Welcome back. We're so glad you could join us
today for another deep dive. We've got a really
fascinating stack of sources to go through today.
Yeah, we have some detailed historical notes
and a very comprehensive Wikipedia article to
look at. Right, and they all center around this,
well, it's an incredibly rare, roughly 500 -year
-old academic title. Now, if you're anything
like me, you probably have a... A mental image
of what it means to reach the absolute pinnacle
of an academic career. Oh, absolutely. You picture
the tweed jackets, right? The sprawling libraries,
maybe a lifetime tenure at a world -renowned
university. But looking through these sources,
I discovered a tier of academia so exclusive
and so steeped in centuries of history that it
requires the literal approval of a monarch. It's
quite the concept to wrap your head around, isn't
it? I mean, when you read through the history,
it sounds like something pulled straight out
of a like a historical drama. Right. A king or
queen pointing a sword and declaring some of
the ultimate master of a subject. But this is
a very real, very tangible part of the modern
academic world. OK, let's unpack this. Today,
our mission is to explore the hidden architecture.
of academic prestige by looking at the role of
the Regis professor. For those of you listening
who might not be familiar with the term, our
sources define a Regis professor as a university
professor in the United Kingdom and Ireland who
has or originally had royal patronage or appointment.
Yeah, and this isn't just your standard promotion
to department head. It's a tradition that has
miraculously survived since the late 15th century.
Which is just... wild to think about. What's
fascinating here is that this is by no means
just an honorary certificate you hang on your
office wall to look important. Right. It's a
real job. Exactly. It's a highly sought after
functioning everyday role. It's a unique feature
of academia in the UK and Ireland, where the
current monarch actually appoints the professor.
Now, to be clear on the logistics, the monarch
isn't just picking names out of a hat. That would
be funny, though. It would be. But no, this only
happens after proper advertisement and rigorous
interviews conducted through the offices of the
university and the national government. But that
final seal of approval, the actual legal decree,
that comes directly from the crown. And because
of that royal stamp of approval, the relative
rarity of these professorships makes them just
intensely prestigious. In fact, reading through
the notes, there's this brilliant little quirky
naming convention that comes with the territory.
The title draw. Yes. If you manage to achieve
this rank, you are traditionally addressed simply
as Regis rather than professor. It's like the
ultimate academic trump card. You don't even
need to say professor anymore. Just Regis is
enough to let everyone in the room know exactly
who signed your paperwork. It immediately sets
the individual apart in a crowded field. It signals
to everyone in the room, to their peers globally,
that this person holds a chair instituted by
an English, Scottish or British monarch. You're
no longer just representing your university.
You carry the historical weight of the state.
So going to the source text, I really wanted
to find out where this all began. And we have
to turn the clock all the way back to the year
1497. Quite a long time ago. Yeah, exactly. The
location is the University of Aberdeen. The monarch
making the call is the Scottish King James IV.
And the subject of this very first royal academic
chair, it was medicine. I found myself wondering,
you know, why medicine at that exact moment?
If we connect this to the bigger picture, it
tells us something profound about human priorities
at the dawn of the Renaissance. According to
the text we're examining today, Regis chairs
are instituted strictly in disciplines judged
to be fundamental and for which there is a continuing
and significant need. Fundamental. Right. So
by looking at the oldest chairs, we're essentially
looking at a mirror reflecting what society valued
most or perhaps feared most in that specific
era. In 1497, establishing a fundamental, continuous
need for the study of medicine makes perfect
sense. Life was fragile. Plagues and diseases
were existential threats to entire nations. Health
and healing were the ultimate baselines for a
functioning society. It's almost like the monarch
was looking at the state of the world and saying,
we barely understand the human body and we need
the absolute best mind in the kingdom leading
that charge. Precisely. But the timeline shows
things really kicking into high gear about 40
years later. I noticed this massive boom in the
source material right around the 1540s at both
the University of Cambridge and the University
of Oxford. It's like the crown suddenly went
on a hiring spree. It's a fascinating spike.
