The many different voices representing British biology are due to be united for the first time next week, with the launch of the new UK Biosciences Federation.
The federation, which will be similar to the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), will be inaugurated in the House of Commons on September 15. The organization aims to bring together the 100,000 active life scientists in the United Kingdom. It will lobby government and represent the full range of biological sciences.
The federation already has more than 61,000 members, putting it on a par with its more established American counterpart, which has 60,000.
Biology has traditionally been much more fragmented than the other "hard" sciences in the United Kingdom, with more than 100 learned societies, each focusing on a particular specialty. The new coalition aims to give the sector more definition and reduce the inevitable duplication of work across different ...
