June 2014. Paris, France. The archives of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) are at the far end of the UNESCO library; I leave the glorious sunshine behind as I enter the dark, cave-like reading room. I'm tracking down documentation related to a short-lived precursor to the science advice committees that are the focus of this book: the Advisory Committee on Natural Resources Research. Established in 1965, this 15-member committee was responsible “for advising the Director-General on the preparation of UNESCO's programmes for the promotion of research and training in the geological, hydrological, soil and ecological sciences, as well as for the study and conservation of natural resources.” As I review the report of the deliberations that led to the committee's establishment, I encounter familiar themes. The tension between the political and scientific nature of the committee's work comes across in the minutes of the executive board's discussion on the matter, and the deputy director-general's call for the selection of expert members to be of a “nongovernmental character” is echoed among calls heard today for insulating science committees from political concerns. The committee's expert members are to be selected “for their high degree of competence and in such a way to ensure an equitable representation for the various regions and of the scientific disciplines concerned.” This concern with striking a balance between disciplinary diversity and geographic representation is one still at play in the “modern” committees I have been studying. How have approaches to striking that elusive balance changed in the intervening five decades?