| Description | Memorandum submitted by the Treasurer to the meeting of Council on 19 April 1945
' Since the Government has now decided to allocate large funds in support of Scientific Research at the universitites, it seems appropriate that Council should consider how the Society's own Research Funds can be most profitably spent in the post-war period. It is suggested that Council should appoint a small 'Policy Committee' to advise on these questions.
During the war it has not been possible to spend more than a small fraction of the Society's available funds on research, and even in the five years preceding the war, a considerble amount of surplus income was invested. In addition to this, the Society's assets have been augmented by new funds, with the result that the total income available for research has increased by more than thirty percent in the last ten years. In view of the fact that the Society's available income will be a small fraction of the total sum provided from Public Funds, it seems desirable that the Society's Funds should be devoted to projects for which money would not otherwise be forthcoming.
In the past when a new Fund has been received, Council has usually laid down regulations as to the manner in which the income should be spent, and in most cases those regulations have been far more stringent than the trusts imposed by the benefactor. It is believed that many of these regulations are out-of-date and ill-adapted to present conditions, and since Council can at any time rescind them, it is suggested that it should be the task of a Policy Committee to review the spending policy of the Society in the light of restrictions imposed by the Trust Deeds, without regard to any regulations laid down by previous Councils. '
Council Resolved ; ' That Prefessor E D Adrian, Professor P M S Blackett, Sir Alfred Egerton, Professor J B S Haldane, Dr C R Harington, Professor I M Heilbron, Dr E J Salisbury and Sir Henry Tizard be invited to become members of a Committee, under the chairmanship of the Treasurer, to consider the matter and to make recommendations to Council. ' |