You have to remember the broader historical context
of what was happening in the 1540s. Henry VIII
was completely restructuring the church and the
state. He was breaking away from Rome, establishing
the Church of England, or consolidating his own
power. To do that successfully, he needed absolute
experts in law and theology to back up his political
and religious moves. Yeah. He needed an intellectual
army. Oh, that makes the specific subjects they
chose make so much more sense. Looking at the
list the crown deemed fundamental at that time
at Cambridge in 1540, you have Regis chairs created
in civil law, divinity, Greek, Hebrew, and physic,
which was their term for medicine. And Oxford
saw a nearly identical mirror image. Right. Civil
law around 1540, divinity slightly. earlier in
1535, Greek around 1541, and both Hebrew and
medicine in 1546. The alignment between Oxford
and Cambridge there is striking, isn't it? It
shows a unified, state -sponsored vision of what
constituted the bedrock of higher learning in
the 16th century. You have medicine and civil
law, which govern the physical body and the societal
body. Then you have divinity, which governs the
soul. And finally, Greek and Hebrew. Which seem
like outliers at first glance. They do, but those
weren't just language classes. They were the
essential keys to unlocking ancient texts, philosophy,
and critically, the original religious scriptures.
If you're going to rewrite the religious rules
of your country, you need scholars who can read
the source material in its original form. That
was the totality of fundamental knowledge for
the 1540s. It paints an incredible picture of
a world where mastering ancient languages and
understanding theology were viewed with the exact
same level of societal urgency as understanding
the law or treating a fever. Now, jumping back
to the Wikipedia article, it seems a longest
time there was a strict geographical boundary
on where these Regis chairs could even exist.
There was a very clear unwritten rule. Yes. Traditionally,
Regis chairs existed exclusively within what
are known as the seven ancient universities of
the UK and Ireland. So places like Oxford, Cambridge,
St. Andrews. Exactly. Along with Glasgow, Aberdeen,
Edinburgh and Dublin. For centuries, you had
to be a part of that specific club to even have
a chance at holding a Regis title. The prestige
was completely geographically locked. Which brings
us to a really surprising trivia fact for you
listening right now. If you had to guess which
university currently holds the heavyweight championship
title for the highest number of currently active
and surviving Regis chairs, your brain probably
immediately goes to Oxford or Cambridge. But
you'd be wrong. The University of Glasgow currently
holds the record. They boast a massive 14 Regis
chairs. 14 is a staggering number when you consider
how rare these appointments are overall and how
difficult it is to prove a continuing and significant
need for a new chair. And Glasgow's list is incredibly
diverse, which really shows how they kept adapting
to the times. They have Regis chairs in medicine,
law, anatomy, zoology, botany, surgery, chemistry,
and they even added civil engineering and mechanics
back in 1840. It seems like they really cornered
the market on royal academic patronage over the
centuries. They certainly capitalized on the
Industrial Revolution with that 1840 engineering
edition. But while Glasgow's sheer volume is
impressive, the geography of these chairs also
gives us some truly fascinating historical anomalies.
When you look at the history of Trinity College
Dublin, for example, the concept of royal patronage
gets incredibly complicated. Oh, this is one
of my absolute favorite details in the entire
source text. It really highlights how messy history
is. can be. It perfectly illustrates the friction
between academia and geopolitics. Trinity College
Dublin has several historically significant Regis
chairs. They have a Regis professor of physics
from around 1637, a Regis professor of laws from
1668, as well as chairs in divinity, Greek, and
surgery, among others. All of these were instituted
by the reigning monarch of the time. But then
the 20th century happens and there's a massive
historical plot twist. Precisely. Ireland fought
for its independence and left the United Kingdom
in 1922. The geopolitical landscape entirely
fractured and reformed. So because of this hard
political separation, the British monarch obviously
no longer appoints these professors at Trinity
College Dublin. Right, because the Republic is
independent. Exactly. The royal connection was
fundamentally severed in a practical legal sense.
