College of Art, winner of a design competition run by the RSE in all the Scottish Art Schools.
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The Cormack Bequest Astronomy Meeting 2003 31 March 2003
This annual one-day meeting was held this year, and for the first time, in the University of Aberdeen, taking place in one of the large lecture theatres in The Fraser Noble Building. There were 60 attendees (20 from the University of St Andrews, 25 from the University of Edinburgh, six from the University of Glasgow and nine from the University of Aberdeen) and the lunch and refreshments were funded by the University of Aberdeen which also provided the room and the facilities used. The main speakers were Professor Keith Horne of the University of St Andrews and Dr John Reid of the University of Aberdeen. Professor Hornes most interesting talk, The Search for Extra-Solar Planets, gave us an update on the recent and important topic of the existence of planets in orbit around stars (suns) other than our own. Since they were first discovered some eight years ago, about a hundred such planets have been discovered and Professor Horne explained the methods used to find them, and how the observational information available on
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them, allied with stellar theory, could be used to calculate some of their properties. Dr Reids talk, Stars from the North East, took us, in a very informative way, through the contributions to astronomy made by scientists from the North East of Scotland. Perhaps of particular interest was that part of his lecture devoted to the remarkable Gregory family and, in particular, James Gregory who, apart from his mathematical achievements, invented the reflecting telescope. In addition to these plenary invited talks, a number of shorter research talks on a variety of topics were given by younger astronomers. These were: Observations of Rotating Sunspots by Daniel Brown (St Andrews Solar group), Oscillations in Solar Coronal Loop by Ineke De Moortel (St Andrews Solar group), Flux Cancellation in Prominence Formation by Paul Wood (St Andrews Solar group), Starspots on a Contact Binary Star by John Barnes (St Andrews Astronomy group),
PLANET Microlensing Probes of Stellar Atmospheres by Martin Dominik (St Andrews Astronomy group), The Structure of Circumstellar Disks around Brown Dwarfs by Christina Walker (St Andrews astronomy group), The Quiescence of Dwarf Novae by Mike Truss (St Andrews Astronomy group), Luminous Quasers and their Hosts: Accretion at the Limit by Dave Floyd (IFA Edinburgh), The AGN content of MS1054 by Olivia Johnson (IFA Edinburgh), Chaotic Dynamics of Particles Accelerated by Collisionless Reconnection in Solar Flares by Iain Hannah (Glasgow). Sixteen other attendees presented posters at the meeting. Professor Graham Hall presented the Cormack awards at the meeting. This involved the
awarding of the Cormack Undergraduate Prize (this year shared) to Nina Hatch (University of Edinburgh) and to Jennifer Toher (University of Glasgow) and the Cormack Postgraduate Prize to Susan Scott (University of Edinburgh). All three prize winners presented posters describing their work at the meeting. Finally, the Cormack Vacation Prizes for vacation work this summer were awarded to: Nicola Armstrong (University of St Andrews), Nicola Bate (University of Edinburgh), Gavin Nicholson (University of Glasgow), Vimal Simha (University of Glasgow), Isla Simpson (University of St Andrews), Fiona Speirits (University of Glasgow).
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Conference The Value of the Post-Mortem Examination 10 April 2003

