Motto

The society's motto, Nullius in verba, is Latin for "Take nobody's word for it". It was adopted to signify the fellows' determination to establish facts via experiments and comes from Horace's Epistles, where he compares himself to a gladiator who, having retired, is free from control.^[39]

Functions and activities

The Royal Society Collections at the University of London History Day, 2016.

The Society has a variety of functions and activities. It supports modern science by disbursing nearly £42 million to fund approximately 600 research fellowships for both early and late career scientists, along with innovation, mobility and research capacity grants.^[40] Its Awards, prize lectures and medals all come with prize money intended to finance research,^[41] and it provides subsidised communications and media skills courses for research scientists.^[42] Much of this activity is supported by a grant from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, most of which is channelled to the University Research Fellowships (URF).^[32] In 2008, the Society opened the Royal Society Enterprise Fund, intended to invest in new scientific companies and be self-sustaining, funded (after an initial set of donations on the 350th anniversary of the Society) by the returns from its investments.^[43]
Through its Science Policy Centre, the Society acts as an advisor to the European Commission and the United Nations on matters of science. It publishes several reports a year, and serves as the Academy of Sciences of the United Kingdom.^[44] Since the middle of the 18th century, government problems involving science were irregularly referred to the Society, and by 1800 it was done regularly.^[45]