And yet, if you look at their faculty today,
that prestigious Regis title. remains completely
intact. It's such a wild quirk of history. You
have a prestigious university sitting in an independent
republic, still casually carrying a royal title
bestowed centuries ago by a monarchy that no
longer has any jurisdiction there. It just goes
to show how incredibly sticky these academic
traditions are. The political maps can get redrawn,
empires can shrink, but apparently once a Regis,
always a Regis. Institutional memory is a powerful
force. Academic prestige, once established and
recognized globally, is very rarely abandoned
voluntarily. The title carries too much historical
weight and recognition to just drop it because
of border change. Speaking of people refusing
to let go of prestige, we absolutely have to
share the story of the University of Edinburgh
in 1708. Reading this part of the text, it felt
like an academic trying to fake it till he makes
it. it's a rather amusing anecdote from the historical
record and it shows just how coveted the title
had become by the 18th century okay so picture
this the very first professor of greek at the
university of edinburgh was a man named william
scott who is known as william scott primus now
in 1708 this guy was actively being referred
to with the incredibly prestigious honorific
Regis professor. You can imagine him walking
around the campus, enjoying the clout, soaking
in the respect of his peers. But the text reveals
the twist. He never actually managed to secure
a grant from the crown. He essentially just assumed
the title without the corresponding royal paperwork.
He had the local recognition. His peers were
calling him Regis, but he entirely lacked the
official royal seal of approval, the actual legal
decree from the monarch. It's an absolute imposter
drama in the 18th century Scottish academic scene.
I love it. You can just imagine the university
politics and the whispers in the faculty lounge.
Did they know? Did they care? Now, the text does
note that his audacity sort of paved the way
because later professors of Greek as well as
humanity at Edinburgh were eventually appointed
by legitimate royal warrant. But William Scott
Primus was just out there living the dream without
the paperwork to back it up. It's humorous, but
it also proves a point. People recognized the
immense cultural capital that came with the word
Regis. Even the illusion of royal patronage elevated
his standing. Absolutely. So we've talked about
the 1500s, the 1700s, the 1800s. And going through
this timeline, you might start thinking that
this whole Regis professor thing is just a dusty
relic of the past, something that slowly faded
away as universities modernized and democratized.
But here's where it gets really interesting.
The timeline shifts dramatically as we enter
the modern era. You're right to think it was
fading. For a very long time, centuries in fact,
there was a significant drought. Very few new
Regis chairs were created. The tradition seemed
to have essentially capped out, frozen in time.
Right up until October 2012, out of nowhere,
it was announced that Queen Elizabeth II would
create up to six new Regis professorships. This
was done to mark her diamond jubilee, celebrating
60 years on the throne. They planned to announce
the winners in early 2013, and universities had
to submit proposals proving why their specific
discipline was fundamentally needed. And this
announcement sent absolute shockwaves through
the academic community. Suddenly, Universities
that had never had a Regis chair, because remember
that traditional rule of the seven ancient universities
we talked about, were suddenly given the unprecedented
opportunity to bid for this ultimate mark of
royal prestige. It opened the floodgates. And
the response must have been overwhelming. Because
when the final list was announced in January
2013, the Crown didn't just award six new chairs
as originally planned. They actually awarded
12 new Regis professorships. That number is vital
to understand the scale of this modern resurgence.
Twelve new chairs and a single announcement is
likely the largest number ever created in one
year. In fact, the source explicitly notes it's
more than were created in most entire centuries.
It wasn't just a polite nod to the past. It was
a complete and total revitalization of the institution.
A historic windfall of academic royalty. And
the crown didn't stop there. This Diamond Jubilee
batch was such a massive success that a few years
later, in July 2015, another huge wave was announced.
This time, it was to mark the Queen's 90th birthday.
The actual chairs for this batch were awarded
in 2016. And this is where we really see universities
completely outside the ancient seven, getting
the nod places like Aston University, Cardiff
University, and the University of Liverpool.
The geography of prestige totally opened up.
This raises an important question, though. When
we look at the specific subjects chosen for these
new 2013 and 2016 shares, what exactly did the
Crown and the government determine to be a fundamental
need? for the 21st century. Yes, this is the
most revealing part of the entire deep dive.
