Just off Pall Mall, the Duke of York’s column towers over St James’s Park and the palatial houses of Carlton House Terrace. The two flanking the column, and the steps that lead down on either side of it to The Mall, are occupied by twin pillars of British intellectual and academic life, the Royal Society and the British Academy.

The Royal Society is the senior, and its Fellows, designed FRS, are mainly in the hard sciences; the British Academy is its equivalent in the humanities and social sciences, its Fellows being FBA. The Academy also sponsors a clutch of overseas societies, which Dr Robin Jackson, the chief executive, notes “conduct research and fieldwork in the Mediterranean, Near and Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean”.

Many of these organisations carry out archaeological work, and on November 15 at the Barbican Centre, in London, the Academy is presenting “a show-case of research into community, identity and environment”, all topics with contemporary as well as ancient resonance. “Evolving Societies” will use the media-wise talents of Sir John Tusa and Melvyn Bragg as well as an impressive range of British academic talent working in or through these overseas institutes.

Four themes will be environmental change, using examples from Libya through Iran to Bengal; human migrations, from the first Anatolian farmers ten millennia ago to modern Rome; national identities from Ancient Iran through early Islamic Iraq to contemporary East Africa; and art and heritage, with topics such as “the past at risk” and “archaeology enriches us all”.

The “showcasing” includes the work of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq, currently endangered by modern politics and funding crises, the Council for British Archaeology, and long-established overseas British schools such as those in Athens and Rome and more recently-formed societies, including those concerned with Libyan, South Asian and SouthEast Asian studies.

At the end, Lord Bragg will chair a panel on how such overseas research can be best supported in the future. “The invited audience will consist of ministers, MPs, senior policymakers, civil servants, research leaders and funders,” Dr Jackson said, but others interested may also attend.

www.britac.ac.uk; evolving-societies@britac.ac.uk