All interest in disease and death is only another expression of interest in life. Thomas Mann, German novelist. The post-mortem examination is, in many cases, the only means of determining why a death occurred. It can also increase understanding and knowledge about human disease that can be used to develop better treatments and strategies for reducing or preventing illness in the future. Despite this important role, the number of post-mortems being carried out in the UK is falling and scientific research is suffering. The reason for this is the concern arising from cases where organs were removed from individuals, mostly children, without the knowledge or permission of their relatives. Confidence in the system has been badly shaken, with the result that many relatives are now refusing to give their permission for postmortem examinations to be conducted. It was against this background that the Royal Society of Edinburgh decided to organise a one-day conference to examine the issues surrounding postmortem examinations and to try to identify how public confidence can be restored. This report summarises the main presentations and the conclusions of the conference. The Purpose of the PostMortem Examination The first session dealt with the importance of post-mortems (do we accept this abbreviation) in diagnosis, research and in matters of justice and public health. Professor Sebastian Lucas, of the Department of Histopathology at Guys, Kings and St Thomas School of Medicine in London, examined the potential for using the diagnostic information obtained from post-mortems in a positive manner, such as helping to indicate the incidence of new diseases, including variant CJD. Around 30% of death certificates issued in England and Wales are either wrong or incomplete and post-mortems perform an important role in medical audit in keeping our colleagues on our toes, as Professor Lucas put it. They can help to demonstrate the avoidable factors in a death and post-mortem results are used for teaching purposes in hospitals to highlight problems that may have contributed to hospital-related
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deaths. In this way they help to drive up clinical standards. In the past, the conduct of postmortems had been largely left to pathologists and coroners, with little external surveillance. There had also been a lack of quality standards and of appropriate accountability. Now there is increasing concern about what the public, the Government and other professions want from postmortems. However, the blame directed at pathologists as a result of the organ-retention problems, and in cases of people wrongly convicted because of inaccurate evidence, was not justified. Pathologists have been forced to work in less than ideal circumstances because of various factors, including insufficient clinical support, an outdated medicolegal system and without standardised and agreed performance protocols. This is now changing and Professor Lucas was confident that the outcome of these changes would be positive. Nonetheless, he acknowledged that many people are upset at the very idea of a post-mortem being conducted on a loved one, and so pathologists are now investigating the potential of minimally-invasive techniques to reduce the disturbance to the body. He concluded his presentation by noting that the public wants quality and the right answers from the post-mortem
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process. But they do not want any mess and fuss and that may be difficult to reconcile. Professor Robert Hume, of the Tayside Institute of Child Health at the University of Dundee, has seen work on vital research projects come to an almost complete stop because of the difficulty in getting parental consent for post-mortems in children. Although information can be obtained from cell cultures and animal studies, it is essential that tests take place on appropriate human tissue before any conclusions can be reached. That tissue is only available from postmortems. Professor Humes research is aimed towards preventing developmental problems in premature, low-birth-weight babies. An insufficiency in thyroid hormone, or immature glucose metabolism in such babies can lead to impaired brain development. The Tayside Institute is involved in a European-wide study to try to understand more about these problems but its involvement has been affected by the reduction in post-mortems. He had hoped to be able to get 100 samples from Scotland to contribute to the study but has obtained only eight. We have come to a point in time where human infant research based on post-mortem tissue has almost halted, said Professor Hume.
He used to be able to get permission from 95% of parents to carry out a post-mortem but that has dropped to 10%. Professor Hume attends all the post-mortems he organises and reassures parents that everything will be done in the correct manner and nothing will be retained without their permission. He said that even these assurances have not managed to convince parents. This is a real public confidence issue. Professor Anthony Busuttil, of the University of Edinburghs Department of Forensic Medicine, attributed a series of positive health benefits to information obtained from post-mortems. These include seat belts in cars, a better understanding of cot death, knowledge about the risk of side-effects from commonly prescribed drugs and identification of fatal genetic diseases that pose a risk to other family members. He said the public perception of post-mortem is positive; the problem lies in communication. People differ in what they want to know about how their child or relative died and information had to be tailored to their individiual requirements. The public have to be reassured that the investigation will be done with dignity with a due duty of care and of confidentiality in terms of the findings. Post-mortems are acceptable to the public in the right context and
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provide a source of information that cannot be obtained in other ways. The bereaved have a right to be informed and legal officials and pathologists have to establish an honest and transparent partnership with the bereaved to allow this to continue. Legal and Ethical aspects of Post-Mortem Examination The legal position was outlined by Sheila McLean, Professor of Law and Ethics in Medicine at the University of Glasgow, who chaired the Independent Review Group on the Retention of Organs at Post-Mortem in Scotland. Professor McLean said that Scotland did not have problems on the same scale of those at Bristol or Alder Hey and, consequently, the inquiry had a better atmosphere in which to work. She acknowledged the enormous contribution made both by families and the medical profession to the work of the inquiry. The Review Group concluded that although post-mortem examinations have been conducted under the authorisation of the Anatomy Act and the Human Tissue Act, the law as it stands does not take account of the diagnostic purpose of the post-mortem and needs to be changed. The review teams work found that hospital postmortems were accompanied by a signed consent form, but it was
not clear what information had been given to the relatives to gain their consent. One of the principal changes recommended by the review team is a move away from the concept of consent to one of authorisation of a post-mortem. Parents can give consent only to what is in the best interests of their child. A post-mortem may be in the interests of others but it cannot be said to be in the interests of the dead child. Professor McLean believed the move to authorisation would be much more significant than many people currently realised. The review group has drafted an information leaflet on postmortems and an authorisation form to provide people with the information they need to make the right decision for them. The changes include giving adults and mature children the right to authorise a post-mortem in advance of their death if they choose to. The Review Group also recommends that consideration should be given to creating research ethics committees on a statutory basis with clear powers to monitor the conduct of research projects. Professor McLean said that it would be best if the law could be amended on a UK basis but Scotland has the right to introduce its own legislation if it so chooses. This could be a very interesting test of the Scottish
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Parliament. Everyone would like a UK solution but, in the long run, our report is better and we should go it alone if we have to, she added. The distinguished philosopher Baroness Warnock emphasised that post-mortems can be of enormous value for teaching and medical research. There is a moral duty to use these as a tool for the advancement of science and understanding for the common good of all citizens. It would be my hope that we should be moving towards a position where post-mortem examination and the retention of organs are the norm and only an opt-out clause would be required. We are a very long way from that at the present time. There are perfectly rational objections to post-mortem examination which have been prompted by the problems at Alder Hey and Bristol, but, at the same time, there are irrational and sometimes hysterical reactions which make genuinely informed consent difficult to obtain. Refusal to accept death has become a common cultural phenomenon, coupled with an increasing sentimentality about death which she described as the Princess Diana phenomenon. People have to be persuaded that giving permission for postmortem would be an
enhancement and not a diminution of the dead. In death they would be doing good to others. If we want this to become increasingly possible, we have to concern ourselves not just with the legal position but with the private morality and the moral sensibility of the people we are trying to communicate with. In this way sentimentality may be turned into something more positive. The distress experienced by relatives of children whose organs had been removed and retained without permission was described by Mrs Pip Jaffa, who chairs the Relatives Reference Group in Northern Ireland, established in 2001 to help families get information about their childrens post-mortems. She said the core of the problem was that relatives had little or no idea of what was involved in a post-mortem and felt guilty when they became aware of the extent of what they had consented to. These problems were compounded by the difficulties experienced in their subsequent search for information. Mrs Jaffa said relatives were given misleading, incomplete and contradictory information. Medical terminology used to explain what happened gave offence and indicated a lack of sensitivity. Relatives lost confidence in hospitals, which
were seen as trying to cover up what had happened. The Human Organs Inquiry Report, published in Northern Ireland in 2002, highlighted the need for clarity of communication with relatives as well as training for staff to ensure appropriate support to relatives. Mrs Jaffa said: If we are to restore confidence in hospital clinicians and in post-mortems, we need to treat the relatives on an equal footing. The use of non-clinical language is essential. Medical terminology creates a barrier and causes suspicion. Above all, we need to act openly and transparently say what you know, tell it like it is. The Future NHS Quality Improvement Scotland has published a set of standards on post-mortem practice and organ-retention in Scotland. The organisations Chief Executive, Dr David Steel, hoped the process of monitoring the performance of hospitals in Scotland against the standards would address many of the problems raised by previous speakers. These standards had been drawn up by a group which included representatives of parents and the public. They cover a number of areas including pathology practice, authorisation and information, storage and disposal, record-keeping and education.
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They reflect a number of common themes such as communication and openness, respect for the individual, use of clear language and accuracy of information. The aims of the standards are to ensure consultation, build confidence and improve knowledge and awareness of the importance of post-mortems. One of the very strong messages has been the failure of the health service to consult, inform and obtain consent. An open discussion then followed which sought to examine the best way forward. Professor Lucas expressed the view that progress would be difficult until the organ-retention issue was closed and added that the legal profession had a vested interest in ensuring it was not resolved. Mrs Hazel Brooke, Chief Executive of the Scottish Cot Death Trust and a member of the Conference Organising Committee, stressed that restoring public confidence in post-mortems also had to include those ordered by procurators fiscal or coroners, which make up the majority. In these cases, families have no rights to refuse because criminality has to be ruled out. These parents should be treated with the same respect and gentleness as other parents. Professor David Graham, a neuropathologist who chaired the organising committee, said he felt
like a victim as a result of the way his profession had been pilloried over the organ-retention problems. He questioned the need to make the post-mortem process subject to an Act of Parliament and bound by statutory penalties. This, he feared, would affect future recruitment to the profession and would impact adversely on the practice of laboratory medicine and the wellbeing of patients. Baroness Warnock suggested that the problem is one of trust which would not be solved by legislation. The public does not trust the establishment to set up systems to protect them. What would reassure the public would be individual day by day communication between patients and doctors. Dr Aileen Keel, deputy chief medical officer at the Scottish Executive pointed out that the review of legislation is not aimed at punishing pathologists but in creating the correct legal framework for the authorisation of post-mortems. The work being carried out by NHS Quality Improvement Scotland is designed to improve clinical practice. Clear evidence was presented at the conference of changes taking place in response to the problems of recent years. Over time these should help to restore public confidence in the post-mortem process. However there is a much more immediate issue that needs to be addressed, namely the
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urgent requirement to increase the number of post-mortems to help in vital research. A number of speakers suggested that this may be best achieved through a public education or publicity campaign. People in the UK are used to the idea of giving blood and donating
organs for transplantation to help others. As Baroness Warnock said, something positive could come out of the problems of recent years if post-mortem was presented as an act of altruism that honoured rather than damaged the dead.
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Joint Conference The Royal Society of Edinburgh and The Scandinavian Academies Human Rights: Roles and Responsibilities Friday 25 - Saturday 26 April 2003
Abstracts Human Rights and Their Limits. Judge David A O Edward CMG, QC, FRSE. Judge, EC Court of Justice Definition and Classification of Human Rights The European Charter of Rights includes: - rights enumerated in the European Convention on Human Rights, - social and economic rights recognised by the EC treaties and enjoyed by nationals of Member States, spouses of nationals and other family members, third country nationals resident in Member States, refugees and stateless persons, - political rights enjoyed by citizens of the Member States. How should we distinguish between these different kinds of rights? Which of them should be recognised as human rights? Should we distinguish between:
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human rights as rights that belong to every human being independent of cultural, social, economic or political circumstances, and other fundamental rights whose recognition depends on the circumstances of a particular state or society? If so, what should be the criteria for recognising a right as fundamental? The Limits of Human Rights Existing Human Rights Conventions recognise that some rights are absolute (e.g. the right not to be tortured), while others (e.g. freedom of expression) may be limited (e.g. for reasons of public safety). What should be the criteria for limiting human rights? Who should determine whether those criteria have been met? Do human rights entail responsibilities? For example, to what extent, if at all, does a terrorist forfeit protection of his/her human rights?
To what extent should states be entitled to invoke moral scruples as a reason for refusing to recognise rights recognised by other states (e.g. the right to abortion)? Protection and Enforcement of Human Rights How should human rights be protected and enforced? Does it make sense to talk about human rights unless they are enforceable? Is it essential that human rights be enforceable in a court of law? Are other methods of monitoring and enforcement (e.g. human rights committees) more effective? Is there a legal or moral responsibility on states to ensure respect of human rights by other states? If so, to what extent must they take account of differing cultural and other traditions? Balancing Rights and Resources Some social and economic rights involve the expenditure of limited financial and other resources e.g. the right to social security, the right to health protection or the right to legal aid. The provision of medical care depends not only on adequate finance, but also on the availability of trained medical and nursing practitioners. How should the balance be struck between the rights of the individual and the rational allocation of resources for the benefit of society
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as a whole? Does an individual have a right to expensive treatment even if that involves depriving others of treatment? To what extent should the provider of treatment be entitled to refuse it for reasons of personal or moral conviction? Does the enforcement of rights by judicial process concentrate excessively on the rights of the individual? How should a judge be informed of relevant social, economic or other practical considerations? Are There Universal Human Rights? Professor Dagfinn Fllesdal, Chair of The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters Human Rights Committee; Former President of The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Are there universal human rights, rights that every human being has? If so, what are they? Or are relativists right that there are no universal human rights, that our judgments concerning human rights are merely subjective opinions? Does reason play any role in deciding such issues, and if so, what role does it play? Especially here in Scotland, the home of David Hume and so many other important moral philosophers, these are appropriate questions to ask. Do some people have more extensive rights than others? Do, for example, citizens of a country
have rights that others, for example asylum seekers, do not have? What about economic rights, are they universal? In particular, is freedom of expression an absolute human right? Or is it situation-dependent? Human Rights: Between Universality and Diversity. Professor Kirsten Hastrup, Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Copenhagen; Former Director of Research of The Danish Centre for Human Rights. For half a century the world has lived with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, proclaimed as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations. Yet the achievement of a common standard seems far away in actual practice, even though ever since 1948 a number of conventions, treaties, charters and declarations have been issued in the attempt to redress this situation. A complicating factor is the professed respect for cultural diversity, as expressed globally in for instance the Vienna Declaration of 1993 and with a more narrow focus in the Declaration on the Rights of Minorities of 1992. In general, the international human rights aspirations have evolved within an area of tension between universal claims and local reservations often resulting in a futile debate between universalism and relativism. The aim of this
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contribution is to get beyond that debate and to show how the quest for universality is not opposed to the respect for cultural diversity, but also that culture cannot trump human rights. The Tension Between Human Rights and Responsibilities. Professor Emeritus Stig Strmholm, Former Vice-Chancellor of Uppsala University; Former President of the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities, and of The Academia Europaea, London. Starting with the UN Declaration on Human Rights of 1948, the author gives a brief outline of the historic development of the concept of human rights, which has deep roots in Occidental political and legal thinking but which had its heyday in the 18th Century and which found its consecration in the American Declaration of 1776 and the French Dclaration des droits de lhomme et du citoyen from 1789. However, the habit of describing the contents of a vast body of legal rules in the form of rights (with or without formulating corresponding duties) was not exclusively based on ideology; it was also a technique used by legal writers and legislators in order to give an orderly structure to that body. Even in periods in which the recognition and affirmation of human rights has found particu-
larly strong support, criticism has been directed both against the very concept of rights, which has been described as intellectually unacceptable - as no more than the expression of a subjective evaluation, as nonsense (Bentham) or as metaphysical (the Scandinavian 20th century realists) and against the Liberal view of the relationship individual v. community, which was held to overlook the values of solidarity and responsibility (Burke, the German Historic School). It seems fair to state, although it is a great simplification, that such objections were swept away under the influence of the collective experience of the horrors of the Second World War: a strong need was felt to express commitment to a number of fundamental values in a solemn form and in a way which was as legally binding as politically possible. In the historic situation in which the General Assembly of the new World Organization undertook this work, the only available sources of inspiration were the liberal and individualistic classical declarations. In the following fifty years, in particular in the 1960s and 1970s, there was an intense development of claims, many of which found expression in new human rights. In particular, the prevailing Liberal principle of recognising only negative rights, i.e. such as protect the
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individual against the community, as distinct from positive rights, (e.g. a right to work, to education, to an unpolluted environment, etc.) was attacked. In its turn, this inflation of rights has been severely criticised from various quarters. Another line of attack has been criticism of the absence, in the individualistic Liberal concept of human rights, of any reference to such counterbalancing principles as solidarity, responsibility and obligations. These objections have been voiced, in particular, by spokesmen of the Third World and of religious communities outside the Christian tradition and also found expression, e.g. in international charters and national constitutions. The present discussion is characterised by the meeting of all these ideas and tends to coincide, grosso modo, with the international line of debate North-South, and in the various national versions of what may be sweepingly called the Conservative-Liberal-Socialist discourse. The Charter on Human Rights A Philosophical Analysis with Special Regard to the Question of Rationalism versus Relativism. Professor David Favrholdt, Professor of Philosophy, University of Odense. In discussing the status of the Charter on Human Rights we inevitably run into a number of
philosophical problems. First of all, one may ask what should be understood by some of the key concepts such as freedom, equality, and democracy; - the literature about these items is very large. Next one may ask just how the Charter on Human Rights should be enforced. In some of the many nations that have signed and accepted it, it is not observed in its entirety. The Charter is in conflict with a great amount of standards and norms in many communities and it will take some generations before things are smoothened. In my opinion we should take these difficulties into account and face the fact that we are dealing with a project which it will take very long time to fulfil. One should not try to speed up things by allowing exceptions such as positive separate rights for women over an indefinite period. We must be patient and furthermore we must be prepared to revise the Charter over and over again for many years to come. Last but not least, the Charter on Human Rights is in need of some sort of justification. It is introduced as an agreement and countries that are members of the United Nations may sign or not sign, but it presents itself as the right or true political philosophy and the correct ethical stance. It is this last problem I intend to deal with. I am not aiming at a justification of the Charter - which
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would be far too ambitious - but I intend to clarify what the conditions are in order to establish a justification or at least discuss this problem. Through a clarification of these conditions we may counter many of the objections which have been forwarded against the Charter. In this connection I go against the general cultural relativism to be found in the Charter and attempt to achieve a higher level of rationality in the discussion of cultural differences. I find it wrong to list religion and political opinion together with race, colour, sex, language etc. in the Charters Article 2. Most religious views are tied up with a practice of some sort and often with a practice going against other articles in the Charter. The same applies to political opinions. Asylum Seekers and Immigration. The Right Hon Lord Hope of Craighead PC FRSE, Lord of Appeal in Ordinary; Chancellor, University of Strathclyde. Three concepts are involved in this title: (1) asylum, where there is a treaty obligation to permit entry and human rights protection is obligatory; (2) immigration, which is a voluntary process but may also engage human rights; and (3) subsidiary protection, where a person does not qualify for refugee status but is nevertheless in need of international protection and human rights protection.
These concepts all focus on the rights of the individual. But it is hard to imagine a subject where the rights of the individual are more likely to come into conflict with the collective rights of society in the country where protection is sought. To set the scene for its examination an outline will be provided of the various international instruments which provide the background to the difficult situation that confronts us and which is increasingly being dominated by politics. To complete the background mention will also be made of developments within the EU which are aimed at establishing a common policy on asylum and immigration in the Member States. At the heart of the problem lie the opportunities for abuse of the asylum system. An increase in the number of asylum seekers is to be expected in a troubled world, and the right to seek asylum is a fundamental right. The imposition of penalties on asylum seekers is prohibited, and all those who seek asylum are entitled to the protection of the European Convention on Human Rights even if their claim fails. But there is a social and financial cost attached to these benefits, and there is a widespread belief that the fact they are on offer encourages illegal immigrants. Measures to combat abuse risk undermining the protection that must be given
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to those who are genuinely in need of it. As so often where human rights are in issue, there is a balance to be struck. Are we striking the balance in the right place? The Rights of Children. Professor Kenneth McK. Norrie FRSE, Professor of Law, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. Children are as entitled to be shown respect for their human rights as adults, but there are some rights that are especially important for children such as the right to education, to a name and identity, to family life, and to protection. This is because children are weak and vulnerable and so susceptible to harm, inexperienced and so susceptible to exploitation, lack political power and so susceptible to social and political exclusion. The difficulty with childrens rights is not so much identifying and justifying, but applying them. When childrens rights clash with adults it is adults right that invariably win; when adults seek to enforce childrens rights they are doing so to further their own interests. This can be seen in all the rights of children mentioned above. Education law is all about parents choices, as is the education provisions in the European Convention on Human Rights. Education of children is important
not because children have a right to be educated but because this is a means by which parents mould and influence and control their own children. Disputes over a childs name and identity are in fact disputes between adults, fighting over their own interests, and the fact that they have to argue from the childs perspective hides but does not subvert this point. The right to family life, as perceived by the European Court of Human Rights is a right that permits parents to bring their children up the way they think fit without state interference. Even the right of protection is not unqualified and it interferes with other rights of children. Religious Affiliation as a Problem for Human Rights. Professor Jan Hjrpe, Professor of Islamology, Lund University; Member of The Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities. A characteristic of modernity is a differentiation of belongings, roles, and functions of the individual. Family, clan, neighbourhood, professional belonging and religious affiliation are not as interconnected as was the case in the pre-modern society. Religious affiliation thus tends to be distinct from the individuals other identities. By new communication techniques the group belonging is not bound to a local neighbourhood; a religious community is not necessarily a local one. The
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individual function of religious tradition as part of ones cognitive universe, as a palliative, and as entertainment, is less dependent than previously on religious authorities, and thus less bound by theological verbalised definitions; an actual privatisation of religion. But still, there are profane functions of religious affiliation: as a tribal, ethnic, or national marker, as a network for social and economical security, as legitimisation of power, and expression of opposition. There is too the function of religious rules as a part of the legal system of a state, especially in the field of personal law. This has as a consequence, for instance, that several states (in the Muslim world in particular) have made reservations as to the UN Declaration of Human Rights, Articles 16 and 18, and there are difficulties with the Articles 2, 5 and 19, as well as with some of the later conventions. The religious traditions, however, can be used to legitimise changes. We can see today a considerable number of ideologists reinterpreting the authoritative religious sources, declaring that the traditional interpretations are mistaken. We can perhaps connect this common trend, in different religions, with a kind of generative theology (as a parallel to Noam Chomskys idea
of generative grammer). A number of international conferences of World Religions have argued for a search of a common basis for Human Rights in the religions (for instance the principle of reciprocity). But we can see in these attempts, perhaps first of all, that the religious authorities are struggling not to lose their relevance in the ongoing global processes including the actual privatisation of religion. Ethics in Medicine Overview. Professor Sheila A M McLean FRSE, Director, Institute of Law and Ethics in Medicine, University of Glasgow. The significance of human rights discourse in medicine became acutely clear in the aftermath of the Nuremberg Trials, which exposed amongst other atrocities the unethical practices of some Nazi doctors. Medicine had previously relied on internal codes, such as the Hippocratic Oath, for its guidance on ethical matters, but was for the first time to become subject to external ethical criteria which emphasised the rights of patients rather than the interests of doctors. This shift in emphasis moved medicine away from the Hippocratic tradition and into the mainstream human rights discourse, which dominated the 20th century. However, mere familiarity with the language of human rights is inadequate either to identify them
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within healthcare or to resolve tensions when individual or collective interests collide. Attention to human rights in healthcare in fact seems to postulate increased problems for those who deliver and receive healthcare; who receives or should receive treatment?; what should be funded by a state-run service?; what challenges are posed by medical advance, for example in assisted reproduction and genetics?; to what extent can human rights be defined in the healthcare context, and whose human rights should predominate? These are but a few of the issues confronting participants in healthcare in the developed world. Many more problems arise if we widen our horizons to the rest of the world which is not immune from the pressures driving healthcare delivery in the rich world, such as, for example, the power of multi-national companies. In all, it must be asked whether there is a special need to focus on human rights in medicine, given the power, which it already has over individuals and communities. Human Genetic Databases and Liberty. Mr Ragnar Aalsteinsson, Advocate to the Supreme Court, Iceland. The Icelandic Health Sector Database Act of 1998 authorises the exclusive licensee under the Act to establish three different
databases and interconnect these under certain conditions. These contain a) health records of the population: b) genealogical data and c) genetic data. Participation in the genetic database is based on consent, but as it difficult to define for what purposes the genetic data is collected the consent can hardly be said to be informed. As to the health records database, living patients have the opportunity to opt out. The legislation and how it was presented by the Government to the Althingi and the general public raises various questions about democratic parliamentary procedures, community consultation, autonomy, privacy, professional confidence, control of health data in hospitals, business relationships between medical doctors and biotechnology corporations. The question must be asked in whose interest such sensitive data is handed over to for profit corporations and whether it is within the authority of the legislature to authorise politically appointed boards of health institutes to transfer such data without the direct informed consent of the patient and without the relevant physicians having a say. Does experience teach us to entrust private companies with sensitive personal data? Should the Government be involved in the research policymaking of the biotechnology companies that have been given
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access to the genetic data of a population or should the profit motive be the sole deciding influence? That is, should the interest of the shareholders of the companies prevail over the interest of underprivileged groups most in need of new methods or medicine to alleviate their situation due to incurable diseases? Or is the invisible hand of the market the only competent decisionmaker? Finally will the proliferation of databases containing sensitive personal data such as human genetic data limit our personal liberty? Human Rights from an International and Finnish Point of View. Professor Tore Modeen, The Finnish Academy of Science and Letters; Former Professor of Law, University of Helsinki. Today there are plenty of international conventions on human rights. Most states have joined them. One may ask whether the existence of these conventions has substantially improved the governments observation of these rights? The answer is that their effect in many cases has been doubtful. The states take a very different attitude towards their obligations under such treaties. We must also be aware of the ambiguity of their provisions. It is always necessary that the domestic legislation of the states, bound by the conventions,
be in harmony with those conventions. Finland is a part of Scandinavia with its old traditions upholding the rule of law and respecting their inhabitants liberties. After its liberation from Russian rule Finland became a constitutional republic. The inhabitants (also the women) have enjoyed democratic rights since 1907. Provisions concerning the citizens fundamental rights and liberties were included in the independent Finlands first Constitution Act of 1919. These provisions were quite well respected by the authorities and the courts of law under the supervision of the Chancellor of Justice and the Parliamentary Ombudsman. This
was the case even during the war and the difficult after war period, although some restrictions then had to be made. When Finland concluded its peace treaty in 1947 it became also internationally committed to respect human rights. The more detailed provisions of the international conventions Finland later joined as a member of the United Nations and of the Council of Europe resulted in some minor changes of the Constitution Act and other legislation, but have never caused any problems. Some recent cases of the European Court of Human Rights concerning Finland show Finlands good standards in this respect.
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Conference Scotlands Drug Problem Tuesday 27 May 2003
Modern society is engaged in what is often seen as being a war against illegal drugs. It is a war that has created many casualties. Drugs can destroy the lives of those who take them, they devastate communities where drug taking is rife, they create a wave of crime across the country and are a drain on public services and on the public purse. It is also a war that some believe can never be won. People who take this view believe that change is essential to help minimise the misery caused by drug taking. But what sort of change is needed? Does the answer lie in greater liberalisation of illegal drugs? What evidence exists of effective interventions? What obstacles lie in the path of progress? The Royal Society of Edinburgh brought together a group of experts from the UK and overseas to examine how best to respond to the drug problem and to identify the best way forward. The conference expressed clear dissatisfaction with and frustration at the current position, which has left society paying a heavy price for its decision to declare certain substances to be illegal. It
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leaves too many drug users without help or support, creates havoc in our communities, drains resources and powers a crime wave that profits only the criminals who have caused it. There are powerful arguments in favour of considering some alternatives. But what alternatives? There appears to be no relationship between policy interventions and prevalence. There is a clear need for more evaluation to gather firm evidence about what works. What should be done in the meantime? Chief Constable Richard Brunstrom believes Britain may be ready to have a mature debate on what it should do about drugs. Professor Neil McKeganey, in his summing-up of the days proceedings, echoed that view. He also said there needs to be a greater willingness to experiment. The importance of treatment was emphasised throughout the conference, but Professor McKeganey said that has to mean more than methadone. It should include a trial in Scotland of heroin prescription and other initiatives such as the establishment of safe injecting rooms. He said recovery from drug addiction is not impossible.
There is a way out of drug addiction. We must do all we can to help people find that way out. That may also be true for society at large. The conference was clear that there must be a better way
than the one we have at the moment. The best choice for the future may be greater regulation. We need our politicians to be brave enough to examine the options. That can start with an open and honest debate.
The Society has published a full report of the Conference (ISBN 0 902198 73 4), which is available from the Society or on the RSE website.
Topics covered by the Conference are shown below. The Scottish Scene Mr Hugh Henry MSP, Deputy Minister for Justice, Scottish Executive Professor Neil McKeganey, Director, Centre for Drug Misuse Research, Glasgow A Choice of Evils: Policy Options in the Illicit Drug Market Professor Alan Maynard, University of York The Dutch Experiment Mr Robert Keizer, Head of Addiction Policy Division, Dutch Ministry of Health and Welfare. An International Perspective on Drugs Policy Dr Peter Reuter, Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Maryland USA The Role of the Police Mr Richard Brunstrom, Chief Constable, North Wales Police The European Scene Mr Richard Hartnoll, European Drug Consultant Demonising Drugs The Attitude of the Media Dr Magnus Linklater FRSE
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Conference (In Association with the British Academy) England and Scotland in Union from 1603: Anglo-Scottish Relations - Past, Present and Future 17-18 September 2003 at the British Academy, London
The meeting in London in September concentrated on the first three centuries after 1603, following up on Dr Jenny Wormalds very successful lecture in March on the anniversary of Queen Elizabeths death, the event which ensured the Union of the Crowns of Scotland and England in the person of James VI and I. Keith Brown of St Andrews and John Morrill of Cambridge set us off with stimulating lectures emphasising the sense of expectation with which the Union began, with more foreboding on the English side than the Scottish: as the nations slid into Civil War, Cromwell emerged as final victor and imposed an incorporating union by force, but it could not last. Clare Jackson of Cambridge and Chris Whatley of Dundee followed with the darker side of the seventeenth century, the first describing the use of judicial torture in Scotland and the second the failure of the Union of the Crowns to deliver economic benefits in the long run, due to the inherent contradictions and instability in the constitutional arrangement. Debate and comment reached a pitch of
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passionate engagement on the first day to which the rooms of the British Academy are not altogether accustomed. After dinner the speakers and commentators, as guests of the President, were encouraged to continue the exchange, ultimately perhaps generating more light than heat. The second day began with a look at the law of the sea in the two countries, from John Ford of Cambridge, and an investigation into how Scots were received in eighteenth-century England by Paul Langford of Oxford not well. Bob Harris of Dundee emphasised the close link between the radicals of Scotland and England in the French Revolutionary period (a sense of cooperative endeavour for democracy rather than of nationalism). Colin Kidd of Glasgow discussed how the literati of the Enlightenment regarded Union: fascinatingly, they looked upon the Union of Crowns as a disaster for liberty, and Cromwells failed experiment as a step in the right direction. The afternoon saw Rosemary Ashton of London explore the Carlyles at home in Cheyne Walk and found them regarded as
exceedingly Scottish as well as totally British, and Tom Devine of Aberdeen gave an account of how, after 1707, the British Empire first became the stampingground of ambitious Scots. Iain Hutchison of Stirling explained the nature and limitations of Victorian Britishness at the political level. We were left with a rich meal to digest. Anglo-Scottish relations have ridden many bumps. The Union of Crowns began with the great hopes of the king in 1603, followed a hundred years later by the total despair of the Scottish people, faced with becoming an economic basket-case and a political laughing stock. The Union of the Parliaments began with unpopularity on all sides, but as a political arrangement it was
sustainable. It eventually became the framework in which the elite, in the Empire and at home, could find success, and in which the economy more widely was able at last to flourish. The Victorian period saw the two sides rubbing along well enough, the Scots proud to be Imperial and the English content to be tourists, but there was never an amalgamation, never an Incorporating Union in the sense of the larger swallowing up the less as Henry VII of England once predicted. The Union worked, at least up to 1900, to the mutual satisfaction of most, but the question of AngloScottish relations was always much more important to the Scots than to the English. It still is, but that takes us on to the next seminar in November.
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CRF International Conference Supported by the Food Standards Agency Infection and the Threat to the Food Chain Wednesday 24-Friday 26 September 2003
The Conference opened with Lessons Learned and two speakers who considered foot and mouth disease, in particular the 2001 outbreak. Professor Sir Brian Follett (University of Oxford) chaired the Royal Societys inquiry for the Government and he discussed its primary recommendation, that mass vaccination should be employed in future as a control measure. He said that this would be neither simple or straightforward. Vaccine supply and manufacture was complex and uncertain. Rapid outbreak control might still need slaughter, dependent on circumstances. And there were uncertainties about the acceptability of meat and milk from vaccinated animals. Brigadier Alex Birtwistle considered crisis management and disease control. When drafted in to Cumbria on 22 March he was faced with the disposal of 100,000 carcases, 100,000 animals awaiting slaughter, and 750,000 likely to follow. He described how an order-ofmagnitude improvement in the interval between diagnosis and destruction was achieved by setting up the right management structures at all levels, by identifying, owning, and managing risks
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(using facts to make decisions); constantly revisiting decisions (because they are the new facts), and by using the media. It was crucial in his words to believe that any disease can be controlled at a price because it has no soul and no mind. Two classic Scottish outbreaks were covered by Professor T H Pennington (University of Aberdeen) (the 1996 Central Scotland E.coli O157 outbreak, 500 cases with 17 deaths) and Dr David Smith (University of Aberdeen) (the 1964 Aberdeen typhoid outbreak). The Aberdeen outbreak hospitalised over 500 people and was caused by corned beef contaminated by unchlorinated cooling water during manufacture in Argentina. The infection spread to other meats at a supermarket through implements, surfaces and hands. The Ministry of Health and MAFF were aware that suspect meat was in circulation. Dr Smith argued that the ineffectiveness of the action on canning hygiene before 1964, and on general hygiene after 1964 stemmed from a civil service culture which allowed economic and political factors to take priority over health risks. Profes-
sor Pennington pointed out that the Aberdeen failings (most cases arose from cross-contamination) were replicated in Wishaw in 1996. Lessons had not been learned or if they had, remembered. E.coli O157 and other VTEC remained a threat the incidence of infection in Scotland, whilst low in absolute terms, was still the highest in the world. The Lessons Learned sessions concluded with a vigorous discussion led by Professor Michael Lean (University of Glasgow) on possible relationships between nutrition and infection in Scotland. No clear links emerged. New Threats and Old Ones opened with an account by Dr John Wood (NIBSC, Potters Bar) of recent experiences with new influenza viruses. H5NI (1997 and 2003) was highly pathogenic for chickens and caused human fatalities; traditional vaccine production methods were found wanting but reverse genetics provided a way forward. Clinical evaluations are still in progress. Professor Jennifer Mordue Luntz (University of Aberdeen) discussed the recent northward extension of infections with the ruminant virus, bluetongue, and its Culicoides vector C.imicola, together with the results of taxonomic research showing the occurrence in the UK of possible vectors related to C.obsoletus and C.pulicans. She emphasised the importance of
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vector research. The session closed with a presentation on The Threat of a Biological Terrorist Attack on the Food Supply : The CDC Perspective by Dr Jeremy Sobel (CDC Atlanta). Deliberate contamination of food with biological agents has happened already in the USA. The start of an outbreak caused this way could either be slow and initially unremarkable, or explosive. Preparedness requires the augmentation of the traditional public health infrastructure to enhance disease surveillance, accelerate laboratory detection capacity, and rapidly investigate and control outbreaks, as well as developing capacity for responding to mass-casualty disasters. Where Are We Now opened with Campylobacter. Dr John Cowden (SCIEH, Glasgow) pointed out that although a common cause of gastrointestinal disease, its source was almost always unknown, despite much epidemiological and microbiological research. A reliable and generally available typing scheme remains elusive, hindering this work. Dr L J Allison (Western General Hospital, Edinburgh) considered Verocytotoxin-producing E.coli, and emphasised that although the food-borne route was important, so was contact with animals and their faeces. New serogroups other than O157 were being detected in Scotland;
O26, O103, O113, O118, O162 and O19. Professor Tom Humphrey (University of Bristol) completed coverage of the currently active triumvirate of zoonotic food-borne pathogens by emphasising the phenotypic and genotypic adaptability of Salmonella. Professor Peter Smith (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Diseases) considered the current status of the epidemics of BSE and vCJD. The Food Standards Agency has assessed that the current control measures in the UK have a cost which is now disproportionate to their benefit and some relaxation of controls is under consideration. Less than 150 persons, globally, have been diagnosed with variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), but there are many uncertainties about the future course of the epidemic because of the long and variable incubation period. Food risks of BSE infection should now be very low but better control measures are necessary to guard against the possibility of iatrogenic transmission, through blood transfusion or contaminated surgical instruments. These will require sensitive diagnostic tests and improved decontamination methods. Professor James Ironside (University of Edinburgh) concluded coverage of this subject. He reviewed the control of routes of transmission of TSEs.
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The session concluded with a lively discussion led by Professor Peter Borriello (HPA, Colindale) who provoked by proposing that in general, lessons were not learned from history. The importance of a robust public health infrastructure and regular reviews of policy were emphasised by several discussants. Professor Mark Pallen (University of Birmingham) opened the session Techniques/Ways Forward by illustrating the routes from genome sequence to consequence. About a dozen genome sequences for E.coli and Salmonella enteritica have been completed or are close to completion, with two for Campylobacter jejuni; much more sequencing and analysis will be needed to answer the many outstanding questions concerning gene function and virulence. Professor Gordon Dougan (Imperial College, London) considered vaccines. Many cases of food poisoning are never defined in microbiological terms. Thus, market drivers for many potential vaccines designed to protect the human consumer are often not attractive for commercial development. Consequently human vaccines against Salmonella gastroenteritis, Campylobacter and other foodassociated agents are not under active development, other than as travellers vaccines or as components for general diarrhoeal vaccine targeting third world
populations. Potentially the more attractive target is the consumed animal, although even here some of the commercial drivers motivating vaccine development are complicated and sometimes disputed. If the agent (such as E.coli O157) does not cause a serious disease in the animal reservoir, we may have to be inventive in how we encourage vaccine uptake on the supply farms. Professor Mark Woolhouse (University of Edinburgh) gave four reasons why a wider understanding and acceptance of mathematical modelling was important in his presentation Computer Models in the Real World. Firstly, the more those with relevant expertise contribute to the model-building process the better the models will be. Secondly, the process of model development often indicates which crucial data are missing. Thirdly, the better the general understanding of models the more likely they will be used wisely by policy makers. Finally, there is no real alternative if we aspire to the evidence-based design of disease control programmes; major disease outbreaks are singular events and experience and intuition alone will often be poor guides to decisionmaking. Dr Michael Klass (Illinois) illustrated recent applications of an ELISA (Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay) format to TSE testing in his presentation
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Testing for TSE : Mad Cows, Scrapie Sheep and Wasted Deer and Elk. The session concluded with a presentation by Nick Higham, Arts and Media Correspondent of the BBC. He used familiar stories to illustrate good practice and pitfalls, reviewed the progress of the Food Standards Agency towards getting the right balance between simply responding to food scares and actively promoting good nutrition and hygiene (good progress to date), and emphasised the importance of improving communication between the media, scientists and policy makers. Professor Geoff Sim (SAC, Edinburgh) moved the emphasis from pathogen to host in his presentation Selective Breeding. After a general review he focused on the National Scrapie Plan. He concluded that while selection for the desired genotype looks simple at first sight, there remain important unanswered questions, including the impact on other traits of economic importance, the impact on genetic variability, and optimal approaches to breeding for resistance in populations of different size and with different PrP allele frequencies. Two general presentations came at the end of the Conference, From Control to Commitment by Dr Patrick Wall (Member, European Food Safety Authority), and a final overview by Professor
Douglas Georgala (Chair, ACMSF). Dr Wall said that food safety is not rocket science but improving the safety of food can only been achieved when all the stakeholders play their part. The solution is simple, sequential incremental risk reduction along the food chain with communication of any unavoidable residual risk to consumers with clear instructions on how to manage it. Whilst pathogen specific control programs are required and more research and surveillance needed to understand the epidemiology of the different agents, simply increasing hygiene standards across the food chain will have the effect of reducing food-borne disease. Professor Georgala concluded the Conference. He said that public health authorities have a key role in maintaining and improving surveillance systems to monitor trends, and to ensure that the emergence of a new food pathogen is detected early. Local enforcement needs to be effective and consistent. Training of all food handlers needs much greater attention. Larger food companies have been successful in adopting
the full HACCP approach. The challenge is to bring the HACCP approach to smaller operations, to catering and fast food outlets, and to the farming sector. There was general agreement with his final words that there is no real alternative. Eighty delegates attended the Conference. Discussions were vigorous and high quality. The intention of the organisers (Professor Hugh Pennington and Sir John Arbuthnott) was to bring together a very broad range of experts to categorise old and new threats to the food chain and propose new solutions and assess the success or otherwise of old ones. They did not disappoint. At the Discussion Supper Trust and the Public Health, which followed the Conference, Baroness Onora ONeill put these topics into philosophical context. In her view the current audit culture distorts accountability and marginalises professionalism. Medical ethics has swung the balance very much towards individual patients and individual practitioners. There is now a need to anchor public health ethics in political philosophy issues of truth and justice.
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Wellcome Research Workshop Chronic Fatigue Syndrome 3 October 2003
This one-day workshop titled New developments in the biology of Chronic Fatigue Syndromeemphasis on the anti-viral pathway and oxidative stress and how these impact on the vascular endothelium took place in the West Park Conference Centre at the University of Dundee on 3rd October 2003. Thirty-five researchers with medical and/ or basic science backgrounds from all over Scotland participated in the workshop. The main aim was to bring together researchers with different areas of expertise to discuss biomedical developments and potential areas for future investigation in chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). We believe that it was the first of its kind to be held in Scotland. Four eminent Professors (Professor Jill J.F. Belch, Professor of Vascular Medicine, University of Dundee; Professor Julian Stewart, Department of Paediatrics, New York Medical College; Professor Grahame Hardie, Division of Molecular Physiology, Wellcome Trust Bio-Centre, University of Dundee; and Professor Kenny De Meirleir, Professor of Physiology and Medicine, University of
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Brussels) with very different backgrounds were the invited speakers. After a welcome, from Dr Gwen Kennedy, Dr Vance Spence, University of Dundee, gave an overview on CFS. He highlighted the difficulties surrounding the illness, especially for those who were coming to the topic from other scientific areas and specialties outside of CFS. The workshop was then divided into two main sections, dealing with vascular and biochemical aspects of CFS. Professor Belch described the vascular abnormalities in CFS patients that we have found in Dundee. The talk concluded with the message that patients with CFS appear to have abnormalities in some of their vascular beds, which may indicate areas for therapeutic interventions. However, the fact that these abnormalities are not uniformly observed in all vascular beds in CFS, led to emphasis being given to make sure that caution is taken as treating one area may worsen another. Professor Julian Stewart continued the vascular theme by describing orthostatic intolerance, which may be a substantial problem in CFS
patients. After this first session the floor was open to all participants and many discussions took place. Everyone was given a chance to have their say and the discussion carried on over the lunch break. In the afternoon session Professor De Meirleir started by saying his group of researchers consider CFS to be a disorder of the innate immune system, and would like the disorder to be renamed chronic immune innate dysfunction disease (CIID). De Meirleirs group in Belgium specialises in antiviral pathways. However they do not believe that every case of CFS has a viral origin, even though a large proportion of patients with CFS report an infectious episode at the onset of their illness. No single agent has been conclusively associated with the disease, although several candidates have been proposed. This talk concluded that an understanding of these abnormalities at the molecular level, and sub-stratification of patients, is essential for the development and identification of effective therapeutic strategies and the Belgium group believe that immunotherapy, immunomodulation, and antibiotic and antiviral therapy will have important future roles in such strategies in CFS. The final speaker was Professor Grahame Hardie, who discussed the AMP-activated protein kinase
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(AMPK) system and its role in cellular energy. He concluded that although it was too early to postulate a direct role for AMPK dysregulation in the pathogenesis of CFS, it might be a contributing factor in muscle fatigue. After a second open discussion session, Professor Belch chaired the last workshop and asked, where do we go from here? The main areas on future CFS research, as indicated from the workshop participants, should be; epidemiological studies, investigating the macrovascular and microvascular system in CFS; cellular involvement (AMPK system) and therapeutic interventions. The conclusion from the workshop was that everyone was enlightened as to the nature of the disease and its current research. In the workshop discussion sections the vast range of research areas covered by the participants was beneficial as it lead to very stimulating discussions. The workshop should be deemed to be a success as future collaborations and grant proposals arising from this workshop are in progress to further CFS research. Organised by Dr Gwen Kennedy, Vascular Diseases Research Unit, Division of Medicine & Therapeutics, Ninewells Hospital & Medical School, Dundee.
Discussion Forum Stem Cell Research: Opportunities and Challenges 15 October 2003
This Discussion Forum was organised by The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE), Scottish Stem Cell Network and Scotland Europa as a follow-on event to the meetings organised by the RSE, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Karolinska Institute during the Scotland in Sweden programme in 2002. This event brought European scientists and other experts in the field of stem cell research together with officials of European Institutions and Member States governments. The Discussion Forum was held in the light of current discussions in Europe, namely on the proposed Tissue Directive (Medicine: standards of quality and safety of human tissues and cells) and on guidelines for the future EU funding of stem cell research under FP6. In the summer of 2002, the European Commission published the special programme: Detailed FP6 implementing provisions concerning research activities involving the use of human embryos and human embryonic stem cells, to be finalised by the end of 2003. The current state of stem cell research from the perspectives of science, clinical application, law
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and ethics was presented by a delegation representing the field from Scotland, Sweden and Spain. The potential benefits arising from human embryonic stem cell research were outlined from a clinical perspective. Additionally, it was acknowledged that this would provide insight into disease mechanisms generally and how adult stem cells could be used. A broader use of stem cells was highlighted; therapeutic applications in the treatment of cancer and their use in drug discovery were discussed. Suggestions were made for formulating the regulatory framework for stem cell research based on a forward-looking model considering the requirements of future stringent testing for therapeutic approval. The need for a constructive engagement with public opinion was emphasised. The role of the media across Europe will be important in this and clear lessons can be learnt from the GM crop debate. It was suggested that the objective of the European Directives in stem cell research should be to reduce variability across countries
and to provide a consistent system of accreditation and licensing. In this way an enabling framework for stem cell research to move into therapeutic benefit could be realised. The role of industry and commercial ownership of stem cell technology was briefly addressed
and identified as a key area in the future development of the field. A full report of the forum has been published by the Society (ISBN 0902198 88 2) . Copies are available from the International Office, or can be downloaded from the RSE Web site.
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PUBLICATIONS
Proceedings A: Mathematics Six issues were published: parts 132.6 (2002) to 133.5 (2003) inclusive. 76 papers were published. Transactions: Earth Sciences Two issues were published: volumes 93.2 and 93.3 (2002), comprising 10 papers. ReSourcE : Issues 5, 6 and 7 Royal Society of Edinburgh Directory 2003 (Session 20022003) Royal Society of Edinburgh Review 2003 (Session 20012002) Other Publications RSE Annual Review 2002-2003. The A-Z of Oral Cancer: An Holistic Route Report of Oral Health Workshop (held January 2002) The Future of Cloning: Young People Decide Report of Young Peoples Discussion Forum (held June 2002) Scotland in Sweden Report of a Seminar entitled Realising the Potential of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, organised by The RSE, The Karolinska Institute and The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (held October 2002) I, Cyborg the 2003 RSE/Royal Academy of Engineering Joint Lecture (March 2003) The Value of the Post-Mortem Examination Report of an RSE Conference (held April 2003) Scotlands Drug Problem Report of an RSE Conference (held May 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 Scottish Executive Ministers on science strategy, science policy and science priorities. Following the appointment of Professor Wilson Sibbett, CBE, FRS, FRSE as Chair of the Scottish Science Advisory Committee, and as chief adviser on science to the Scottish Executive, the Council of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) appointed 17 committee members. The committee membership represents a breadth of expertise and knowledge across a range of scientific disciplines and interests which include, education, business, engineering, technology, social science, medicine, ethics, public engagement and public policy. It is intended that the committee will be well placed to provide expert advice across a number of relevant policy areas. The Committee is uniquely placed to take an overview of the scientific landscape in Scotland. It takes a medium to long term, horizon-scanning, 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 SSAC held five full committee meetings, with the three SSAC working groups: - The Science Base Mechanisms for Excellence, - Science Education and - Science in Society meeting regularly between committee meetings.
Further information on the SSAC can be found at: www.scottishscience.org.uk
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Scottish Science Advisory Committee - Members Professor Wilson Sibbett, CBE, FRS, FRSE (Chair) Professor Geoffrey Boulton, OBE, FGS, FRS, FRSE Professor Jane Bower Dr Donald Bruce Professor Muffy Calder FRSE, FIEEE Professor John Coggins, FRSE Professor Graham Durant
1
Professor Peter Grant, FRSE, FREng, FIEE, FIEEE Professor Sally Macintyre, OBE, FRSE, FMedSci Dr Stuart Monro2 , FGS Dr John Nicholls Professor Andrea Nolan, MRCVS Mr Ian Ritchie, FRSE, FREng, FBCS Professor John Savill FRCP, FRCPE, FMedSci Professor David Wallace, CBE, FRS, FRSE, FREng Dr John Whitelock
Professor Tariq Durrani, OBE,FRSE, FREng, FIEEE, FIEE Mrs Sarah Fletcher Professor Maggie Gill, FRSE
1 2
Until 31 March 2003 From 1 April 2003
Scottish Science Advisory Committee - Staff Dr Avril Davidson, Head of Secretariat Ms Tracy Rickard, PA/Administrator
SSAC staff are employed by the RSE.
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EVIDENCE, ADVICE AND COMMENT

