Fellow Of The Royal Society Mini Forum, Tips, Tricks & Codes

Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have angry a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathematics, engineering science, and medical science".

Fellowship of the Society, the oldest known scientific academy in continuous existence, is a significant honour. It has been awarded to many eminent scientists throughout history, including Isaac Newton (1672), Charles Darwin (1839), Michael Faraday (1824), Ernest Rutherford (1903), Srinivasa Ramanujan (1918), Albert Einstein (1921), Paul Dirac (1930), Winston Churchill (1941), Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1944), Dorothy Hodgkin (1947), Alan Turing (1951), Lise Meitner (1955) and Francis Crick (1959). More recently, fellowship has been awarded to Stephen Hawking (1974), David Attenborough (1983), Tim Hunt (1991), Elizabeth Blackburn (1992), Tim Berners-Lee (2001), Venkatraman Ramakrishnan (2003), Atta-ur Rahman (2006), Andre Geim (2007), James Dyson (2015), Ajay Kumar Sood (2015), Subhash Khot (2017), Elon Musk (2018), and around 8,000 others in total, including over 280 Nobel Laureates since 1900. As of October 2018, there are approximately 1,689 living Fellows, Foreign and Honorary Members, of which over 60 are Nobel Laureates.

Fellowship of the Royal Society has been described by The Guardian as "the equivalent of a lifetime achievement Oscar" with several institutions celebrating their announcement each year.

Fellowships

Up to 60 freshFellows (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. FreshFellows shouldonly be nominated by existing Fellows for one of the fellowships described below:

Fellow

Every year, up to 52 freshfellows are elected from the United Kingdom, the rest of the Commonwealth of Nations and Ireland, which make up around 90% of the society. Each candidate is considered on their merits and shouldbe proposed from any sector of the scientific community. Fellows are elected for life on the basis of excellence in science and are entitled to utilizethe post-nominal letters FRS.

Foreign member

Every year, fellows elect up to ten freshforeign members. Like fellows, foreign members are elected for life through peer review on the basis of excellence in science. As of 2016, there are around 165 foreign members, who are entitled to utilizethe post-nominal ForMemRS.

Honorary fellow

Honorary Fellowship is an honorary academic title awarded to candidates who have given distinguished service to the cause of science, but do not have the typeof scientific achievements neededof Fellows or Foreign Members. Honorary Fellows include Bill Bryson (2013), Melvyn Bragg (2010), Robin Saxby (2015), David Sainsbury, Baron Sainsbury of Turville (2008) and Onora O'Neill (2007). Honorary Fellows are entitled to utilizethe publicationnominal letters HonFRS. Others including John Maddox (2000), Patrick Moore (2001) and Lisa Jardine (2015) were elected as honorary fellows.

Former statute 12 fellowships

Statute 12 is a legacy mechanism for electing members before official honorary membership existed in 1997.^{[citation needed]} Fellows elected under statute 12 include David Attenborough (1983) and John Palmer, 4th Earl of Selborne (1991).

Royal Fellow

The Council of the Royal Society shouldsuggestmembers of the British Royal Family for election as Royal Fellow of the Royal Society. As of 2016 there are five royal fellows:

1. Charles, Prince of Wales elected 1978
2. Anne, Princess Royal elected 1987
3. Prince Edward, Duke of Kent elected 1990
4. Prince William, Duke of Cambridge elected 2009
5. Prince Andrew, Duke of York elected 2013

Her Majesty the Queen, Elizabeth II is not a Royal Fellow, but provides her patronage to the Society as all reigning British monarchs have done since Charles II of England. Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1951) was elected under statute 12, not as a Royal Fellow.

Election of freshfellows

The election of freshfellows is announced annually in May, after their nomination and a period of peer-reviewed selection.

Nomination

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. Previously, nominations neededat least five fellows to assistanceeach nomination by the proposer, which was criticised for supposedly establishing an old-boy network and elitist gentlemen's club. The certificate of election (see for example) contain a statement of the principal grounds on which the proposal is being angry. There is no limit on the number of nominations angry each year. In 2015, there were 654 candidates for election as Fellows and 106 candidates for Foreign Membership.

Selection

The Council of the Royal Society oversees the selection process and appoints 11 topiclocationcommittees, known as Sectional Committees, to suggestthe 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 a secret ballot of Fellows is held at a meeting in May. A candidate is elected if he or she secures two-thirds of votes of those Fellows voting.

An indicative allocation of 18 Fellowships shouldbe 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 shouldbe 'Honorary', 'General' or 'Royal' Fellows. Nominations for Fellowship are peer reviewed by Sectional Committees, each with at least 12 Members and a Chair. Members of the 11 Sectional Committees modifyevery three years to mitigate in-group bias, each group covers different specialist location including:

0. Computer sciences

1. Mathematics

2. Astronomy and physics

3. Chemistry

4. Engineering

5. Earth science and environmental science

6. Biochemistry and molecular cell biology

7. Microbiology, immunology and developmental biology

8. Anatomy, physiology and neuroscience

9. Organismal biology, evolution and ecology

10. Health and human sciences

Admission

FreshFellows are admitted to the Society at a formal access day ceremony held annually in July, when they sign the Charter Book and the Obligation which reads: "We who have hereunto subscribed, do hereby promise, that we will endeavour to promote the awesomeof 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. Deliveredthat, 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".

Since 2014, portraits of Fellows at the access ceremony have been published without copyright restrictions in Wikimedia Commons under a more permissive Creative Commons license which let wider re-use.

Research Fellowships and other awards

In addition to the main fellowships of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS & HonFRS), other fellowships are accessiblewhich are applied for by individuals, rather than through election. Holders of these fellowships are known as Royal Society Research Fellows.

• University research fellowships (URFs) Royal Society University Research Fellowships are for outstanding scientists in the UK who are in the early stages of their research career and have the potential to become leaders in their field. Previous holders of URFs have been elected FRS at a later date including Richard Borcherds (1994), Jean Beggs (1998), Frances Ashcroft (1999), Athene Donald (1999) and John Pethica (1999). More lastestawardees include Terri Attwood, Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, Brian Cox, Sarah Bridle, Shahn Majid, Tanya Monro, Beth Shapiro, David J. Wales and Katherine Willis.
• Royal Society Leverhulme Believesenior research fellowships are for scientists who would benefit from a period of full-time research without teaching and administrative duties, supported by the Leverhulme Trust.
• Newton advanced fellowships provide established international researchers with an opportunity to develop the research strengths and capabilities of their research group. These are deliveredby the Newton Fund as part of the UK's official development assistance.
• Industry fellowships are for academic scientists who wishto work on a collaborative project with industry and for scientists in industry who wishto work on a collaborative project with an academic organisation.
• Dorothy Hodgkin fellowships are for outstanding scientists in the UK at an early stage of their research career who require a flexible working pattern due to privatecircumstances. These fellowships are named after Dorothy Hodgkin.

In addition to the award of Fellowship (FRS, HonFRS & ForMemRS) and the Research Fellowships described above, several other awards, lectures and medals of the Royal Society are also given.