More than research intermediaries: a descriptive study of the impact and value of learned societies in the UK social sciences

The role of learned societies, mutual organisations of scholars with a common interest in an academic discipline or research field, is a poorly understood part of the ecosystem for knowledge exchange and dissemination. As such, that role is vulnerable to the unintended consequences of actions by other institutions within this ecosystem. This paper reports a study of the social science learned societies operating in the UK in 2012/13. It describes their current activities and sustaining revenue streams, develops a methodology for documenting these, and establishes a baseline for future work to assess the impact of changes in their organisational environment

Genome editing: the dynamics of continuity, convergence and change in the engineering of life

Genome editing enables very accurate alterations to DNA. It promises profound and potentially disruptive changes in healthcare, agriculture, industry and the environment. This paper presents a multidisciplinary analysis of the contemporary development of genome editing and the tension between continuity and change. It draws on the idea that actors involved in innovation are guided by “sociotechnical regimes” composed of practices, institutions, norms and cultural beliefs. Analysis focuses on how genome editing is emerging in different domains and whether this marks continuity or disruption of the established biotechnology regime. In conclusion, it will be argued that genome editing is best understood as a technology platform that is being powerfully shaped by this existing regime but is starting to disrupt the governance of biotechnology. In the longer term is it set to converge with other powerful technology platforms, which together will fundamentally transform the capacity to engineer life