The Society submitted evidence, advice and comment on the following reports during the Session. November 2002 Topics for Foresight Projects. Office of Science and Technology. The Health Impact of GM Crops. The Scottish Parliaments Health Committee. The Quinquennial Review of the Council for Science and Technology. Office of Science and Technology. December 2002 Toxicity Report on Phytoestrogens and Health. Food Standards Agency. Review of Research Assessment. Scottish Higher Education Funding Council. A Vision for the Future. Medical Research Council. Towards Better Oral Health in Children. NHS Scotland. January 2003 UK Science and Europe: Value for Money? House of Commons Science and Technology Committee. Sex Selection: Choice and Responsibility in Human Reproduction. HFEA Commissions Future Work on Genetics and Reproduction. Human Genetics Commission Health Protection. Scottish Executive Health Department
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Strategy for the Sustainable Development of European Aquaculture. Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department. Draft Strategic Framework for Aquaculture. Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department. February 2003 National Scrapie Plan - Scrapie Flocks Scheme. Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department. The Scientific Response to Terrorism. House of Commons Science and Technology Committee. European Research Council. All European Academies (ALLEA). March 2003 Science and the Regional Development Agencies. House of Lords Science and Technology Committee. April 2003 2003/2005 Human Genetics Commission Work Plan. Human Genetics Commission. Business-University Collaboration. Lambert Review Inquiry into Light Pollution and Astronomy. House of Commons Science and Technology Committee
May 2003 Animal Health and Welfare Strategy for Great Britain. Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department. The National Scrapie Plan - Semen Archive. Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department. The Government Response to the House of Lords S&T Committee Report What on Earth? The Threat to Science Underpinning Conservation. House of Commons Science and Technology Committee. The Future of Higher Education. Department for Education and Skills. Crop Plant Genetics. European Academies Science Advisory Council. The Role of the Universities in the Europe of Knowledge. European Commission. June 2003 Managing Incidents Presenting Actual or Potential Risks to the Public. Scottish Executive Health Department.
A Draft Strategy for Scotlands Biodiversity. Scottish Executive Environment Group. Legislating for the Nature of Scotland - Draft Nature Conservation (Scotland) Bill. Scottish Executive Environment Group. The State of Economics in Higher Education in Scotland. The Scottish Economic Society. August 2003 The Over Thirty Month Rule. Food Standards Agency. The Scottish Human Rights Commission. The Scottish Executive Justice Department. September 2003 The Sustainability of University Research. Department of Trade and Industry. October 2003 Review of Research Assessment. UK funding bodies joint consultation. Inquiry into Science and International Agreements. House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology.
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INQUIRIES
The Future of the Scottish Fishing Industry During the 2002-2003 Session, the RSE initiated an Inquiry, Chaired by Sir David Smith, to identify what steps might be taken to secure the Future of the Scottish Fishing Industry. Scotland has the largest part of the United Kingdoms sea fishing industry and many of Scotlands more remote communities, especially around the North East coast and in Shetland, are heavily dependent on it for their livelihood. Concerns over declining fish stocks, especially of cod, had led to severe restrictions being imposed under the European Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) and concerns were expressed over the long-term viability of the Scottish fishing industry. The Inquiry was therefore set up to make an assessment of the extent to which controls imposed on the Scottish fishing industry were scientifically robust; to critically examine the socio-economic impact of the declining fish catches and of the controls on the industry on the Scottish communities affected; and form recommendations on how a viable and sustainable sea fishing industry could best be developed and maintained in Scotland. During this Session, the Inquiry received over 70 pieces of written evidence and took oral evidence from over 90 groups and individuals. The Committee also visited and met with fishing groups in Peterhead, Fraserburgh, Shetland, Inverness, Lochinver and Pittenweem. It also visited the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas in Copenhagen.
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FUNDRAISING
The Session ended with the successful conclusion of the first phase of the fundraising campaign, when the Appeal Patron, HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, visited the Society on Monday, 27 October 2003, immediately prior to the Annual Statutory Meeting that day. HRH unveiled a Donor Board in the Fellows Room listing the names of 24 Fellows who had contributed generously to the Appeal. Many of those named on the Donor Board met the Duke privately and were thanked for their support. The Duke then addressed a Fellows meeting during which he thanked all those who had contributed. Fellows contributions continue to be received under gift-aid covenants, and the cumulative total so far, including tax reclaims and accrued interest is nearly 350,000. The Appeal proceeds are being used to create a Development Fund, the income of which will be used to support the Events Programme and provide core funding for further major Inquiries. A significant new activity arising from the funding campaign is the Gannochy Trust Innovation Award of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. The first award was presented to Dr Barbara Spruce by Sir James Black, OM, FRS, Hon FRSE on 21 June 2003 at a ceremony in Scone Palace. Also awarded from funds raised during the first phase of the campaign were Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland Research Fellowships and Studentships, and Enterprise Fellowships funded by Scottish Enterprise. With the conclusion of the first stage of the Appeal, the contract with Fundraising Consultant, Stuart Armstrong ended in March 2003. He made an invaluable contribution to the success of the first stage, and was warmly thanked by the Fundraising Committee, chaired by the Rt Hon Lord Ross, PC, FRSE. The launch of the second phase was postponed until next Session, when it was hoped that there would be a more favourable climate for approaches to the corporate sector for funds to implement new initiatives identified through the revised Corporate Plan.
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EVENTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

