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Fellow of the Royal Society

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Fellowship of the Royal Society
Headquarters of theRoyal SocietyinCarlton House Terracein London
Awarded for"Contributions to the improvement of natural knowledge"[1]
Sponsored byRoyal Society
Date1663;361 years ago(1663)
LocationLondon
CountryUnited Kingdom
Total no. FellowsApproximately 8,000[2](1,743 living Fellows)

Fellowship of the Royal Society(FRS,ForMemRSandHonFRS) is an award granted by the Fellows of theRoyal Societyof London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement ofnatural knowledge,includingmathematics,engineering science,andmedical science".[1]

Fellowshipof the Society, the oldest known scientific academy in continuous existence, is a significant honour. It has been awarded to many eminent scientists throughout history, includingIsaac Newton(1672),[2]Benjamin Franklin(1756),Charles Babbage(1816),[2]Michael Faraday(1824),[2]Charles Darwin(1839),[2]Ernest Rutherford(1903),[3]Srinivasa Ramanujan(1918),[4]Albert Einstein(1921),[5]Paul Dirac(1930),Winston Churchill(1941),Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar(1944),[6]Dorothy Hodgkin(1947),[7]Alan Turing(1951),[8]Lise Meitner(1955)[9]andFrancis Crick(1959).[10][11]More recently, fellowship has been awarded toStephen Hawking(1974),David Attenborough(1983),Tim Hunt(1991),Elizabeth Blackburn(1992),Raghunath Mashelkar(1998),Tim Berners-Lee(2001),Venki Ramakrishnan(2003),Atta-ur-Rahman(2006),[12]Andre Geim(2007),[13]James Dyson(2015),Ajay Kumar Sood(2015),Subhash Khot(2017),Elon Musk(2018),[14]Elaine Fuchs(2019) andaround 8,000 othersin total,[2]including over 280Nobel Laureatessince 1900. As of October 2018,there are approximately 1,689 living Fellows, Foreign and Honorary Members, of whom 85 are Nobel Laureates.[15]

Elected in 1672,Isaac Newtonwas one of the earliest fellows of the Royal Society.

Fellowship of the Royal Society has been described byThe Guardianas "the equivalent of a lifetime achievementOscar"[16]with several institutions celebrating their announcement each year.[17][18][19][20][21][22][23]

Fellowships[edit]

Stephen Hawkingwas elected a Fellow in 1974.[24]

Up to 60 new Fellows (FRS), honorary (HonFRS) and foreign members (ForMemRS) are elected annually in late April or early May, from a pool of around 700 proposed candidates each year.[25]New Fellows can only be nominated by existingFellowsfor one of the fellowships described below:

Fellow[edit]

Bill Bryson,elected as an Hononary Member in 2013

Every year, up to 52 new fellows are elected from the United Kingdom, the rest of theCommonwealth of Nationsand Ireland, which make up around 90% of the society.[26][27]Each candidate is considered on their merits and can be proposed from any sector of the scientific community. Fellows are elected for life on the basis of excellence in science and are entitled to use thepost-nominal lettersFRS.[1]

Foreign member[edit]

Jennifer Doudna,elected as a Foreign Member in 2016

Every year, fellows elect up to ten new foreign members. Like fellows, foreign members are elected for life throughpeer reviewon the basis of excellence in science. As of 2016,there are around 165 foreign members, who are entitled to use the post-nominal ForMemRS.[28]

Honorary fellow[edit]

Ramanujanwas elected a Fellow in 1917.

Honorary Fellowship is anhonorary academic titleawarded to candidates who have given distinguished service to the cause of science, but do not have the kind of scientific achievements required of Fellows or Foreign Members. Honorary Fellows include the World Health Organization's Director-GeneralTedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus(2022),Bill Bryson(2013),Melvyn Bragg(2010),Robin Saxby(2015),David Sainsbury, Baron Sainsbury of Turville(2008),Onora O'Neill(2007),John Maddox(2000),[29]Patrick Moore(2001) andLisa Jardine(2015).[30]Honorary Fellows are entitled to use the post nominal letters HonFRS.[31]

Former statute 12 fellowships[edit]

David Attenboroughwas elected a Fellow in 1983, under former statute 12.

Statute 12 is a legacy mechanism for electing members before official honorary membership existed in 1997.[32]Fellows elected under statute 12 includeDavid Attenborough(1983) andJohn Palmer, 4th Earl of Selborne(1991).

Royal Fellow[edit]

The Council of the Royal Society can recommend members of theBritish royal familyfor election asRoyal Fellow of the Royal Society.As of 2023there are four royal fellows:

  1. Charles III,elected 1978[33]
  2. Anne, Princess Royal,elected 1987[34]
  3. Prince Edward, Duke of Kent,elected 1990[35]
  4. William, Prince of Wales,elected 2009[36]

Elizabeth IIwas not a Royal Fellow, but provided herpatronageto the society, as all reigningBritish monarchshave done sinceCharles II of England.Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh(1951) was elected under statute 12, not as a Royal Fellow.[37]

Election of new fellows[edit]

The election of new fellows is announced annually in May, after their nomination and a period ofpeer-reviewedselection.[1]

Nomination[edit]

Each candidate for Fellowship or Foreign Membership is nominated by two Fellows of the Royal Society (a proposer and a seconder), who sign a certificate of proposal.[38]Previously, nominations required at least five fellows to support each nomination by the proposer,[38]which was criticised for supposedly establishing anold boy networkand elitistgentlemen's club.[39][40][41]The certificate of election (see for example[42]) includes a statement of the principal grounds on which the proposal is being made. There is no limit on the number of nominations made each year. In 2015, there were 654 candidates for election as Fellows and 106 candidates for Foreign Membership.[1]

Selection[edit]

The Council of the Royal Society oversees the selection process and appoints 10 subject area committees, known as Sectional Committees, to recommend the strongest candidates for election to the Fellowship. The final list of up to 52 Fellowship candidates and up to 10 Foreign Membership candidates is confirmed by the Council in April, and asecret ballotof Fellows is held at a meeting in May. A candidate is elected if they secure two-thirds of votes of those Fellows voting.

