We must find a way to save the Royal Institution from having to sell its historic London home, says Nobel laureate Harry Kroto
Why is it important to save the Royal Institution (Ri)?
It is of tremendous historical importance. It鈥檚 an iconic building not just for the UK but for the world, a focal point for the public understanding of science and a laboratory where people like Lawrence Bragg and Michael Faraday did cutting-edge research. It should be a world heritage site.
Could the Ri continue to exist if the building was sold?
No. It鈥檚 impossible to move it out. You can move the National Gallery or the British Library, but not the Royal Institution. The institution is the building, and the building is the institution. If the building is sold, that鈥檚 the end.
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How bad is the Ri鈥檚 financial plight?
I don鈥檛 think people fully appreciate the problems that the institution faces, partly because the financial details haven鈥檛 been divulged. People are bandying about numbers that are probably significantly lower than what is needed. As far as I can see we don鈥檛 have a lot of time; it looks as though the plug is being pulled.
How did it come to this?
The problem has arisen partly because the Ri got into significant debt. But it has had two years to find a strategy to convince credible sponsors and it hasn鈥檛 done it.
How much money is required?
Just to keep the doors open will require at least 拢2 million a year, meaning an endowment of 拢60 million. That doesn鈥檛 include paying off the debt.
In the grand scheme of things, that鈥檚 not a huge amount of money.
That鈥檚 correct, but the question is whether we can put together something credible to pull in that sort of funding. The only viable solution I can see is for the Royal Society to enter into some sort of partnership which would provide a level of credibility that potential funders might find acceptable.
You have started a campaign to save the Ri鈥�
Yes. I鈥檓 doing it as a private individual, but one who knows pretty much everyone who was involved in the institution prior to 2000, when the strategy that led to this demise was put in place.
How has the response been so far?
Amazing. I鈥檝e received messages from all over the world. People recognise that the institution has global significance. Many see it as a shrine to electricity, the lifeblood of the modern world. But we can鈥檛 just rely on that.
What does the Ri need to do to reinvent itself?
The institution has not moved with the times as much as it could have done, by recognising it could have a global role to play rather than a provincial or UK one. Its position as a central point for UK public understanding of science is already pretty healthy, but it doesn鈥檛 bring much money. So it must become the platform for 21st-century educational science outreach on a global scale, by exploiting the potential of the internet.
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Harry Kroto is a professor of chemistry at Florida State University. He won the Nobel prize for chemistry in 1996. His campaign to save the Ri is at