Academy rests case

SOCIAL scientists will today move closer to having their own academy in line with the Royal Society, the British Academy and the Royal Academy of Engineering.

If all goes to plan, the academy will be founded late next year. An implementation group of the Association of Learned Societies in the Social Sciences meets today to consider the proposal and a paper by newly-elected chair Ian Forbes, professor of politics at Nottingham University and chair of the Political Studies Association.

ALSISS represents 30,000 social scientists. It is hoped that the Royal Economic Society, which dropped out in the mid-1990s, will rejoin shortly.

Professor Forbes expects about 30 distinguished social scientists who "combine academic standing, contribution to the profession and contribution to practice" to be founding members. "We don't want scholarship to be the sole criterion," he said.