May Newsletter

News & Upcoming events.

Glasgow Science Festival Glasgow Caledonian University, Govan Mbeki Building, Deeprose Lecture Theatre (A005)
14th June     17:30 – 20:00     Free but ticketed
tickets available on the Science Festival Website


Meet the Marys who shaped the political and scientific life of Glasgow through this lecture in three parts: the tale of political activist Mary Barbour (1875-1958), through the art of Sharon Thomas; the tale of Professor of dietetics Mary Andross (1893-1968), based on material from GCU archives; and a look at current trends. Includes reception at 17:30-18:00

Advanced notice of Pre Session event.

Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow 2018 Soiree

Saturday 15 September 2018 at the Glasgow Art Club   185 Bath Street, G2 4HU
6.00 pm – 9.00 pm.


Glasgow Art Club was founded in 1867 – last year it celebrated its 150th anniversary.    The young Charles Rennie Mackintosh had a hand in some of the main gallery’s ornamental details in the Bath Street premises.    The soiree gives members of the Royal Phil an opportunity to visit the Club, see current exhibitions and the Club’s collection of paintings and sculptures.

During the evening there will be a talk on the history of the Club and its role in the life of the arts in Glasgow.    The Scottish firm of auctioneers, Lyon and Turnbull, will provide a selection of artefacts for guests to identify – there will be prizes!

Wine and canapes will be served. The event will close at approx.  9.00 pm but the main gallery and bar will remain open until 10.00 for guests who wish to stay later.
Information on tickets will be sent to members closer to the date.


Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow grants and awards.

As we enter the fourth year of the Society’s Grant awards scheme, we are proud to have supported 5 grants to date. Reports on 3 of the completed projects are now available on the Society’s website:

A project awarded to Dr Ben Colburn, University of Glasgow: Undermining the Chauvinist Intuition: Comparing the commitments dominant theories of autonomy have concerning cases of mental disorder, is now complete. It is anticipated that the researcher, Elliot Porter, will make a verbal presentation of this project to the Society during the 2018/9 lecture series.

‘Glasgow Historic Literary Societies Online: Materials, Minute Books and Manuscript Magazines, 1800-1914’ Grant was awarded to Professor Kirsty Blair, University of Strathclyde. Their website www.glasgowsliterarybonds.org/ shows some of the results of this project. A copy of the report can be requested from info@royalphil.org. A short verbal presentation on this work will be given prior to the lecture on 20th February 2019

A project funded in 2016: Glasgow Jewish Institute Players – opening the archive, funded to Professor Adrienne Scullion, Visiting Professor, University of Glasgow was completed in 2017 and can be found on the Society’s website. The researcher, Paul Maloney, will also be making a short presentation to the Society before the lecture on 14th November 2018.

The two projects funded during 2017/8 are making good progress.

The Society is pleased to be supporting, for the second year, the Trades House of Glasgow Modern Apprentice award.
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Help improve our website

The Society web group is keen to improve the website and on-line resources through incremental development and would be interested in hearing from potential volunteers with relevant skills, interest or experience; particularly those with expertise or proficiency with IT, graphic design or content authoring. If you would be interested in helping to enhance our digital offerings, please contact Geraint or George at info@royalphil.org

Volunteers wanted for STEM Ambassador training.
(STEM = Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths)

The Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow has many members who have worked in science, engineering or technology-related disciplines and we suspect that many might be interested in becoming STEM Ambassadors, to help pass on their knowledge and inspire a younger generation to careers in these fields.

The STEM Ambassador programme allows teachers to access volunteers with these skills to help support them in the classroom. This could be in the form of running workshops, helping out in class debates or Q&A sessions, talking to pupils at careers events or a host of other activities.

We would therefore like to offer members the opportunity to become STEM Ambassadors by running an induction and training session, in partnership with Science Connects.
If you would be interested in such training, please let us know by e-mailing info@royalphil.org or speak to a Council member.

For more information about STEM Ambassadors visit:
https://www.stem.org.uk/stem-ambassadors

and for more information about Science Connects visit:
https://www.gla.ac.uk/explore/scienceconnects/

217th Lecture Series

The final programme for the 217th Lecture Series is almost complete and below is a glimpse of the planned lectures.

17th Oct                 Sir Harry Burns, Director of Global Public Health, University of Strathclyde
31st Oct                 Professor Keith Millar, Medical Psychology, University of Glasgow
14th Nov                Professor Tim Palmer, Royal Society Research Professor in Climate Physics
28th Nov                Professor Tim Ingold, Chair in Social Anthropology, University of Aberdeen
12th Dec                Professor Louise Welsh    Author
9th Jan 2019         Professor Mike Bruford  Co-director Sustainable Places Research Institute, School of Biosciences, Cardiff University
23rd Jan                Professor Michael O’Donovan, Deputy Director/Clinical Professor, Division of Psychological Medicine and Clinical Neurosciences, Cardiff University
6th Feb                  Professor Alan Winfield,  Professor of Robot Ethics, UWE Bristol
20th Feb                Philippe Sands, QC Barrister, author
6th Mar                  Professor Alison Phipps Professor of Languages and Intercultural Studies University of Glasgow
20th Mar                Fergal Keane, BBC news correspondent, author

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Many of the 216th Lecture Series talks are now available on our website at:
http://royalphil.org/recent_lectures/2017-2018/

212th Session: Lecture 7

Wednesday, 8th January, 2014

Prof  John Daugman

Professor of Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, University of Cambridge

The Biometric Identification of Persons

 

 7.30pm John Anderson Building, University of Strathclyde

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