Academies of sciences and humanities are fellowships of scholars, elected for distinction and achievement in their disciplines. Thus, an academy is a scholarly society that provides its members with opportunities for regular interdisciplinary discussion of their research findings. Commemorating the 250th anniversary of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the former President of the Federal Republic of Germany, Johannes Rau, used the following words to describe the significance of academies in today’s academe: “No other institution lets scientific dialogue take centre stage as much as the academies do. Nor is any other institution as firmly rooted in scientific tradition as they are. In my view, this is more important than ever. After all, science can only withstand the increasing pressure from society and the economy and even transform it into positive energy if it maintains places of refuge for itself which are at a safe distance from day-to-day business.” Taking this quotation a bit further, academies may be characterised as places where science is the only thing to be considered. They are the places where science can take shape and find its own identity – both of which are prerequisites of a fruitful dialogue between science and society. 

Furthermore, the German academies of science and humanities are non-university research organisations, and provide funding for long-term basic research projects. Thanks to their organisational structure they are able to carry out large-scale research projects processing huge amounts of data at competitive costs while meeting high scientific standards. This proves the “Academies’ Programme”: coordinated by its umbrella organisation, the “Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities”, the German academies of sciences and humanities run one of the Federal Republic of Germany’s most significant and comprehensive research programmes in the humanities. Even in an international context, the Academies’ Programme is quite unique. The great academies of other nations have projects of their own as well, many of them carried out in cooperation with German projects. What is absent, however, is a similar programme of research cooperation. The latter is a peculiarity of the German tradition, as Professor Volker Gerhardt, the chairman of the Union’s Scientific Commission, points out. 

Moreover, the German academies of science and humanities are guardians of classical education. They organise scientific conferences and public lectures series, and also promote the emergence of new talent in science and the humanities. To honour outstanding research achievements they award prizes and medals.

The name “Academy” goes back to Plato’s school of philosophy and learning (approximately 385 BC). After the revival of the academic idea in Renaissance Italy, academies in the modern sense of the word began to emerge in the latter half of the 17th century. As scholars increasingly distanced themselves from theology and public law, turning towards the experimental natural sciences, and developing a historico-philological criticism of sources, those in power took a growing interest in the small independent learned societies of those days.

This resulted in the foundation of academies which were granted substantial privileges by the rulers and, in some cases, even governed by them. Germany saw the foundation of the world’s first academy of natural and medical sciences, the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina in 1652. The Royal Society of London was established in 1660, the Paris “Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres” in 1663, and the “Académie des Sciences” in 1666. Finally, in 1700 Leibniz succeeded in establishing a single academy covering all disciplines, the “Society of Sciences of the Elector of Brandenburg” in Berlin, which later became the Royal Academy of Prussia. The Brandenburg Society has remained the model for the German academies of sciences and humanities until today. 

Eighteenth-century Europe was characterized by a rapidly growing academy movement. Persons of learning wanted to “understand” the world rather than simply believing and accepting what they were told, they craved a supranational and interdenominational “république des sciences” transgressing social borders – and found it in the academies and societies of sciences and humanities. 

As a result of the history of the German Reich and of the country’s federal structure, Germany has never had a national academy. Here the principle of territoriality was adhered to instead, and gained even further weight after the Second World War, when it was decided that educational and cultural matters were to be the responsibility of Germany’s federal states.