Schools Lectures 25 November 2002. Colder than Cold by Professor Miles Padgett at Cumnock Academy, Ayrshire 19 December 2002. From Black Holes to Big Bangs by Dr Alan Heavens at Kingussie High School 16 January 2003. Chemistry, Colour and Magic by Dr Christine Davidson at Inveralmond Community High School, Livingston 31 March 2003. Serpents and Synthesisers by Professor Murray Campbell at Portree High School, Isle of Skye 4 April 2003. Guided Tour of the Universe by Professor Henry Ellington at Culloden Academy, Inverness 13 May 2003. Death, Drugs and Dynamite! By Dr Allan Jamieson at Brechin High School, Angus 20 June 2003. Extra-terrestrial Life: Is There Anybody Out There? by Dr Martin Hendry at Preston Lodge High School, Prestonpans, East Lothian 12 September 2003. Win or Bust by Professor Neil Spurway at Inverurie Academy, Aberdeenshire and Torry Academy, Aberdeen, as part of TechFest Maths Masterclasses Queensferry Primary School, South Queensferry: 9, 16, 23, 30 November 2002 Kelvinside Academy in Glasgow: 18, 25 January and 1, 8 February 2003 University of Dundee: 3, 10, 17, 31 May 2003 Startup Science Masterclasses University of Glasgow: 2, 16, 23 November 2002 3, 10, 17, 31 May 2003 Heriot-Watt University: 2, 9, 16 November 2002 23 November (cancelled due to the fire fighters dispute) 26 April, 3, 10, 24 May 2003 Satrosphere/University of Aberdeen: 2, 16, 30 November, 14 December 2002 29 March, 26 April, 10, 24 May 2003 University of Dundee: 9, 23 November, 7, 14 December 2002 10, 17, 31 May, 7 June 2003 University of St Andrews: 23, 30 November, 7, 14 December 2002 (Autumn set cancelled due to the fire fighters dispute) 26 April, 3, 10, 17 May 2003
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Physics Masterclasses (In conjunction with the University of Glasgow) 30 August, 6, 13, 20 September 2003 Christmas Lecture 10 December 2002. Heather Reid, BBC Broadcast Meteorologist, spoke to school students and the public at Lochaber High School in Fort William. Her talk Weather Forecasting for the 21st Century explained some of the science behind weather patterns and the latest forecasting techniques. Roadshow 25-26 March 2003 As part of the Science O3 science festival in Wick and Thurso. Talks and workshops for Primary and Secondary school students, as well as the public. Discussion Forum 20 June 2003. Scotlands Obesity Epidemic young people decide. Based at the Rowett Research Institute, Aberdeen. Senior school students heard the facts from the experts and discussed in workshops to make up their own minds as to how Society should
proceed. Copies of the report of their proposals were sent to decision-making bodies and are available to download from the RSE web site. Supported by the Darwin Trust of Edinburgh and the Rowett Research Institute. Summer Camp Based at and in conjunction with the University of Edinburgh 28 July1 August 2003. Science in Our World - talks, workshops and trips. Young Peoples Awards 27 August 2003. Presented at the Annual Awards Reception to those who have made an extraordinary voluntary contribution to the Young Peoples Events. This year awards were made to: Dr Lesley Glasser MBE FRSE, Satrosphere Dr Martin Hendry, University of Glasgow Ms Heather Reid, BBC Scotland Mrs Monica Lacey, University of Dundee Dr Bruce Sinclair, University of St Andrews
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RESEARCH AND ENTERPRISE AWARDS

