The Austrian Academy of Sciences (; ÖAW) is a legal entity under the special protection of the 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 fundamental research.

History

In 1713,

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (or Leibnitz; – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat who is credited, alongside Sir Isaac Newton, with the creation of calculus in addition to ...

suggested to establish an Academy, inspired by the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

and the

French Academy of Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (, ) is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific method, scientific research. It was at the forefron ...

. The "Kaiserliche Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien" was finally established by Imperial Patent on 14 May 1847. The academy soon began extensive research. In the

humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture, including Philosophy, certain fundamental questions asked by humans. During the Renaissance, the term "humanities" referred to the study of classical literature a ...

the academy started with researching and publishing important historical sources of Austria. Research in

natural science Natural science or empirical science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer ...

also covered a wide variety of topics. The 1921 federal law guaranteed the legal basis of the academy in the newly founded

First Austrian Republic The First Austrian Republic (), officially the Republic of Austria, was created after the signing of the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye on 10 September 1919—the settlement after the end of World War I which ended the Habsburg rump state of ...

. 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 A learned society ( ; also scholarly, intellectual, or academic society) is an organization that exists to promote an academic discipline, profession, or a group of related disciplines such as the arts and sciences. Membership may be open to al ...

, and its past members have included Theodor Billroth,

Ludwig Boltzmann Ludwig Eduard Boltzmann ( ; ; 20 February 1844 – 5 September 1906) was an Austrian mathematician and Theoretical physics, theoretical physicist. His greatest achievements were the development of statistical mechanics and the statistical ex ...

, Christian Doppler, Anton Eiselsberg, Otto Hittmair, Paul Kretschmer, Hans Horst Meyer, Albert Anton von Muchar, Julius von Schlosser, Roland Scholl,

Eduard Suess Eduard Suess (; 20 August 1831 – 26 April 1914) was an Austrian geologist and an expert on the geography of the Alps. He is responsible for hypothesising two major former geographical features, the supercontinent Gondwana (proposed in 1861) and ...

and the Nobel Prize winners Julius Wagner-Jauregg,

Victor Francis Hess Victor Franz Hess (; 24 June 1883 – 17 December 1964) was an Austrian-American particle physicist who shared the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physics with Carl David Anderson "for his discovery of cosmic radiation". Biography He was born to Vinzenz ...

Erwin Schrödinger Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger ( ; ; 12 August 1887 – 4 January 1961), sometimes written as or , was an Austrian-Irish theoretical physicist who developed fundamental results in quantum field theory, quantum theory. In particul ...

and

Konrad Lorenz Konrad Zacharias Lorenz (Austrian ; 7 November 1903 – 27 February 1989) was an Austrian zoology, zoologist, ethology, ethologist, and ornithologist. He shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Nikolaas Tinbergen and Karl von ...

. Anton Zeilinger, predecessor of the academy's incumbent president, is Nobel Prize laureate in physics 2022.

Research facilities

The academy operates 25 research institutes. In 2012, a reorganization prompted the outsourcing of various institutes to universities as well as mergers. The academy's institutes are split into two major divisions, one for mathematics and natural sciences (''mathematisch-naturwissenschaftliche Klasse'') and one for humanities and social sciences (''philosophisch-historische Klasse''). In the field of

, there are the Institute for the Study of Ancient Culture, which is well known for the analysis of excavation results in

Carnuntum Carnuntum ( according to Ptolemy) was a Roman legionary fortress () and headquarters of the Roman navy, Pannonian fleet from 50 AD. After the 1st century, it was capital of the Pannonia Superior province. It also became a large city of app ...

and Ephesos, the Institute for Interdisciplinary Mountain Research, focusing on montology, the Institute of Culture Studies and Theatre History, and the Vienna Institute of Demography, among others. The academy conducts socio-cultural research in Tibetan-speaking Himalayas, Tibet, and central Asia. Facilities that focus on

natural sciences Natural science or empirical science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer ...

include the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology (which is operated in cooperation with

Boehringer Ingelheim C.H. Boehringer Sohn AG & Co. is the parent company of the Boehringer Ingelheim group, which was founded in 1885 by Albert Boehringer (1861–1939) in Ingelheim am Rhein, Germany. As of 2018, Boehringer Ingelheim is one of the world's List of la ...

), the Gregor Mendel Institute, the Aithyra Institute for biomedical Artificial Intelligence, the Johann Radon Institute for Computational and Applied Mathematics (RICAM), Linz, the Research Center for Molecular Medicine, the Erich Schmid Institute of Materials Science, the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information, the Acoustics Research Institute, the Space Research Institute and the Institute for High Energy Physics (HEPHY), Wien.

Gallery of Research

During his term as president of the academy (1991–2003), Werner Welzig initiated the establishment of the Galerie der Forschung (English: Gallery of Research). In 2005 the Gallery organised its pilot event "Mapping controversies: the case of the genetically modified food", which was staged in the Alte Aula in Vienna.

Publications

Via its Austrian Academy of Sciences Press imprint, the academy publishes '' Medieval Worlds: Comparative & Interdisciplinary Studies'', a biannual

peer-reviewed Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work ( peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...

open access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which nominally copyrightable publications are delivered to readers free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 de ...

academic journal An academic journal (or scholarly journal or scientific journal) is a periodical publication in which Scholarly method, scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. They serve as permanent and transparent forums for the ...

covering Medieval studies. Other publications are the '' Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum'' and '' eco.mont – Journal on Protected Mountain Areas Research and Management''. Also ''Memoranda of the Academy of Knowledge. Mathematical and natural science class'' (Denkschriften der Akademie der Wissenschaften), which was founded in 1850.

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Austrian Academy Of Sciences Organisations based in Vienna 1921 establishments in Austria Scientific organizations established in 1921 Members of the International Council for Science Members of the International Science Council Himalayan studies