Let's look at how the definition of fundamental
evolved from the 1540s to the 2010s. Remember,
back in the day of Oxford and Cambridge, it was
divinity, Greek, Hebrew, civil law. Now looking
at the modern list, the sheer leap is staggering.
I mean, we go from ancient Greek in 1540 to a
regis professor of computer science at the University
of Southampton in 2013. It highlights a massive
shift. Technology and engineering clearly emerged
as a primary focus. You have the crown putting
its 500 -year -old seal on algorithms and coding.
Alongside Southampton, the University of Surrey
got one for electronic engineering in 2013. And
in the 2016 batch, Queen's University Belfast
secured the Regis Professor of Electronics and
Computer Engineering. And it's not just tech.
Looking through the source text, there's a whole
cluster dedicated to modern medicine, but it's
highly specialized. It's not just general physics
anymore. The University of London, based at the
Institute of Cancer Research, was awarded a Regis
Professor of Cancer Research in 2016. Which is
incredibly vital work. Exactly. In 2013, King's
College London received a chair for psychiatry.
Newcastle University got a Regis Professor of
Aging in 2016. And Glasgow, adding to their massive
pile of 14 chairs, got the Regis Professor of
Precision. medicine in 2016. That specificity
is key. We're no longer just trying to understand
basic anatomy. We're trying to decode the human
genome and understand the complexities of mental
health and longevity. We also see a stark recognition
of global environmental challenges in these modern
lists. The University of Reading was awarded
a chair in meteorology and climate science in
2013, and Southampton received a Regis professorship
in ocean sciences in 2016. I think the one that
surprised me the most was the shift towards society
and industry. The Open University was awarded
a Regis Professor of Open Education in 2013.
Think about the friction there. You have a 500
-year -old royal monarchical tradition being
applied to the concept of open education, the
democratization and free sharing of learning
over the internet. It's a beautiful collision
of the old world and the new. It truly is. Plus,
the University of Warwick got manufacturing in
2016, and the London School of Economics secured
the Regis Professor of Economics in 2013. If
you step back and look at that modern list as
a whole, You see a map of our current societal
anxieties and our greatest ambitions. We're prioritizing
our understanding of the changing climate, the
aging process of our populations, mental health,
cancer, the digital architecture that runs our
lives, and the economic engines that drive it
all. The crown is essentially saying these are
the battlegrounds of the 21st century. So what
does this all mean for you as you navigate your
own understanding of the world? It means that
a list of Regis professorships isn't just some
dry directory of university jobs or a piece of
esoteric academic trivia. It's essentially a
living, breathing timeline of human academic
progress. I'd completely agree with that framing.
It tracks our evolution. From mastering basic
anatomy and attempting to decipher ancient languages
in the 1400s and 1500s, we've moved to battling
climate change, studying the complexities of
aging, and pushing the very boundaries of computer
science in the 21st century. The mechanism of
royal appointment remained exactly the same,
a signature from the monarch, but the lens of
what is considered fundamental shifted completely
to match the desperate needs of the time. It's
an incredible journey. We started this deep dive
in 1497 with a single Scottish royal appointment
in Aberdeen, hoping to just understand basic
medicine and survive the era. And we've traveled
all the way to a diverse, modern network of elite
academic leaders researching precision medicine,
open education, and climate science. It really
shows how our oldest institutions can adapt and
evolve while still holding on to the weight and
the theater of their history. The Regis Professorship
really acts as a bridge. It connects the absolute
authority of the monarchy of the past with the
cutting -edge innovation of the future. It ensures
that the very highest level of prestige is directed
toward the problems and disciplines that will
define our current century. I want to thank you
so much for joining us on this deep dive today.
Exploring the hidden architecture of academic
prestige through these sources really gives you
a new appreciation for how knowledge is valued,
funded, and elevated in our society. It's been
a pleasure to break down the history and the
real world implications of this unique academic
tradition. Before we go, we want to leave you
with a final lingering question to ponder on
your own. We've seen the crown declare disciplines
from ancient Greek to modern computer science
as fundamental to society. If you had the royal
authority today, what completely unprecedented
emerging field of study would you decree as a
new Regis professorship for the next century?
Think about it. Until next time, keep learning.