Austrian Academy of Sciences

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The Austrian Academy of Sciences ("Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften") is a legal entity under the special protection of the Federal Republic of Austria. According to the statutes of the Academy its mission is to promote the sciences and humanities in every respect and in every field, particularly in basic research.

[edit] History

In 1713, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz suggested to establish such an Academy, inspired by the Royal Society and the Académie des Sciences, but the "Kaiserliche Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien" was finally established by Imperial Patent on May 14, 1847.

The Academy soon began extensive research. In the humanities the Academy started with researching and publishing important historical sources of Austria. Research in natural sciences also covered a wide variety of topics.

The 1921 federal law guaranteed the legal basis of the Academy in the newly founded First Republic of Austria. And from the mid-1960s onwards it became the country's leading institution in the field of non-university basic research.

The Academy is also a learned society, and its past members have included Christian Doppler, Theodor Billroth, Anton Eiselsberg, Eduard Suess, Ludwig Boltzmann, Paul Kretschmer, and the Nobel Prize winners Julius Wagner-Jauregg, Victor Hess, Erwin Schrödinger and Konrad Lorenz.^[1]