THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON FOR IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE (COMMONLY KNOWN AS THE ROYAL SOCIETY)

Registered charity 207043 · accounts filings on the Charity Commission register · Wikidata: Q123885 · Wikipedia · also known as THE ROYAL SOCIETY

The Royal Society has three roles: A learned society; The UK's Academy of Science; And as a funding agency. We- Promote science and its benefits- Recognise excellence in science- Support outstanding science- Provide scientific advice for policy- Foster international and global cooperation- Provide education and public engagement

Objects

FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF NATURAL KNOWLEDGE

Area of benefit: NOT DEFINED

The charity’s charitable objects and area of benefit, quoted from its governing document as held on the Charity Commission register.

Causes: Education/training · Other Charitable Purposes · Grant history (this charity is a funder) · website · Get email alerts

Registered contact address: Westminster, London, England (from the postcode on the register)

Financial health, per its FY2025 accounts

The accounts state that free reserves were £35.8 million, which is well above the target level of £16.0 million. The defined benefit pension scheme holds a surplus of £2.4 million, and the total investment portfolio was valued at £563.7 million. The Trustees confirm there are no material uncertainties regarding the charity's ability to continue as a going concern.

Automated summary of the FY2025 accounts; the evidenced findings below carry the verbatim passages.

What the accounts disclose

Accounts audited by BDO LLP. Discloses 4 of 6 completeness components.

Policies the charity declares

In its annual return the charity told the Commission that it has the policies listed below. This is self-declared: it is not verified by the Commission or by this site, and it is not evidence of how a policy works in practice.

• Bullying and harassment policy and procedures
• Complaints handling
• Complaints policy and procedures
• Conflicting interests
• Financial reserves policy and procedures
• Internal charity financial controls policy and procedures
• Internal risk management policy and procedures
• Investing charity funds policy and procedures
• Investment
• Paying staff
• Risk management
• Safeguarding policy and procedures
• Safeguarding vulnerable beneficiaries
• Serious incident reporting policy and procedures
• Social media policy and procedures
• Trustee conflicts of interest policy and procedures
• Trustee expenses policy and procedures
• Volunteer management

From the charity’s annual return (Part A, self-declared)

Answers and figures the charity gave in Part A of its annual return to the Charity Commission. They are self-declared: not verified by the Commission or by this site. Only positive answers and figures are listed; items not listed are simply not shown.

Source: this charity’s annual returns on the Charity Commission register.

Corporate structure

• Registered company of the charity Companies House RC000519

Leadership, per the charity’s website

• Paul Nurse — President (source)

Listed on the charity’s own website when we last crawled it; roles may have changed. Pay-band disclosures above are anonymous statutory disclosures and are not attributed to any named individual.

Electoral Commission register entries

Entries on the Electoral Commission’s public register where this charity (or its company) appears as the source — typically sponsorship of an APPG or an overseas visit provided to an MP, which charities may lawfully do. Shown with the Commission’s own reference; this is a transparency record, not an allegation.

• Non Cash: Steve Yemm (MP - Member of Parliament) — £3k · 16/03/2026 · ref NC0836473
  Other

Public profiles (found on the charity’s own website): facebook (372,337 likes) · instagram (194K followers)

Structured financials (annual return, FY ending 31/03/2025)

Reported reserves equal ~2.8 months of spending — above the median for charities its size (median 2.6 months; benchmarks).

Per its annual return, largest income source: Charitable activities (86% of income) — components as reported reconcile to the return’s total income; not from the accounts narrative.

Per its annual return, cost of raising funds: 2.0% of total income — below the median for charities its size (3.2%) (benchmarks).

Trustees · trustee networks

• Anne Ridley · trustee of 1 other charity
• Colin Peter Smith FRS FREng
• Dame Nancy Rothwell · trustee of 1 other charity
• Professor Carlos Frenk CBE FRS
• Professor Dame Frances Mary Ashcroft DBE FRS
• Professor Eric William Wolff FRS
• Professor Gideon Davies FRS
• Professor Ian Walmsley FRS
• Professor Jonathan Felix Ashmore FRS
• Professor Jonathan Keating FRS
• Professor Julia Alison Noble OBE FRS
• Professor Krishnaswamy Vijayraghavan FRS
• Professor Marta Kwiatkowska FRS
• Professor Miles Padgett FRS
• Professor Robin Allshire FRS
• Professor Sarah Darby FRS · trustee of 1 other charity
• Professor Sheila Rowan CBE FRS
• Professor Sir Andrew Pollard FRS · trustee of 1 other charity
• Professor Sir Colin John Humphreys CBE FRS
• Professor Sir Paul Maxime Nurse OM CH FRS
• Professor Stephen West CBE
• Professor Tim Palmer CBE FRS
• Sir David Charles Baulcombe FRS
• Sir Mark Walport

Trustee list from the Charity Commission register (current, not historical).

Operates in: Northern Ireland · Scotland · Throughout England And Wales

Income and spending

Common questions

Known funders

Grants to this charity found in funders’ own accounts filings.

Grants marked “Unverified read” were flagged by automated checks as possibly misread from the funder’s filed accounts. They are listed, but left out of the totals, counts and funder relationships this site computes.

Government & lottery funding

Grants to this charity published as open data by government and lottery funders (360Giving).

Funders of similar charities

Funders whose accounts show grants to charities similar to this one (and no recorded grant to this charity) — a starting list for fundraisers.

Charities like this

Semantically similar by activities and financial character, from our analysed corpus. Compare with ROYAL ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON.

• ROYAL ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON income £1.6m
• THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF BIOLOGY income £3.2m
• ROYAL MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETY income £2.0m
• THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON income £6.1m
• THE BRITISH ECOLOGICAL SOCIETY income £6.3m
• THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CHEMISTRY income £75.6m

Side by side with its peers

Each row is that charity’s latest analysed filing; every value is quote-backed on its own page.