Science Service Evolves into Society for Science & the Public

Science Service, one of the nation’s oldest non-profit organizations dedicated to public engagement in science and science education, today announced it has become Society for Science & the Public (SSP). Founded by E.W. Scripps and William Ritter in 1921, SSP continues to own and administer the world’s leading pre-college science competitions and publish the award-winning magazine Science News. 

 

SSP’s science programs include the world’s preeminent science competition for high school students: the Intel Science Talent Search, whose alumni have gone onto to receive the world’s top science honors, including six who have won the Nobel Prize. Until 1998, the Intel STS was known as the Westinghouse Science Talent Search.

 

2008 Intel STS Semifinalists will be announced next week. 

 

Established to introduce science reporting to newspaper pages, the organization has continued to evolve from its roots as a distributor of science news to a driver of innovation. Today, Society for Science & the Public seeks to improve the public engagement in science and its impact on human advancement.

 

“SSP will continue to provide the ‘science services’ that our constituents have relied on for nearly nine decades. This exciting organizational change mirrors the escalating importance of issues that our organization was founded to address, and reflects our purpose as a public-serving society,” said Elizabeth Marincola, president of Society for Science & the Public and publisher of Science News.

 

The Science Service Board of Trustees appointed a volunteer commission of the country’s leaders in science, education, management and scientific publishing to lead a thorough review of the organization. The board, made up of leading scientists including two Nobel laureates, endorsed the commission’s recommendations in late 2006, setting this organizational repositioning in motion.

 

“A basic scientific framework is essential for all citizens because it enables us to understand and navigate the world around us, from our personal nutrition choices to issues of global importance, such as climate change,” Marincola continued. “As Society for Science & the Public, we have an increasingly important responsibility to actively engage in the national discourse on some of the most pressing issues of our time.”

 

For more information, visit www.societyforscience.org.

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