British Academy

Three Cambridge academics are among the thirty eight scholars elected Fellows of The British Academy this year, in recognition of their research achievements.

Our Fellows play a vital role in sustaining the Academy’s activities - from identifying excellence to be supported by research awards, to contributing to policy reports and speaking at the Academy’s public events.

Sir Adam Roberts

The British Academy is the UK's national body for the promotion of the humanities and social sciences.

It is the counterpart to the Royal Society, which exists to serve the natural sciences.

The British Academy aims to inspire, recognise and support excellence and high achievement across the UK and internationally.

Established by Royal Charter in 1902, it is an independent, self-governing body of more than 900 Fellows.

The newly elected Fellows of The British Academy are as follows:

Professor Huw Price is the Bertrand Russell Professor of Philosophy and a Fellow of Trinity College. Prior to joining the University in 2011, Professor Price headed the Centre for Time in the School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry at the University of Sydney, which he helped establish in 2002. He has also held the post of Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at the University of Edinburgh.

Born in Oxford, he emigrated to Australia at the age of 13, returning to the UK to complete his PhD in Philosophy at Cambridge. He has written several books, including Facts and the Function of Truth and Time’s Arrow and Archimedes’ Point, and is internationally renowned for his contributions to the areas of time-asymmetry, the philosophy of physics and pragmatism.

Professor Simon Franklin is a Fellow of Clare College, and Professor of Slavonic Studies at the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages. He has written extensively on Russian history and culture of all periods, but his principal research interests are medieval.

In 2008 he was awarded the Lomonosov Gold Medal by the Russian Academy of Sciences for outstanding achievements in research in Russian history and culture. Professor Franklin’s major long-term project is a cultural history of information technologies in Russia.

Professor Simon Schaffer is Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, and has been a Fellow of Darwin College since 1985. Until recently he was editor of The British Journal for the History of Science.

Professor Schaffer was jointly awarded the Erasmus Prize in 2005 for the book Leviathan and the Air-Pump: Hobbes, Boyle and the Experimental Life, which he co-authored with Steven Shapin. In 2004, he presented a series of documentaries for the BBC about light and the history of its study and knowledge.

The British Academy’s President, Sir Adam Roberts, said of the election: “The new Fellows, who come from 23 institutions across the UK, have outstanding expertise across the board – from social policy and government, to sign language and music.

"Our Fellows play a vital role in sustaining the Academy’s activities - from identifying excellence to be supported by research awards, to contributing to policy reports and speaking at the Academy’s public events.

"Their presence in the Academy will help it to sustain its support for research across the humanities and social sciences, and to inspire public interest in these disciplines.”

In addition, Lord Rees of Ludlow, Master of Trinity College, and Dame Fiona Reynolds, Master-elect of Emmanuel College, have been elected to the prestigious category of Honorary Fellowship.


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