Reflections on the history of the Royal Society Te Apārangi

ABSTRACT

This paper uses the author’s own recently published history of the Royal Society Te Apārangi (the Royal Society) to reflect on the history of the organisation from a social sciences perspective. The Royal Society’s organisational ‘reinvention’ of itself has reflected the changing place of science and other forms of knowledge in New Zealand. The shift from the nineteenth-century amateur pursuit of knowledge to science as a specialised professional occupation resulted in the reshaping of the organisation at the turn of the twentieth century. There was a further reconstitution of the Royal Society in the 1960s; its structure no longer corresponded to the changes that had taken place in science during the twentieth century. Following the restructuring of science in the 1990s and the increased recognition that different forms of knowledge were integrated and embedded in society, the Royal Society reinvented itself once more with the inclusion of the social sciences and the humanities within its remit.

KEYWORDS:

• Sociology of science
• history of science
• Royal Society Te Apārangi
• public policy
• science and government

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.