Fred Jevons Science Policy Lecture: Science Policy Under Thatcher
| Dates: | 3 November 2017 |
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| Times: | 18:00 - 21:30 |
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| What is it: | Lecture |
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| Organiser: | Manchester Institute of Innovation Research |
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| Speaker: | Jon Agar |
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The 2017 Fred Jevons Science Policy Lecture will be delivered Jon Agar, Professor of Science and Technology Studies at University College London on 3 November 2017. The lecture will be followed by a drinks reception to which all are welcome.
Science Policy under Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher, Conservative politician, the UK’s first female prime minister and a central figure in the resurgence of right-wing politics of the 1970s and 1980s, was also a trained scientist. Before becoming a Member of Parliament she studied chemistry at Oxford and applied her knowledge in two science-based companies in the 1940s and 1950s. In the 1970s, as a minister in Edward Heath’s administration, Thatcher was responsible for science and education. As prime minister, between 1979 and 1990, she presided over a critical period for science as well as intervening in many issues framed by scientific research.
With the release of government documents from the 1980s at the National Archives, it is now possible, for the first time, to trace the history of political decision-making around science and science policy in this period through primary sources. In this talk, Jon will review and analyse the course and causes of decisions over science and science-based issues in UK central government in the 1980s.
The Fred Jevons Science Policy Lecture commemorates the founding professor of ‘Liberal Studies in Science’ at Manchester. Manchester has long been a major centre for social, economic and historical studies of science and technology, a history consolidated by the establishment of a Department of Liberal Studies in Science in the 1960s. That scholarly tradition is today maintained by the University of Manchester’s Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine and Manchester Institute of Innovation Research, which collectively constitute one of the world’s major centres of expertise in the social, historical, economic and political analysis of science and technology.
Speaker
Jon Agar
Role: Professor of Science and Technology Studies
Organisation: UCL
Biography: Jon Agar is Professor of Science and Technology Studies at the STS Department, University College London. He is the author of Science in the Twentieth Century and Beyond (Polity Press, 2012)
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
Sackville Street Building
Manchester
