London, 15 January 2010 - General Assembly

Lorna Casselton, Foreign Secretary of The Royal Society, opened the General Assembly and warmly welcomed the representatives of IAP Member Academies, as well as Observers and Guests in attendance. She wished the Session every success in its deliberations, and added that the Biodiversity Conference had had a lot of media interest and had provided IAP with a lot of publicity. The Royal Society presented a gift to all participants as part of the 350th Anniversary celebrations - Bill Bryson’s, “Seeing Further, the story of science & The Royal Society” She also mentioned each delegate had been provided with a questionnaire from the New Scientist, which was conducting some research on global attitudes to science. She invited all member academies to participate in the survey as part of an initiative to publicize IAP, as well as individual academies, to a wide and influential audience.