Address of the president, Sir Venki Ramakrishnan, given at the anniversary meeting on 30 November 2017.

As always seems to be the case these days, this has been quite a year. Today, I want to explore some of the key issues facing the science community and the Society's engagement with them. They are: our future relationship with the EU, and more generally with other countries; science funding; and what is needed to make optimal use of funding.