The Simonyi Professorship for the Public Understanding of Science is a chair at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. The chair was established in 1995 for the

ethologist Ethology is the scientific study of animal behaviour, usually with a focus on behaviour under natural conditions, and viewing behaviour as an evolutionarily adaptive trait. Behaviourism as a term also describes the scientific and objectiv ...

Richard Dawkins by an endowment from

Charles Simonyi Charles Simonyi (; hu, Simonyi Károly, ; born September 10, 1948) is a Hungarian-American software architect. He started and led Microsoft's applications group, where he built the first versions of Microsoft Office. He co-founded and led Int ...

. The aim of the Professorship is 'to communicate science to the public without, in doing so, losing those elements of scholarship which constitute the essence of true understanding'. It is a position that had been endowed by

with the express intention that the holder "be expected to make important contributions to the public understanding of some scientific field", and that its first holder should be Richard Dawkins.

History

Richard Dawkins explained the history of the creation of the chair in a chapter of his

memoir A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based in the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autobiog ...

s, '' Brief Candle in the Dark: My Life in Science''. Richard Dawkins, '' Brief Candle in the Dark: My Life in Science'',

Bantam Press Bantam Press is an imprint of Transworld Publishers which is a British publishing division of Penguin Random House. It is based on Uxbridge Road in Ealing Ealing () is a district in West London, England, west of Charing Cross in the ...

, 2015 (). Chapter "Simonyi Professor", pages 271-307. In 2008, Dawkins retired and the Oxford mathematician

Marcus du Sautoy Marcus Peter Francis du Sautoy (; born 26 August 1965) is a British mathematician, Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford, Fellow of New College, Oxford and author of popular mathematics and popu ...

was elected to the chair.

List of Simonyi Professors

* 1995–2008: Richard Dawkins, biological science * Since 2008:

, mathematical science

List of Simonyi Lectures

Richard Dawkins established an annual "Charles Simonyi Lecture" at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. He invited the following speakers: Richard Dawkins, '' Brief Candle in the Dark: My Life in Science'',

, 2015, page 282 ().The Simonyi Lectures

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

(page visited on 6 December 2015).

, second Simonyi Professor, invited:

Notes and references

Bibliography

* Richard Dawkins, '' Brief Candle in the Dark: My Life in Science'',

, 2015 (). Chapter "Simonyi Professor", pages 271-307.

External links

*
''Charles Simonyi's manifesto''
{{Portal bar, Science, United Kingdom Professorships at the University of Oxford Science education in the United Kingdom Science in society 1995 establishments in England Lists of people associated with the University of Oxford Lecture series at the University of Oxford