Royal Society
English learned society for science
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, commonly referred to as the Royal Society, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, recognising excellence in science, supporting outstanding science, providing scientific advice for policy, education and public engagement and fostering international and global co-operation. Founded on 28 November 1660, it was granted a royal charter by King Charles II and is the oldest continuously existing scientific academy in the world.
The society is governed by its Council, which is chaired by the society's president, according to a set of statutes and standing orders. The members of Council and the president are elected from and by its Fellows, the basic members of the society, who are themselves elected by existing Fellows. As of 2020, there are about 1,700 fellows, allowed to use the postnominal title FRS (Fellow of the Royal Society), with up to 73 new fellows appointed each year from a pool of around 800 candidates. There are also royal fellows, honorary fellows and foreign members. Up to 24 new foreign members are appointed each year (from the same pool of 800) and they are allowed to use the postnominal title ForMemRS (Foreign Member of the Royal Society). The Royal Society president is Paul Nurse, who took over from Sir Adrian Smith in December 2025.
Since 1967, the society has been based at 6–9 Carlton House Terrace, a Grade I listed building in central London which was previously used by the Embassy of Germany, London.
“Royal Society” enters the record as english learned society for science. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Royal, Society and English can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q123885. VIAF identifies the subject as 157503209. The Library of Congress control number is n79127772. Authority coordinates are 51.506, -0.132. 2 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1660, 2020, 2025 and 1967.
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This entry incorporates text from “Royal Society” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.