Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities


The Göttingen Academy of Sciences is the second oldest of the seven academies of sciences in Germany. It has the task of promoting research under its own auspices and in collaboration with academics in and outside Germany. It has its seat in the university town of Göttingen.

History

The Königliche Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften was founded in 1751 by King George II of Great Britain, who was also Prince-Elector of the Holy Roman Empire and Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, the German state in which Göttingen was located. The first president was the Swiss natural historian and poet Albrecht von Haller. It was renamed the "Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen" in 1939. Among the learned societies in the Federal Republic of Germany, the Göttingen academy is the second-oldest after the Halle-based Leopoldina.

Organisation

The Academy is a Körperschaft des öffentlichen Rechts and has the task to serve academic research in its own work and in collaboration with researchers and institutions inside and outside Germany. Its members are divided into two classes, the Mathematical-Physical class and the Philological-Historical class. There are a maximum number of forty full members in each class and a maximum of one hundred corresponding members, elected from the rest of Germany and outside the country.
The review and literature journal Göttingische Gelehrte Anzeigen has been published by the Academy since 1753 and is the oldest academic journal still published in the German-language area. The Academy belongs to the Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities.

Prizes

The Academy awards the following prizes: