Dr Berris Charnley
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
TC Beirne School of Law
Researcher biography
Berris Charnley is a historian of law and science. He is interested in seeds, genes, farms and food. How are these resources studied, measured, weighed, owned or shared? And what can the history of human relations with such resources tell us about their management in the future? More generally, he is interested in issues of participation and communication around knowledge production. He is also co-founder of the Intellectual Property and the Biosciences network, IPBio.
Book Chapters
Charnley, Berris (2018). Genetics and the Institutionalization of Plant Breeding Expertise, 1900-1930. Institutionalisation of Science and the Public Sphere in Modern Britain. (pp. 196-208) edited by M. Ohno. Nagakute, Japan: Aichi Prefectural University.
Charnley, Berris (2016). Why didn't an equivalent to the US Plant Patent Act of 1930 emerge in Britain? Historicizing the boundaries of un-patentable innovation. The Intellectual Property and Food Project: from rewarding innovation and creation to feeding the world. (pp. 103-122) edited by Charles Lawson and Jay Sanderson. Abingdon, Oxon, United Kingdom: Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9781315556680
Lawson, Charles and Charnley, Berris (2016). Intellectual property and genetically modified organisms. Intellectual property and genetically modified organisms: a convergence in laws. (pp. 1-5) edited by Berris Charnley and Charles Lawson. Abingdon, Oxon, United Kingdom: Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9781315589114-7
Charnley, Berris (2016). Cui bono? Gauging the successes of publicly-funded plant breeding in retrospect. Intellectual property and genetically modified organisms: a convergence in laws. (pp. 7-26) edited by Charles Lawson and Berris Charnley. Abingdon, Oxon, United Kingdom: Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9781315589114-8
Charnley, Berris (2016). Geneticists on the farm: agriculture and the all-English loaf. Scientific governance in Britain, 1914-79. (pp. 181-198) edited by Don Leggett and Charlotte Sleigh. Manchester, United Kingdom: Manchester University Press. doi: 10.7765/9781526100429.00017
Charnley, Berris and Lawson, Charles (2015). Intellectual property and genetically modified organisms. Intellectual Property and Genetically Modified Organisms: A Convergence in Laws. (pp. 1-6) Ashgate Publishing Ltd.
Charnley, Berris (2013). Managing knowledge in 'systematised plant breeding': Mendelism and British agricultural science, 1900-1930. Knowledge Management and Intellectual Property: Concepts, Actors and Practices from the Past to the Present. (pp. 200-215) Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd.. doi: 10.4337/9780857934390.00019
Charnley, Berris and Radick, Gregory (2009). Plant breeding and intellectual property before and after the rise of Mendelism: the case of Britain. Living properties : making knowledge and controlling ownership in the history of biology. (pp. 51-55) edited by Jean-Paul Gaudillière, Hans-Jörg Rheinberger and Daniel Kevles. Berlin, Germany: Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte.
Journal Articles
Shuttleworth, Sally and Charnley, Berris (2016). Science periodicals in the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries. Notes and Records , 70 (4), 297-304. doi: 10.1098/rsnr.2016.0026
Charnley, Berris (2016). Plasmids, patents and the historian. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 60, 109-113. doi: 10.1016/j.shpsc.2016.06.004
Charnley, Berris (2013). Experiments in empire-building: Mendelian genetics as a national, imperial, and global agricultural enterprise. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A, 44 (2), 292-300. doi: 10.1016/j.shpsa.2012.11.003
Charnley, Berris and Radick, Gregory (2013). Intellectual property, plant breeding and the making of Mendelian genetics. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A, 44 (2), 222-233. doi: 10.1016/j.shpsa.2012.11.004
Charnley, Berris (2013). Seeds without patents : Science and morality in British plant breeding in the long nineteenth-century. Revue Economique, 64 (1), 69-87. doi: 10.3917/reco.641.0069
Leonelli, Sabina, Charnley, Berris, Webb, Alex R. and Bastow, Ruth (2012). Under one leaf: An historical perspective on the UK Plant Science Federation. New Phytologist, 195 (1), 10-13. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-8137.2012.4168.x
Charnley, Berris (2012). Review of Hybrid: The History and Science of Plant Breeding. By Noel Kingsbury. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009. Technology and Culture, 53 (2), 474-475. doi: 10.1353/tech.2012.0048
Charnley, Berris (2010). Review of Philip J. Pauly, Fruits and Plains: The Horticultural Transformation of America. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2008. Pp. xi+336, ISBN 978-0-674-02663-6. £29.95 (hardback). - Alan L. Olmstead and Paul W. Rhode, Creating Abundance: Biological Innovation and American Agricultural Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Pp. xii+467. ISBN 978-0-521-67387-7. £15.99 (paperback). The British Journal for the History of Science, 43 (2), 308-309. doi: 10.1017/s0007087410000658
Charnley, Berris (2008). Arguing over adulteration: the success of the Analytical Sanitary Commission. Endeavour, 32 (4), 129-133. doi: 10.1016/j.endeavour.2008.10.003