The following Awards were made in Session 2002/03: BP Personal Research Fellowship Dr Darrel A Swift. Antiquity and severity of glacial erosion in Greenland (Geography and Topographic Science, Glasgow) Scottish Executive Personal Research Fellowships Dr Nikolaj Gadegaard. The influence of nanotopography on proteins and cells. (Electronics and Electrical Engineering, Glasgow.) Dr Gail McConnell. Application of nonlinear photonic crystal fibres to the imaging of cell activity in cardiovascular tissues. (Centre for Biophotonics, Strathclyde) Dr Abbie Mclaughlin. The Synthesis, Structure and Physical Properties of Mixed Transition Oxide Materials. (Chemistry, Aberdeen.) Dr Linda Kirstein. Evolution of drainage networks in collisional settings. (GeoScience, Edinburgh.) Dr David Manlove. Efficient Algorithms for Matching Problems. (Computing Science, Glasgow.) Support Research Fellowships Dr Xavier Lambin. Density dependence in dispersal and population dynamics. (Biological Science, Aberdeen.)
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Prof Desmond Higham. Computational Algorithms for Complex Interactions. (Mathematics, Strathclyde.) Dr Colin Pulham. Modification of intermolecular interactions using high pressures. (Chemistry, Edinburgh) Science Fellowships for Teachers Mrs June Irvine, Dunblane High School, Perthshire. For work on image sensors within the Electro Optic Sensors section of BAE Systems, Edinburgh. Dr M Barry Miller, Douglas Ewart High School, Dumfries & Galloway. To work with the SAPS Biotechnology Team at Edinburgh University. Mr Paul Rodger, Balfron High School, Stirlingshire. To work with SEPA on pollution monitoring (water and air), waste disposal, radioactivity monitoring and organism sampling. Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland Personal Research Fellowship Dr Val Mann. Molecular and Genetic Basis of Ageing and Disease Related Changes in the Functional Adaptation of Bone. (Scottish Mechanotransduction Consortium Unit, Edinburgh) Support Research Fellowships No Fellowships awarded
Research Studentships Stephen H Butler. Is there a dissociation between visual search and Visuomotor control in hemispatial neglect. (Psychology, Glasgow.) Paula Cox. Autobiographical recollection and quality of life across the lifespan. (Psychology, Aberdeen) Scottish Enterprise Enterprise Fellowships Biotechnology Dr Alison Blackwell. Intelligent Insect Solutions. (Centre for Tropical Veterinary Medicine, Edinburgh.) Electronics Mr Christos Kapatos. A digital system for assessing an amputees residual limb and for the production of functional prosthetic sockets. (Bioengineering Unit, Strathclyde.) Mr Danny Rafferty. Meaningful Measurement for Rehabilitation, Sport, Fitness and Leisure activities. (Health and Social Care, Glasgow Caledonian.) Mr Roderick Sutherland. Development of an Intelligent Audio Analysis System. (Institute for System Level Integration, Livingston.) Microelectronics Dr Mark Cowper. Personal Alarm for the Elderly. (Engineering and Electronics, Edinburgh.)
Mr Yinshui Xia. EDA tool for logic synthesis and optimisation. (Engineering, Napier.) Optoelectronics Dr Richard Abram. Optically Pumped Tunable Semiconductor Lasers. (Physics, Strathclyde.) Dr David Stothard. Commercialisation of novel continuous-wave mid-infrared coherent light sources. (Physics & Astronomy, St Andrews.) Dr Keith Symington. Dynamic Serial Optical Interconnect (DSOI). (Engineering and Physical Sciences, Heriot-Watt.) Energy Mr Gordon Jahn. Power system protection Protection Relay Integrated Modelling Environment (PRIME). (Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Strathclyde.) Biotechnology Dr Iain Greig. New drugs to treat bone disorders. (Institute of Medical Sciences, Aberdeen.) Mr Donald McPhail. OxyProTec A platform for rational antioxidant drug discovery targeting clinical conditions Involving free radicals. (Rowett Research Institute, Aberdeen.) Creative Industries Mr Matthew Seeney. Team Play Learning Dynamics . (Computer games technology, Abertay.)
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Research and Enterprise Awards
Software Dr Sabrina Malpede. Sail Design Software. (Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship, Strathclyde.) PPARC Enterprise Fellowship Mr Charles McLachlan. Image reconstruction and object detection. (Cavendish Astrophysics Group, University of Cambridge.) CRF European Visiting Research Fellowships Dr Louise Bourdua, University of Aberdeen, to visit Universities of Padua and Verona and Centro Studi Antoniani, Padua in Italy. Dr Simon Gathercole, University of Aberdeen, to visit University of Tubingen and Institut fr Antikes Judentum in Germany. Professor Alison McCleery, Napier University to visit University of Caen and National Demographic Research Institute in Paris, France. Professor Steven Spier, University of Strathclyde, to visit Instituto Universitario di Architettura, Venice. Mrs Larysa Sanotska, Lviv National University, to visit Department of Scottish and Modern Literature, University of Edinburgh. Professor Waldemar Kowalski, Akademia Swietokryska, Poland, to visit Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies, Aberdeen.
Cormack Vacation Research Scholarships 2003 Nicola Armstrong. Nanoflare Distributions. (Maths & Statistics, St Andrews.) Nicola Bate. Imaging the Dark Matter with the Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera Survey. (Physics, Edinburgh) Gavin Nicholson. Modelling Extreme Ultraviolet ImpulsivePhase Emission in Solar Flares. (Astronomy, Glasgow.) Vimal Simha. Imaging Stellar Photospheres with Gravitational Microlensing. (Physics & Astronomy, Glasgow.) Isla Simpson. Accretion onto stellar magnetospheres. (Physics & Astronomy, St Andrews.) Fiona Speirits. Environmental Effects on the Luminosity Function of Galaxies. (Physics & Astronomy, Glasgow.) Lessells Travel Scholarships Ali Bahadori,Napier University. Lorna Campbell, Aberdeen University. Alison Cleary, Glasgow University. Ioannis Moatsos. Glasgow & Strathclyde Universities. Kathryn Stewart, Napier University. Simon Stewart. Heriot-Watt University. Ryen White, Glasgow University. Wellcome Research Workshops Dr Gwen Kennedy, for a workshop entitled, New developments in the
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biology of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome with emphasis on the anti-viral pathway and oxidative stress and how these impact on the vascular endothelium. Dr Kerri McPherson, for a workshop entitled Tackling obesity: identifying gaps in our knowledge. Professor Michael Schweizer and Dr Steve Euston, for a workshop entitled Molecular, Clinical and Safety Aspects of Nutrition Research.
Dryerre Scholarship Miss Kerry Ann Cunningham, Bioscience / Veterinary Clinical Studies, University of Strathclyde.
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Research Fellows in Post During the Session Scottish Executive Personal Research Fellowships Dr Alexander Anderson, University of Dundee, Mathematics Dr Peter Andolfatto, University of Edinburgh, ICAPB Dr David Andrew, University of Glasgow, IBLS Dr Kirsten Dickson, University of Edinburgh, Neuroscience Dr Sonja Franke-Arnold, University of Strathclyde, Physics Dr Mark Haw, University of Edinburgh, Physics & Astronomy Dr Alun Hubbard, University of Edinburgh, Geography Dr Nigel Kelly, University of Edinburgh, Geology Dr Paul McKenna, University of Strathclyde, Physics Dr Jason Smith, Heriot-Watt University, Physics Support Research Fellowships Dr David Hutchings, University of Glasgow, EEE Dr Ian Gent, University of St Andrews, Computer Science Dr Tim Wess, University of Stirling, Biological Sciences Science Fellowships for Teachers Mrs June Irvine, Dunblane High School, Dunlane
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Mr Paul Roger, Balfron High School, Balfron Dr M Barry Miller, Douglas Ewart High School, Newton Stewart, Dumfries & Galloway BP Research Fellowships Dr Matthew Costen, Heriot-Watt University, Chemistry Dr Andrian Finch, University of St Andrews, Geological Sciences Dr Yani Najman, University of Edinburgh, Geology & Geophysics Dr Patrick Ohberg, University of Strathclyde, Physics CRF European Visiting Research Fellowships Professor Irina Belobrovtseva, from Tallin University of Educational Studies, Estonia to visit Department of Slavonic Studies, University of Glasgow Dr Jean Louis Dessalles, Ecole Nationale Superieure des Telecommunications, Paris, France to visit Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, University of Edinburgh Dr Dmitry Fedosov, Institute of General History, Russian Academy of Sciences, to visit the Centre for Russian Studies, University of Aberdeen, Edinburgh and London Dr David Hopkin, University of Glasgow to visit Paris and other centres in France
Dr David Howard, University of Edinburgh to visit the University of Toulouse, France Dr Andrew Mackillop, University of Aberdeen to visit The General State Archives, the Hague, Netherlands Dr Paul Vogt, Universiteit Maastricht, the Netherlands, to visit the Department of Linguistics, University of Edinburgh Lessells Scholars Mr Gareth Harrison, University of Edinburgh Miss Joanne Lawlor, Heriot-Watt University Mr Iain Macdonald, Manchester Metropolitan University Mr Iain MacPherson, University of Glasgow Ms Annie Nyander, Napier University Mr Neil Tierney, University of Glasgow/Glasgow School of Art Mr Philippe Vadillo, University of Edinburgh Mr Andrew Wodehouse, Abertay University Cormack Scholars Miss Nina Hatch, University of Edinburgh Mr Alexios Kavgas, University of St Andrews Mr Robert MacKay, University of Glasgow
Miss Jennifer Pollock, University of Glasgow Miss Laura Reid, University of Glasgow Miss Jennifer Toher, University of Glasgow Miss Saffron Wyse, University of St Andrews Scottish Enterprise Enterprise Fellowships Microelectronics Ms Gabriela Juarez-Martinez, University of Glasgow, Electronics & Electrical Engineering & Chemistry Mr Yinshui Xia, Napier University, Engineering Electronics Mr Daniel Rafferty, Glasgow Caledonian University, School of Health and Social Care Mr Roderick Sutherland, Institute for System Level Integration, Livingston Communication Technologies Mr Garry Rice, University of Strathclyde, Electronics & Electrical Engineering Creative Industries Dr Colin Urquhart, University of Glasgow, Computing Science Life Sciences Dr Alison Blackwell, University of Edinburgh, Centre for Tropical Veterinary Medicine
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Dr Olga Kozlova-Zwinderman, University of Edinburgh, Cell & Molecular Biology Dr Mairead Murnion, University of Dundee, Life Sciences Dr Robert Speight, University of Edinburgh, Chemistry Energy Mr Barry Johnston, Civil & Offshore Engineering, HeriotWatt University Mr Iain Chirnside, University of Aberdeen, Engineering Software Dr John Favier, University of Edinburgh, Civil & Environmental Engineering PPARC Enterprise Fellowship Ms Joy McKenny, Durham University, Astronomy Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland Personal Research Fellowships Dr Anthea Innes, University of Stirling, Applied Social Science Dr Margaret Lai, University of Edinburgh, Molecular Medicine Dr Heather Wilkinson, University of Edinburgh, Centre for Research on Families & Relationships
Support Research Fellowships None in post. Research Studentships Miss Lesley Jessiman, University of Dundee, Psychology Mr Rory MacLean, University of Aberdeen, Psychology Miss Janine Cooper, University of Aberdeen, Psychology Miss Claire Fitzsimons, University of Edinburgh, Geriatric Medicine Mr Alan Gow, University of Edinburgh, Psychology Miss Carly Rivers, University of Edinburgh, Clinical Neurosciences Dryerre Scholarship Ms Alison Littlejohn, University of Aberdeen, Biomedical Sciences
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MEDALS, PRIZES AND PRIZE LECTURESHIPS

