The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is an educational charity, registered in Scotland. Independent and non-party-political, we are working to provide public benefit throughout Scotland and by means of a growing international programme. The RSE has a peer-elected, multidisciplinary Fellowship of 1500 men and women who are experts within their fields.
Often overlooked, the Royal Society has impeccable First Enlightenment credentials - created in 1783 by Royal Charter for “the advancement of learning and useful knowledge” - and despite a rather schlocky website design, is an active advocate of science and research in Scotland. It has a reasonably busy events program, with audio-video archive. Though the RSE does attempt to cover both the natural and the social sciences, there's little of the transdisciplinary excitement that we currently see in the Royal Society of the Arts in London - nor the same expansive and entrepreneurial approach to fellowship. At a time when Scotland needs to be supporting debate between the scientific agenda on energy and bioscience, and the cultural norms of the country, the RSE is (in our view) something of a sleeping giant.