- Bishop Hill blog

I have been doing some digging into the Royal Society's election procedures. This was prompted a tweet from James Wilsdon that not all of the elections to posts at the society were held under such an absurd system as that used for Royal fellows.

The society's standing orders are here and these indeed show that there are different procedures for electing fellows, foreign members and royal fellows. However, as far as I can tell the procedures for other elections to the fellowship are actually worse than those used for royals. (The standing orders are somewhat unclear, so it is possible that my interpretation is wrong - second opinions are welcome).

Anyone can make a nomination for election to the fellowship, but after that the procedure is taken over by the Council of the society. The fellows receive the names of all those nominated but, as you will see, they have little further involvement in the process.

The next step is for the nominations to be considered by the council and the chairmen of the sectional committees - one for each of the main branches of science: maths, chemistry, physics and so on. The sectional committees are themselves appointed by the council, and the committee chairmen are appointed in the same way. I think it's fair to say then that the sectional committees are the tool of the Council.

The Council then seems to go away and draw up a list of 44 candidates for the fellowship and 8 for foreign membership. These are then presented to the fellows for a ballot. As far as I can tell, the names of the candidates chosen by the Council are not circulated to the fellowship, but only to those attending the meeting in person. (This is not the case for elections of Royal fellows, where all fellows receive a ballot paper.)

The ballot papers are processed as follows:

...each Fellow present and voting shall deliver...one of the ballot lists... having deleted the name of any candidate or candidates for whom the Fellow does not vote, and, if the Fellow shall think fit, having substituted the name of any other candidate or candidates contained in the list [they received at the start of the process].

So while fellows can nominate people for the fellowship, only those favoured by the Council will actually appear on the ballot. The chances of anyone not favoured by the Council making it to the ballot are therefore vanishingly slight. I would imagine the chances of anyone not favoured by the council actually being elected are precisely nil.

Interestingly, the process for foreign members is different, not using a ballot paper, but instead using a show of hands. So while we can say that Erlich's candidacy was favoured by Nurse and his friends on the Council, we will never know what the fellows thought about it. They may not even have been aware that he was one of the lucky eight favoured by the Council until after he had been successfully elected.

That said, I think we can see how it is possible for control to be maintained over the society's membership.

Update on May 6, 2013 by

Bishop Hill

From the comments at the Guardian article on the election comes this:

I must dispute Athene Donald's claim that it was made perfectly clear how to vote against Andrew Windsor's election. Here are *all* the words that appear on the ballot paper that Fellows were given (I have suppressed the name of a staff member):
--------------------
THE ROYAL SOCIETY
BALLOT PAPER
Royal Fellowship
Instructions:
Please print this paper and indicate with a mark your support of the election of:
HRH The Duke of York KG GCVO
as a Royal Fellow of the Royal Society.
[BOX] I support the election of HRH The Duke of York KG GCVO as a Royal Fellow of the Royal Society
Once completed, please return this form by post to:
XXXXXXXXXXXX
Fellowship Manager
The Royal Society
6-9 Carlton House Terrace
London SW1Y 5AG
United Kingdom
Or by email to:
xxxxxxxxxx@royalsociety.org
The deadline to return your ballot sheet is 2.00pm Wednesday 1 May 2013. Any votes received after this date will not be counted.
--------------------

In the covering email from Paul Nurse, here is the full paragraph dealing with the ballot paper:
--------------------
We would derive much tangible and intangible benefit from His Royal Highness as a Royal Fellow. In accordance with Statute 4 and Standing Order 29, this election will be handled by a secret ballot and the ballot paper can be found here [URL given]. The deadline to return your ballot paper is Wednesday 1 May 2013. The return instructions are on the ballot paper. The result of this election will be announced at the business meeting of the Fellowship on 2 May and notification of the result will be circulated to the Fellowship and Foreign Membership shortly afterwards.
--------------------

I was dismayed by the email, then disgusted by the ballot paper, but decided I had more pressing tasks than to figure what to do. I'm very grateful to David Colquhoun for shining light on this mess.

I'm a member of one of the sectional committees that reviews and puts forward lists of candidates for election to Fellowship. We understand that typically we can expect only about four Fellows to be elected in our subject each year. When I think of the excellence and dedication of the people who ended up at spots 5-8, and then see this buffoon given a royal road to Fellowship, and THEN see respectable scientists defend this decision, my overwhelming instinct is invest my time and efforts elsewhere. A pity, as Paul Nurse has spent a great deal of time and energy in an attempt to engage Fellows more in the activities of the society.