The Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences or Polish Academy of Learning (also translated as Polish Academy of Sciences and Letters; Polish: Polska Akademia Umiejętności), headquartered in Kraków, is one of two institutions in contemporary Poland having the nature of an academy of sciences.
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The Polish Academy of Learning (Polish: Polska Akademia Umiejętności, abbreviated PAU), until 1919 called the Academy of Learning (Akademia Umiejętności, abbreviated AU), founded in 1872 in Kraków as a continuation of the Kraków Society of Learning (Towarzystwo Naukowe Krakowskie, established 1816), was the most important Polish scientific organization of the 19th and 20th centuries. Its chief purposes were to organize, support and conduct learning and to represent Polish scientists and scholars to the world.
Merged in 1951 with other institutions to form the Polish Academy of Sciences (Polska Akademia Nauk, abbreviated PAN), headquartered in Warsaw, in 1989 the Polish Academy of Learning was reactivated as a separate institution.
The Polish name, Polska Akademia Umiejętności, might be rendered into English as "Polish Academy of Sciences." The latter name, however, has been preempted by the other institution, Polska Akademia Nauk. The Academy itself translates its name as Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In 1942 a continuation of the Polish Academy of Learning, the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences, was established in New York City by Bronisław Malinowski, Oskar Halecki and other scholars associated with the Academy, which had been forcibly closed down by the occupying Germans. Following the collapse of communism in Poland, the Polish Academy of Learning was revived and became affiliated with the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America (as the latter had meanwhile been renamed).[1]
Till 1952 PAU had a total of 676 domestic and 264 international members.