Royal Society’s Advisory Role

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30940, 22 December 1965, Page 3

Royal Society’s Advisory Role

CN.Z. Pre** Association/ WELLINGTON, Dec. 21. Next year, the Royal Society of New Zealand will tell the Minister of Science about fields in which scientific efforts should be increased and will suggest how that may be done. The society’s president (Dr. C A. Fleming) said this today in a review of the effect of the Royal Society of New Zealand Act . passed by Parliament recently. He said the society had been

undergoing a quiet but farreaching revolution. It was indicative of the Government’s enlightened approach to science and an endorsement of the Royal Society’s aims and objects that the legislation had been fully accepted as a Government measure.

Dr. Fleming said the society was established as the New Zealand Institute to 1867. It existed as a nonGovernment organisation for the promotion of science in New Zealand.

The society provided New Zealand scientists with an independent forum for scientific discussion and an open chan-

nel for the publication of their research findings. It offered an independent and authoritative voice to the community and the Government on scientific matters and acted as the body through which New Zealand science was linked to the world organisations of science. During the last decade, with the admission of additional bodies, such as the Geological Society and the Institute of Chemistry, the Royal Society's council had grown to an unwieldy size, and its functions had become more those of an academy of science in the post-war expansion of international science. "The new act and constitution place the policy and con-

trol of the society in the hands of the fellows, while still retaining the links with the member bodies,” said Dr. Fleming. "The fellowship of the society is a self-perpetuating body, at present limited to 100 scientists. The fellows’ part in the society’s administration has hitherto been restricted to the appointment of two out of about 30 councillors. The new act vests control of the society in a council of 14, of i whom the four officers and eight councillors are elected ! by the fellows from among their number, the two other . councillors are representatives of the member bodies.**