Royal Medals, 4th Award 2003 Presented by HRH The Duke of Edinburgh at a ceremony in the RSE on Monday 27 October 2003. Life Sciences: Sir Paul Nurse FRS HonFRSE, for his outstanding contribution to genetics research, in particular its relevance to cancer, in which he has become a leading figure nationally and internationally. Humanities and Social Sciences: Lord Mackay of Clashfern KT, PC, QC, FRSE, for his outstanding contribution to Scots Law and public service, both within the UK and internationally. Lord Mackay is one of the most distinguished Scotsmen of his time. Physical and Engineering Sciences: Sir Michael Atiyah OM, PPRS, HonFRSE, for his profound and beneficial effect on the development of mathematics and science in the UK and Europe. Sir Michael was one of the pioneers of K-theory. The Gannochy Award for Innovation of The Royal Society of Edinburgh The first Gannochy Award was presented by Sir James Black OM, FRS, HonFRSE, at an Awards Ceremony at Scone Palace on 21June 2003. The winner was Dr Barbara Spruce, Department of Surgery and Molecular Oncology, University of Dundee, for her innovative technology for the treatment of cancer.
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Henry Duncan Prize Lectureship 5th award 2002 to Professor Duncan Macmillan, Professor of the History of Scottish Art, University of Edinburgh (retired 2002), and Curator of the Talbot Rice Gallery, in recognition of his contribution to the history of Scottish painting. Bruce Preller Prize Lectureship 35th award 2002 to Sir Keith ONions FRS, Professor of the physics and chemistry of minerals, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford, and Chief Scientific Adviser, Ministry of Defence, in recognition of his outstanding contribution to geosciences. Henry Dryerre Prize Lectureship no award made. Alexander Ninian Bruce Prize no award made. CRF Prize Lecture 13th Award 2003 to Professor Joan Steitz, Department of Molecular Biophysics & Biochemistry, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Yale University, USA.
GRANTS COMMITTEE
The Grants Committee considered 24 applications and a sum of 15,916 was awarded to 22 applicants. Approximately 70% of this sum was awarded as travel assistance. Travel Assistance Professor G W S Barrow, for travel to Troyes, France. 300 Professor J C Brown, for travel to Australia. 900 Professor J B Dawson, for travel to Victoria, Canada. 899 Professor J H Dickson, for travel to Austria and Canada. 900 Professor R Donovan, for travel to Ottawa, Canada. 900 Professor K Edwards, for travel to Auckland, New Zealand. 900 Professor G Graham, for travel to Ireland. 196 Professor C Greated, for travel to Bangkok, Thailand. 900 Professor S Harley, for travel to Japan. 900 Professor B Henderson, for travel to the USA, New Zealand and Australia. 900 Professor A Hook, for travel to the USA. 695 Professor J Hubbuck, for travel to Vietnam. 900 Professor S Kuksin, for travel to Moscow, Russia. 440 Sir David Mason, for travel to Ohio and Michigan, USA. 900 Dr W E Stephens, for travel to Japan. 900
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Research Visitor to Scotland Professor M J Rennie, to enable Dr Benjamin Miller to visit the University of Dundee from the University of Copenhagen. 600 Professor J E L Simmons, to enable Professor S J Ebeid to visit Edinburgh from the Ain Shams University, Cairo. 596 Professor R B Watson, to enable Dr Li-Ping Geng to visit Edinburgh from the Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada. 900 Dr M J Wilson, to enable Dr Giacomo Certini to visit the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute from the Istituto per lo Studio degli Ecosistemi, Florence, Italy. 600 Support for Meetings Professor J R Coggins for a meeting A Third of a Century of Protein Science in Scotland: The 100th Meeting of the Scottish Protein Group. 600 Dr J Ratter for a meeting entitled Tropical Savannas & Seasonally Dry Forests, Ecology, Environment and Development. 600 Professor K Reid for the T B Smith Conference. 490 Support for Publication None awarded this session.
Auber Bequest Award 2003 To Professor Elliot Leader, to travel to Brookham in the USA, CERN in Geneva and DESY in Hamburg. 1000 for a twelve month period.
Visiting Lecturer Grant None awarded this session.
The closing dates for applications to the Grants Committee are 28 February, 31 May, 31 August and 30 November.
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INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMME
International Exchanges The Royal Society of Edinburgh is keen to facilitate, encourage and support research collaboration in all areas between Scottish and overseas research groups. Memoranda of Understanding are in place with The Chinese Academy of Sciences, The Polish Academy of Sciences and The National Science Council of Taiwan, and there is also an Open Programme, allowing researchers to further collaboration with research groups in countries or organisations not covered by the bilateral programmes. The RSE exchange programme began in 2003, and is additional to and complements existing schemes operated at UK level by the Royal Society and the British Academy in London. Grants are awarded for short-term visits of one up to a maximum of four weeks duration, the key objectives being to enhance the research capabilities of individual researchers, initiate and develop international research collaborative links/shared research projects between countries, and enable participation in international research programmes, e.g. FP6. Both visitors and hosts should have established contact before submitting an application, either by previous collaboration or by scientific correspondence. Awards have been made to: Bilateral - China Professor Lovat Rees FRSE, University of Edinburgh Dr Paul Hallett, Scottish Crop Research Institute Bilateral - Poland Mr Phillip Evans, University of Edinburgh Dr Esther Reed, University of St Andrews Bilateral - Taiwan Dr David Dorrell, University of Glasgow Open Professor Denis Hall FRSE, HeriotWatt University (China) Dr Martin Judd, University of Strathclyde (China) Dr Li Yang, University of Strathclyde (China) Professor Anthony Lodge, University of St Andrews (France) Dr Wieland Fricke, University of Paisley (Sweden) Dr Gillian Ragsdell, University of Paisley (Australia) Professor Roy Thompson FRSE, University of Edinburgh (Australia) Dr Stuart MacFarlane, Scottish Crop Research Institute (Germany) Dr Jens Timmermann, University of St Andrews (China)
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Awards made for researchers visiting Scotland Professor Jan Gorski, hosted by the University of Dundee (Dr Hari Hundal) under the bilateral programme with Poland. Professor Chuan-Mu Chen hosted by the Unversity of Edinburgh (Professor John Ansell) under the bilateral programme with Taiwan. Professor Gennady Kuzmin hosted by Napier Unversity ( Dr David Summers ) under the open programme, travelling from Russia. Voyages of Discovery - Showcasing Excellence in Scottish Research In partnership with Scottish Development International, British Council Scotland, and Universities Scotland, the Royal Society of Edinburgh is managing a new project designed to showcase the excellence of Scottish research. The project aims to showcase the best of Scottish research to major international companies, with the objectives of encouraging more companies to locate research and development operations in Scotland, to place research contracts with Scottish universities and to encourage the wider dissemination of the results of Scottish research. We have invited heads of R&D of major international companies to come on a structured programme of visits to Scotland. Participants will be given
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a unique opportunity to meet some of our leading scientists and researchers, and to observe the ways in which Scottish universities, research institutes and colleges conduct world class research and interact with companies to generate wealth from the knowledge they develop. In the initial phase of the project, up to March 2004, successful visits focusing on two sectors, energy and life sciences, took place . International Collaboration Stem Cell Discussion Forum, Brussels In October, Scientists from Scotland, Spain and Sweden met with governmental/EU institution representatives and other European researchers to discuss the implications for stem cell research in light of current legislation before the European Parliament. See page 212 for a short report of this meeting. A full report has been published by the Society (ISBN No 0902198 88 2) and is available from the International Office, or on the website. International visitors received by RSE A delegation from the Chinese Academy of Sciences visited the RSE on 19 August. The delegation consisted of Professor Chen Zhu, Vice President, CAS and senior colleagues, including: Professor Kang Le, Professor Huang Hongwen, Professor Ren Hai, Professor
International
Jin Xinming, Mr Wang Zhenyu, Dr Xing Xuerong. While at the RSE the delegation met Professor Rona Mackie, International Convener. Discussions were productive, with the Academy inviting the Society to participate in a bilateral seminar in Beijing in March 2004. This would involve RSE bringing researchers from Scotland to give presentations on a range of topics including: botany; plant and animal genetics; nutrition and human health; nanotechnology ; optoelectronics; science policy and public understanding of science. In September 2003, there was a visit from the National Science Council of Taiwan.
Lectures were given by: Dr Tsugio Makimoto, Corporate Advisor in charge of semiconductor technology at the Sony Corporation on Semiconductor Devices for Entertainment Robots which was followed by computer demonstrations given by his colleagues on 7 October 2003. (See page 158 for a summary.) Professor Etienne Baulieu, President of the French Academy of Sciences on European Science in Difficulty on 27 October 2003. (See page 161.)
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FELLOWS SOCIAL EVENTS