An indicative allocation of 18 Fellowships can be allocated to candidates from Physical Sciences and Biological Sciences; and up to 10 from Applied Sciences, Human Sciences and Joint Physical and Biological Sciences. A further maximum of six can be 'Honorary', 'General' or 'Royal' Fellows. Nominations for Fellowship arepeer reviewedby Sectional Committees, each with at least 12 members and a Chair (all of whom areFellows of the Royal Society). Members of the 10 Sectional Committees change every three years to mitigatein-group bias.Each Sectional Committee covers different specialist areas including:

  1. Computer science
  2. Mathematics
  3. Astronomyandphysics
  4. Chemistry
  5. Engineering
  6. Earth scienceandenvironmental science
  7. Molecules of Life[43]
  8. Cell biology
  9. Multicellular organisms
  10. Patterns in Populations[44]

Admission[edit]

New Fellows are admitted to the Society at a formal admissions day ceremony held annually in July,[45]when they sign theCharterBook and the Obligation which reads: "We who have hereunto subscribed, do hereby promise, that we will endeavour to promote the good of the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, and to pursue the ends for which the same was founded; that we will carry out, as far as we are able, those actions requested of us in the name of the Council; and that we will observe the Statutes and Standing Orders of the said Society. Provided that, whensoever any of us shall signify to the President under our hands, that we desire to withdraw from the Society, we shall be free from this Obligation for the future".[1]

Since 2014, portraits of Fellows at the admissions ceremony have been published withoutcopyrightrestrictions inWikimedia Commonsunder a more permissiveCreative Commons licensewhich allows wider re-use.[46][47]

Research fellowships and other awards[edit]

Brian Cox,a professor of physics, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2016 having previously held aRoyal Society University Research Fellowship(URF) from 2005 to 2013.[48]

In addition to the main fellowships of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS & HonFRS), other fellowships are available which are applied for by individuals, rather than through election. These fellowships are research grant awards and holders are known as Royal SocietyResearch Fellows.[49]

In addition to the award ofFellowship(FRS, HonFRS & ForMemRS) and theResearch Fellowshipsdescribed above, several otherawards, lectures and medals of the Royal Societyare also given.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^abcdef"Elections".London: Royal Society. Archived fromthe originalon 6 September 2015.
  2. ^abcdef"Fellowship of the Royal Society 1660–2015".London:Royal Society.2015. Archived fromthe originalon 15 October 2015.
  3. ^Eve, A. S.; Chadwick, J. (1938). "Lord Rutherford 1871–1937".Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society.2(6): 394–423.doi:10.1098/rsbm.1938.0025.
  4. ^Neville, Eric Harold(1921)."The Late Srinivasa Ramanujan".Nature.106(2673): 661–662.Bibcode:1921Natur.106..661N.doi:10.1038/106661b0.S2CID4185656.Archivedfrom the original on 27 November 2020.Retrieved30 June2019.
  5. ^Whittaker, E.(1955). "Albert Einstein. 1879–1955".Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society.1:37–67.doi:10.1098/rsbm.1955.0005.JSTOR769242.S2CID619823.
  6. ^Tayler, Roger J.(1996)."Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. 19 October 1910 – 21 August 1995".Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society.42:80–94.doi:10.1098/rsbm.1996.0006.S2CID58736242.
  7. ^Dodson, Guy(2002). "Dorothy Mary Crowfoot Hodgkin, O.M. 12 May 1910 – 29 July 1994".Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society.48:179–219.doi:10.1098/rsbm.2002.0011.PMID13678070.S2CID61764553.
  8. ^Newman, M. H. A.(1955)."Alan Mathison Turing. 1912–1954".Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society.1:253–263.doi:10.1098/rsbm.1955.0019.JSTOR769256.
  9. ^"The Royal Society – Fellow Details".The Royal Society.13 September 2020. Archived fromthe originalon 7 March 2021.Retrieved13 September2020.
  10. ^Bretscher, Mark S.;Mitchison, Graeme (2017)."Francis Harry Compton Crick OM. 8 June 1916 – 28 July 2004".Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society.63:rsbm20170010.doi:10.1098/rsbm.2017.0010.ISSN0080-4606.
  11. ^Rich, Alexander;Stevens, Charles F.(2004)."Obituary: Francis Crick (1916–2004)".Nature.430(7002): 845–847.Bibcode:2004Natur.430..845R.doi:10.1038/430845a.PMID15318208.
  12. ^"Atta-Ur Rahman".Royal Society.Archivedfrom the original on 20 June 2018.Retrieved23 August2018.
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  19. ^"Manchester scientists elected as Fellows of Royal Society".Manchester:University of Manchester.29 April 2016.Archivedfrom the original on 7 May 2016.
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  21. ^"Three University of Aberdeen researchers elected to Royal Society".Aberdeen:University of Aberdeen.29 April 2016.Archivedfrom the original on 25 May 2016.
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