Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Motto att främja vetenskaperna och stärka deras inflytande i samhället
(to promote the sciences and strengthen their influence in society)
Formation 2 June 1739
Headquarters Stockholm, Sweden
Membership
460 Fellows
175 Foreign Members
President
Christina Moberg
Secretary General
Göran K. Hansson
Website www.kva.se/en

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences or Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden. It is an independent, non-governmental scientific organisation which takes special responsibility for the natural sciences and mathematics, but endeavours to promote the exchange of ideas between various disciplines.

The Academy seeks chiefly:

Every year the Academy awards the Nobel Prizes in Physics and Chemistry, the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, the Crafoord Prize and a number of other large prizes.

Committees for international prizes

Main building of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm.

Committees of the Academy act as selection boards for international prizes:

and national prizes:[6]

List of permanent secretaries

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

The following persons have served as permanent secretaries of the Academy:

Publications

Kongl. Svenska Vetenskaps-Academiens handlingar, volume XI (1750).

The transactions of the Academy (Vetenskapsakademiens handlingar) were published as its main series between 1739 and 1974. In parallel, other major series have appeared and gone:

The Academy started to publish annual reports in physics and chemistry (1826), technology (1827), botany (1831), and zoology (1832). These lasted into the 1860s, when they were replaced by the single Bihang series (meaning: supplement to the transactions). Starting in 1887, this series was once again split into four sections (afdelning), which in 1903 became independent scientific journals of their own, titled "Arkiv för..." (archive for...), among them

Further restructuring of their topics occurred in 1949 and 1974.

Current publications

History

The Academy was founded on 2 June 1739 by naturalist Carl Linnaeus, mercantilist Jonas Alströmer, mechanical engineer Mårten Triewald, civil servants Sten Carl Bielke and Carl Wilhelm Cederhielm, and statesman/author Anders Johan von Höpken.[7]

The purpose of the academy was to focus on practically useful knowledge, and to publish in Swedish in order to widely disseminate the academy's findings. The academy was intended to be different from the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala, which had been founded in 1719 and published in Latin. The location close to the commercial activities in Sweden's capital (which unlike Uppsala did not have a university at this time) was also intentional. The academy was modeled after the Royal Society of London and Academie Royale des Sciences in Paris, France, which some of the founding members were familiar with.

See also

References

  1. "Nobel Prizes". The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 2014-01-18.
  2. "Prize in Economic Sciences". The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 2009-10-18.
  3. "Crafoord Prize". The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 2009-10-18.
  4. "Rolf Schock Prizes". The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 2009-10-18.
  5. "Gregori Aminoff Prize". The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 2009-10-18.
  6. "National prizes". The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 2007-10-18.
  7. "History". The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 2009-10-18.

External links

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