Fellows Reception The 2003 Fellows Reception took place on 28th August 2003, for Fellows and their guests. A presentation was made by the President to staff member Miss Sandra McDougall who had retired after almost 29 years service on 30 June. A film of the first Gannochy Innovation Award of the Royal Society of Edinburgh was shown in the Wolfson Lecture Theatre and entertainment was provided by Dave Batchelor and his Jazz band. Discussion Dinner 3 March 2003. Public Transport and Public Expectations: Can the Gaps be Bridged? Following the Public Lecture by Mr David Bayliss OBE FREng, Former Planning Director of London Transport, with Professor Gavin McCrone CB FRSE as Chairman. Discussion Suppers 13 March 2003. How Can Scotland Become the Healthy Nation of Europe? Led by Professor Sir David Carter FRSE, with Dr Harry Burns, Director of Public Health, Greater Glasgow NHS Health Board, and Professor Hugh Pennington FRSE, Emeritus Professor of Bacteriology, University of Aberdeen. 7 May 2003. Does Fishing Have a Future in the North Sea? Led by Professor Anthony Hawkins CBE FRSE, Honorary Professor, Department of Land Economy, University of Aberdeen, with Mr Michael Park, Chairman of the Scottish Fisheries Federation and Professor Alasdair McIntyre CBE FRSE, a Former Director at the Fisheries Research Services for Scotland. Awards Reception and Young Peoples Awards The Annual Awards Reception was held on Wednesday 27 August 2003 at the RSE. The Research Award winners (see pages 227-230) were announced and the Young Peoples Programme Contributors were acknowledged and thanked for their outstanding contribution to the RSEs Young Peoples Programme (see page 226). New Fellows Dinner 2003 The 2003 New Fellows Dinner was held on Friday 3 October 2003 and was attended by around 60 New Fellows and partners, members of Council and RSE staff. Professor Andrew Miller proposed the toast to the New Fellows, to
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which The Rt Hon Lord Hope of Craighead responded. Fellows Coffee Meetings Weekly Coffee Meetings were held throughout the winter and spring months. Speakers at the monthly lecture meetings were : 5 November 2002. What Use is an Ombudsman?. Sir William Reid. 3 December 2002. African Art; The Dilemma of Repatriation. Professor Frank Willett. 14 January 2003. Freedom of Information - How Free?. Sir William Fraser. 4 February 2003. Like a Bridge over Troubled Waters: Community Relations First and Foremost. Professor Yasir Suleiman, Director of the Edinburgh Institute for the Advanced Study of Islam and the Middle East. 4 March 2003. Benin and the Restoration of Cultural Property. Professor Frank Willett.
7 October 2003. The Euro in a United Europe. Sir John Shaw, CBE. 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 : 823rd dinner - 2 December 2002. Praeses : Dr E J Balfour Croupier : Professor H Wilson 824th dinner - 7 April 2003. Praeses : Professor R J Wheater Croupier : Sir Laurence Hunter 825th dinner - 2 June 2003. Praeses : Professor J M Howie Croupier : Dr B E Moon 826th dinner - 6 October 2003. Praeses Professor M B Wilkins Croupier Professor A Miller Fellows Golf Challenge Fellows enjoyed a breezy days golf at Lundin Links, a championship qualifier course, on 29 August. Some excellent scores were returned and Professor Sean McKee and Sir Laurence Hunter tied for first place. Sir Laurence won on count back and received the Stewart Cup for the second time.
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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: A&M Hearing Ltd Aberdeen City Council Aberdeenshire Council Archibald, Campbell & Harley WS Astrazeneca The Binks Trust The British Academy British Neuropathological Society British Neuroscience Association Clydesdale Bank Comhairle Nan Eilann Siar The Darwin Trust of Edinburgh William Demant Foundation Dental Health Services Food Standards Agency Scotland Gillette Historic Scotland Italian Embassy Pathological Society of Great Britain The Rowett Research Institute Joseph Rowntree Foundation Royal Bank of Scotland Royal College of Surgeons Sainsburys plc Science 03 Festival Scottish Biomedical Foundation Scottish Dental Practice Based Research NetworkScottish Enterprise Grampian Scottish Executive Scottish Medico Legal Society Scottish School of Primary Care Shetland Islands Council Technology Ventures Scotland University of Dundee University of Durham University of Glasgow
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CHANGES IN FELLOWSHIP DURING THE SESSION

DEATHS REPORTED TO THE SOCIETY Fellows
Hugh Anderson Colin Bell Eric Alfred Charles Chamberlain William Cochran David Owen Edge George Carlyle Emslie Nigel Duncan Cameron Grant Ian Simpson Hughes Rodney Alistair Kempton Robert Evan Kendell Edward McCombie McGirr Alan Gilbert Morton Thomas Alexander Fraser Noble Walter Laing MacDonald Perry of Walton Terence Peter Scoffin Donald Geoffrey Smith Frank Smithies Ian Soutar Richard Anthony Stradling Harry Francis West Taylor George Roland Tristram Archie Rule Turnbull Ewart Geoffrey Walsh Wattie Jesse West George Kenneth Hotson Younger of Leckie
Honorary Fellows
F V Atkinson Gunther O Schenck Victor Frederick Weisskopf
ELECTIONS Honorary Fellows

