{"id":122,"date":"2010-04-12T21:27:48","date_gmt":"2010-04-12T21:27:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/2010\/04\/12\/royal_institution_management_to_stay_after_dramatic_vote\/"},"modified":"2010-12-21T20:45:31","modified_gmt":"2010-12-21T20:45:31","slug":"royal_institution_management_to_stay_after_dramatic_vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/2010\/04\/12\/royal_institution_management_to_stay_after_dramatic_vote\/","title":{"rendered":"Royal Institution management to stay after dramatic vote"},"content":{"rendered":"

News just in that the \u201cExtraordinary Meeting\u201d at the Royal Institution<\/a> in London has broken up, <\/span>with the attempt to vote out the Trustees defeated Mark Henderson<\/a> of the Times<\/em> and Ian Sample<\/a> of the Guardian<\/em> have been \u201clive-tweeting\u201d the event for the last couple of hours, so you can consult their feeds to get a minute-by-minute account of proceedings. Mark Henderson reports the votes as 121 for sacking the council (the elected Trustees who have legal reponsibility for running the Royal Institution), and 512 against.<\/p>\n

Mark also reports one member saying he<\/p>\n

\u201cThought I was here to vote on replacement of council. It seems we\u2019re here to debate reinstatement of the director\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Speaking of which, the vote surely represents a disappointment for at length in the media.<\/a> The rebels in tonight\u2019s vote were widely identified in the media as Greenfield\u2019s supporters, and some stories even suggested they were ultimately seeking her reinstatement.<\/a> Greenfield stated on Radio 4\u2019s World at One<\/em> today that she was not behind the campaign (more here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The background to the whole affair, of course, is the parlous state of the RI\u2019s finances, briefly discussed on Nature.com<\/em><\/a> and in NN\u2019s London Blog<\/em><\/a> back in December. It was revealed in the meeting that the Royal Institution is currently losing about \u00a3 100,000 a month. Tonight\u2019s decision means the current Trustees\/Council are being trusted to try and sort things out.<\/p>\n

Though there now seems zero chance of Greenfield being reinstated, it seems unlikely we have heard the last word in respect of her time at the RI. Reports in January indicated that Greenfield was filing a sex discrimination claim<\/a> against the Royal Institution; more recent stories<\/a> seem to confirm this, and Mark Henderson reports today that \u201cSusan Greenfield says her legal action will go on\u201d<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Among the speeches tonight, several which were apparently loudly applauded called for those proposing sacking the Council, and those supporting them, to put their heads together and try and work out a way forward. Let\u2019s hope that is what happens, and that the RI can first attain some stability, and then move forward and find an effective role.\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014-<\/p>\n

Newswire Update:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another live Twitter account<\/a> from science communication lecturer and blogger Alice Bell<\/a><\/p>\n

Report from the Guardian<\/em> here.<\/a><\/p>\n

And the BBC<\/a><\/p>\n

And the Financial Times<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

And the Telegraph<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

A more extended piece<\/a> from Times Online<\/em> by Mark Henderson and Hannah Devlin contains the following:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe [Royal Institution], however, is still facing legal action by Lady Greenfield, who said she would continue to pursue an employment tribunal claim alleging unfair dismissal and sex discrimination. She said last night that she would continue to pursue it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI have no alternative, this is a protective measure,\u201d<\/em> <\/span>she said. She acknowledged that if successful, her case could be costly to the RI but said: <\/span>\u201cIt\u2019s not my fault if I was unfairly dismissed. It should not be on me to bear the financial onus. A more cost effective alternative would be to reinstate me as director.\u201d <\/em>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

News just in that the \u201cExtraordinary Meeting\u201d at the Royal Institution in London has broken up, with the attempt to vote out the Trustees defeated Mark Henderson of the Times and Ian Sample of the Guardian have been \u201clive-tweeting\u201d the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-public-engagement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}