Richard Timothy Hunt Edwin George Morgan George Islay MacNeill Robertson Kurt Wthrich
Corresponding Fellows
William Clement McGrew
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Helmut Neunzert
Fellows
James Adamson Mark Ainsworth Alan Alexander William McKerrell Banks David James Stewart Birch Michael Robert Blatt John Anthony Butt Frances Anne Cairncross Muffy Calder Mark Andrew Joseph Chaplain Howard John Cooke Robert Cairns Craig Michael Charles Radcliffe Davies Ian John Deary Anna Dominiczak William Edgar John Vincent Forrester Margaret Catherine Frame Peter France Evelyn Margaret Gill John Halstead Hardman Moore Robert Stuart Haszeldine James Arthur David Hope William Nigel Hunter Fergus Gordon Thomson Kerr Robert Howie Logie John McCormick James Rufus McDonald Quintin Archibald McKellar John MacDonald MacKenzie Ian McKenzie Smith Thomas Fulton Wilson McKillop April Mary Scott McMahon Mary Tara Marshall Robert William Milne Johanna Doris Moore Vito Antonio Muscatelli Christopher John Dillon Packard Nigel Julian Rapport Andrew Fraser Read Pamela Robertson Ian Robinson Ifor David William Samuel Brian George Davidson Smart Austin Gerard Smith Hew Francis Anthony Strachan John Francis Toland Malcolm Douglas Walkinshaw John Williamson Wallace Pauline Weetman Christopher Allan Whatley Niall Richard Whitty Alan Finlay Wright
248
STAFF
Arrivals Ms Christel Baudere, Personnel Assistant Ms Emma Faragher, Education Assistant Ms Jean Finlayson, International Assistant Mrs Rebecca Gibson, Receptionist/ Telephonist Mr Garry Johnstone, Accounts Assistant Mrs Sheila Stuart, Administration Assistant Departures Mrs Elizabeth Bigelow, Receptionist/Telephonist Ms Cathy Crawford, Receptionist/ Telephonist Ms Paulette Hughes, Receptionist/ Telephonist Mrs Sharon Jesson, PA to President and General Secretary Miss Sandra McDougall, Special Projects Manager (Retired) Mr David Murray, Accounts Administrator (Retired, later died)
Staff in post throughout the Session Mr Stuart Brown, PR and Communications Manager Ms Rosn Calvert, Events Manager Ms Jennifer Cameron, IT Support Manager and Communications Officer Dr Lesley Campbell, Policy, Education and Fellowship Services Manager Dr William Duncan, Executive Secretary Miss Kate Ellis, Director of Finance Mrs Anne Ferguson, Research Awards Manager Ms Kirsteen Francis, Conference Centre Co-ordinator Ms Sarah Gilmore, Events Coordinator Mr Graeme Herbert, Director of Central Services Miss Vicki Ingpen, Journals and Archive Officer
249
Mrs Jenny Liddell, Research Awards Co-ordinator Mr Robert Lachlan, Accounts Officer Mr Colin Nelson, Facilities Assistant Mr Frank Pullen, Central Services Manager Dr Marc Rands, Policy Officer Dr Harinee Selvadurai, Education Officer Mr Brian Scott, Facilities Assistant Mrs Margaret Tait, Receptionist/ Telephonist Ms Susan Walker, Events Officer Mrs Doreen Waterland, PA to Executive Secretary and Officers Mr Duncan Welsh, Events Officer Mr Michael White, International Activities Manager (seconded from the British Council)
INDEX
2020 Science Education, 181.
A
A&M Hearing Ltd, 165, 245 A New Russian Revolution: Partnership with NATO, 118. A Vision for the Future, 219. A-Z of Oral Cancer: Published Report, 215. Aberdeen City Council, 245. Aberdeenshire Council, 245. Accounts, 31. Advice, 219 Alexander Ninian Bruce Prize, 235. All European Academies (ALLEA), 219. Animal Health and Welfare Strategy for Great Britain, 220. Archibald, Campbell & Harley WS, 245. ASM, Minute, 5. Astrazeneca, 245. Atiyah, Sir Michael, 235. Auber Bequest, 238. Auditor, Appointment of, 12. Report, 51. Awards Reception and Young Peoples Awards, 243.
Fellows in Post, 231; Research Fellowship Trust, 245. British Academy, 109, 149, 203, 245. British Neuropathological Society, 245. British Neuroscience Association, 245. Bruce Preller Prize, 235. Bruce Prize, 235. Business-University Collaboration, 219.
C
Campbell, Professor M, 225. Cell Mediated Immunity in Virus Infections, 148. Chemical Constraints on Biological Evolution, 3, 116. Chemistry, Colour and Magic, 225. Chinese Academy of Sciences, 239. Christmas Lecture: Weather Forecasting for the 21st Century, 226. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, 210. Clydesdale Bank, 245. Colder than Cold, 225. Comhairle Nan Eilann Siar, 245. Comment, 219. Conferences: 2020 Science Education, 181; England and Scotland in Union, 203; Hearing, Deafness and Social Inclusion, 165; Human Rights: Roles and Responsibilities, 191; Infection and the Threat to the Food Chain, 205; Scotland's Drug Problem, 201; The Future of Retailing: Prospects for Town Centres, 177; The Value of the Post-Mortem Examination, 184 Corbet, Professor P, 74.
251
B
Baulieu, Professor Etienne-Emile, 161. Bayliss, Mr D, 3, 135. Berry, Sir Michael, 57. Binks Trust, 245. Bionic Man, 160. BP: Personal Research Fellowship, 227; Prize Lecture, 61; Research
Cormack Bequest: Astronomy Meeting 2003, 182; Postgraduate Prize, 183; Scholars in Post, 232; Undergraduate Prize, 183; Vacation Research Scholarships 2003, 229. Corporate Plan, 6, 11. Council, Election of, 5. CRF, 245; European Visiting Research Fellowships, 229; International Conference, 205; Prize Lecture, 89, 235; Research Fellows in Post, 231. Crop Plant Genetics, 220.
Aquaculture, 219. Draft strategy for Scotlands Biodiversity, 220. Dryerre: Henry Dryerre Prize Lectureship, 235; Scholars in post, 233; Scholarship, 230.
E
Economics in Higher Education in Scotland, 220. Edinburgh Lecture, 118. Election of Council, 5. Election of Fellows, 3. Ellington, Professor H, 225. England and Scotland in Union from 1603, 203. Enterprise Fellowships: Fellows in Post, 232; PPARC, 229; Scottish Enterprise, 228. European Academies Science Advisory Council, 220. European Commission, 220. European Research Council, 219. European Science in Difficulty, 161. European Visiting Research Fellowships, 229. Event-related potential studies of memory and attention, 167. Evidence, 219. Extra-terrestrial Life: Is There Anybody Out There, 225.
D
Darwin Trust of Edinburgh, 226, 245. Davidson, Dr C, 225. Death, Drugs and Dynamite!, 225. Dental Health Services, 245. Department for Education and Skills, 220. Department of Trade and Industry, 220. Dining Club, 244. Disappearing Computer, 132. Discussion Dinner, 243. Discussion Forum: GM Gene Flow: Scale and Consequences for Agriculture and the Environment, 172; Scotland's Obesity Epidemic, 226; Stem Cell Research, 212, 240. Discussion Suppers, 243. Does Fishing Have a Future in the North Sea?, 243 Doherty, Professor C, 148. Draft Strategic Framework for
F
Fate of the Neanderthals, 152. Fellows: Deaths of, 247; Election of, 3, 247. Fellows Coffee Meetings, 244. Fellows Golf Challenge, 244.
252
Index
Fellows Reception, 243. Fellowship: Formal Admission to, 3. Fleck, Lord, Will Trust, 245. Food Standards Agency, 205, 219, 220, 245. French Academy of Sciences, 161. From Black Holes to Big Bangs, 225. From Chaos to the Indian Rope Trick, 3, 113. Funding Opportunities Through the 6th Framework, 166. Future of Cloning: Young People Decide: Published Report, 215. Future of Higher Education, 220. Future of Retailing: Prospects for Town Centres, 177.
Guided Tour of the Universe, 225.
H
Health Impact of GM Crops, 219. Health Protection, 219. Hearing , Deafness and Social Inclusion, 165. Heavens, Dr A, 225. Hendry, Dr M, 225. Henry Duncan Prize, 235. HFEA, 219. Historic Scotland, 245. Holmes, Professor R, 89. Hood, Professor N, 4, 154. House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, 219, 220. House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology, 220. How Cancer Chemotherapy Works, 156, 158. How can Scotland Become the Healthy Nation of Europe, 243. Human Genetics Commission: Work Plan, 2003/2005, 219. Human Rights: Roles and Responsibilities, 191
G
Gannochy: Award, 235; Trust, 245. General Secretarys Report, 6. Genetics and Insurance: Can They Live Together?, 150. Gillette, 245. GM Gene Flow: Scale and Consequences for Agriculture and the Environment, 172. GM Morrison Charitable Trust, 245. Goals, Greed and Governance, 4, 154. Government Response to the House of Lords S&T Committee, 220. Grants, 237; Auber Bequest, 238; Research Visitor to Scotland, 237; Support for Meetings, 237; Support for Publication, 237; Travel Assistance, 237. Grants, Sponsorship and Donations, 245.
I
I, Cyborg, 137; Published Report, 215. Infection and the Threat to the Food Chain, 205. Inquiries: The Scottish Fishing Industry, 221. Inquiry into Light Pollution and Astronomy, 219. Inquiry into Science and International agreements, 220.
253
International Programme, 239; Discussion Forum, 240; Exchanges, 239; China, 239; Open, 239; Poland, 239; Taiwan, 239; Overseas Visitors, 240; Voyages of Discovery, 240. Italian Embassy, 176,245.
J
James Scott Prize Lecture, 57. Jamieson, Dr A, 225. Joint Conference: RSE/Royal Scandinavian Academies, 191. Joint Lectures: RSE/BA, 149; RSE/ ECRR/IoB, 129; RSE/Heriot-Watt, 160; RSE/RAE, 137; RSE/SABRI, 148; RSE/SDI, 158. Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 245.
K
Kidd, Dr C, 61.
tainable Development, 129; O Brave New World? The Union of England and Scotla, 149; Public Transport and Public Expectations: Can the Gaps be Bridged?, 3, 135; Robert Burns and British Poetry, 109; Semiconductor Devices for Entertainment Robots, 158; The Bionic Man, 160; The Disappearing Computer, 132; The Fate of the Neanderthals, 152. Legislating for the Nature of Scotland, 220. Lessells: Scholars in Post, 232; Travel Scholarships, 229; Trust, 245. Life on a Little Known Planet, 129. Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland, 245; Fellows in Post, 233; Research Fellowships and Studentships, 227. Lord Fleck Will Trust, 245.
L
Lambert Review, 219. Laws of the Society, revisions, 12. Lawton, Professor J, 129. Lectures: A New Russian Revolution: Partnership with NATO, 118; Cell Mediated Immunity in Virus Infections, 148; Chemical Constraints on Biological Evolution, 3, 116; European Science in Difficulty, 161; From Chaos to the Indian Rope Trick, 3, 113; Genetics and Insurance: Can They Live Together, 3, 150; Goals, Greed and Governance, 4, 154; How Cancer Chemotherapy Works, 4, 156; I Cyborg, 137; Life on a Little Known Planet and Unsus-
M
MacDonald, Professor A, 3, 150. Mackay of Clashfern, Lord, 235. Macmillan, Professor D, 235. Makimoto, Dr T, 158, 241. Making Light of Mathematics, 57. Managing Incidents Presenting Actual or Potential, 220. Masterclasses, 225; Mathematics; Physics; Startup Science. Maths Masterclasses, 225. Medals, Prizes and Prize Lectureships, 235; Alexander Ninian Bruce Prize; Bruce Preller Prize; Gannochy Award; Henry Dryerre Prize Lectureship; Henry Duncan Prize; Royal Medals.
254
Index
Medical Research Council, 219. Mullin, Professor T, 3, 113.
N
National Science Council of Taiwan, 239. National Scrapie Plan: Scrapie Flocks Scheme, 219; Semen Archive, 220. Neill Medal Prize Lecture, 74. New Fellows Dinner 2003, 243. NHS Scotland, 219. Nixon, Professor P, 132. Nurse, Sir Paul, 235.
Medal Prize Lecture, 74; Making Light of Mathematics: James Scott Prize Lecture, 57; Race and the Scottish Nation: BP Prize Lecture, 61; War of Words: CRF Prize Lecture, 89. Proceedings A: Mathematics, 215. Public Transport and Public Expectations: Can the Gaps be Bridged?, 3, 135, 243. Publications, 215.
Q
Quark and Gluon Physics, 176. Quinquennial Review of the Council for Science and Technology, 219.
O
O Brave New World? The Union of England and Scotland, 149. Office of Science and Technology, 219. ONions, Sir Keith, 235. Oral Health Workshop, 174. Ordinary Meetings, 3. Over Thirty Month Rule., 220. Overseas Visitors, 240.
R
Race and the Scottish Nation, 61. Reid, Heather, 226. Research Fellows in Post During the Session, 231. Research Fellowships, 227. Research Visitor to Scotland, 237. ReSourcE, 215. Review of Research Assessment, 219, 220. Revision to Laws, 12. Roadshow, 226. Robert Burns and British Poetry., 109. Robertson of Port Ellen, Lord, 118. Role of the Universities in the Europe of Knowledge, 220. Rowett Research Institute, 226. Royal Bank of Scotland, 245. Royal College of Surgeons, 245. Royal Medals, 235. Royal Scandinavian Academies, 191.
255
P
Padgett, Professor M, 225. Particle Physics Workshop, 176. Pathological Society of Great Britain, 245. Physics Masterclasses, 226. Pittock, Professor M, 109. Polish Academy of Sciences, 239. PPARC, 245; Enterprise Fellowships, 229; Fellows in Post, 233. Prize Lectures: Dragonflies: Behaviour and Ecology of Odonata: Neill
Royal Society of Edinburgh Directory 2003, 215. Royal Society of Edinburgh Review 2003, 215. RSE Annual Review, 215.
S
Sainsburys plc, 245. Schools' Lectures, 225. Science & Society Lecture, 132. Science and the Regional Development Agencies, 219. Science Information Scheme, 7. Science O3, 226, 245. Scientific Response to Terrorism, 219. Scotland in Sweden: Published Report, 215. Scotlands Drug Problem, 201; Published Report, 215. Scottish Biomedical Foundation, 245. Scottish Dental Practice Based Research Network, 245. Scottish Economic Society, 220. Scottish Enterprise, 245; Enterprise Fellowships, 228. Scottish Enterprise Grampian, 245. Scottish Executive, 245; Environment and Rural Affairs Department, 219, 220; Environment Group, 220; Health Department, 219, 220; Justice Department, 220; Research Fellows in Post, 231; Research Fellowships, 227. Scottish Fishing Industry, 221. Scottish Higher Education Funding Council, 219. Scottish Human Rights Commission, 220.
Scottish Medico Legal Society, 245. Scottish Parliaments Health Committee, 219. Scottish School of Primary Care, 245. Scottish Science Advisory Committee, 217; Members, 218; Staff, 218. Scrutineers, 3. Semiconductor Devices for Entertainment Robots, 158. Seminar: Funding Opportunities Through The 6th Framework Programme, 166. Serpents and Synthesisers, 225. Sex selection: choice and responsibility in human reproduction, 219. Shetland Islands Council, 245. Smith, Sir David, 221. Smyth, Professor J F, 4, 156. Sony Corporation, 158. Spruce, Dr B, 235. Spurway, Professor N, 225. SSAC, 217. Staff Changes, 249. Staff in Post, 249. Startup Science Masterclasses, 225. Steitz, Professor J, 235. Stem Cell Research: Opportunities and Challenges, 212. Strategy for the Sustainable Development of Europe, 219. Stringer, Professor C, 152. Summer Camp, 226. Support for Meetings, 237. Support for Publication, 237. Sustainability of University Research, 220.
256
Index
T
Taiwan, National Science Council of, 239 TechFest, 225. Technology Ventures Scotland, 245. Tissue and Vascular Remodelling, 168) Topics for Foresight Projects, 219. Touamzou, Professor C, 160. Towards Better Oral Health in Children, 219. Toxicity Report on Phytoestrogens and Health, 219. Transactions: Earth Sciences, 215. Travel Assistance, 237. Treasurers Report, 8.
U
UK funding bodies joint consultation, 220. UK Science and Europe: Value for Money?, 219. University of Dundee, 245. University of Durham, 245. University of Glasgow, 245.
Warwick, Professor K, 137. Weather Forecasting for the 21st Century, 226. Wellcome Trust, 245; Research Workshops, 229; Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, 210; Event-related potential studies of memory and atte, 167; Tissue and Vascular Remodelling, 168. What Research would Benefit the Practice of Primary Dental CAre, 174. William Demant Foundation, 165, 245 Williams, Professor R J P, 3, 116. Win or Bust, 225. Workshops: Oral Health, 174; Particle Physics, 176; Quark and Gluon Physics, 176; Wellcome Trust, 167,168, 210. Wormald, Dr J, 149.
Y
Young People and Schools, 225. Young Peoples Awards, 226, 243.
V
Value of the Post-Mortem Examination, 184; Published Report, 215. Voyages of Discovery, 240.
W
War Of Words:The British Army And The Western Front, 89.
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The Royal Society of Edinburgh Review 2004 (Session 2002-2003)

THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH REVIEW OF THE SESSION 2002-2003

PUBLISHED BY THE RSE SCOTLAND FOUNDATION ISSN 1476-4342

PROCEEDINGS OF THE ORDINARY MEETINGS

Review of the Session 2002-2003

PROCEEDINGS OF THE STATUTORY GENERAL MEETING

Review of the Session 2002-2003

Proceedings of the Annual Statutory Meeting

Review of the Session 2002-2003

Proceedings of the Annual Statutory Meeting

Review of the Session 2002-2003

Proceedings of the Annual Statutory Meeting

Review of the Session 2002-2003

Proceedings of the Annual Statutory Meeting

Review of the Session 2002-2003

Laws Prior to October 2003

Proceedings of the Annual Statutory Meeting

Laws Prior to October 2003

TRUSTEES REPORT TO 31 MARCH 2003

Review of the Session 2002-2003

Trustees Report to 31 March 2003

Review of the Session 2002-2003

The Year 1 April 2002-31 March 2003

Trustees Report to 31 March 2003

Review of the Session 2002-2003

Trustees Report to 31 March 2003

Review of the Session 2002-2003

Trustees Report to 31 March 2003

Review of the Session 2002-2003

Trustees Report to 31 March 2003

Financial review April 2002-March 2003

Review of the Session 2002-2003

Trustees Report to 31 March 2003

Review of the Session 2002-2003

BALANCE SHEET AT 31 MARCH 2003

Approved by the Council on 1 September 2003

Laurence C Hunter Sir Laurence Hunter, CBE Treasurer

Review of the Session 2002-2003

530,091 206,393 29,115 765,599

1,408,576 1,185,228 112,558 107,374 2,440,548 1,958,548 84,257 108,948

79,699 8,649 600,173 224,814 913,335 (147,736) 1,073 (13,935) (12,862)

1,310,936 1,096,843 801,603 229,404 626,416 241,090

(160,598) 94,153 (6,006) (72,451) 73,593 1,142

7,232,604 7,359,030 6,731,776 7,232,604

Auditors Report and Accounts

CASH FLOW STATEMENT YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2003

324,142 295,314 619,456

75,913 219,401 295,314

Review of the Session 2002-2003

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2003

Auditors Report and Accounts

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2003

Review of the Session 2002-2003

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2003

13,200 103,158 17,064 133,422

3,207 12,291 13,563 44,155 285 584 1,155 75,240

476,086 24,059 148,497 27,863 312,830 25,840 187,008 1,202,183

379,228 6,500 168,543 14,082 216,714 83,586 134,129 1,002,782

Auditors Report and Accounts

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2003

Review of the Session 2002-2003

NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2003

Auditors Report and Accounts