Göttingen Academy of Sciences

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The building of the Academy on the street Göttinger Theaterstraße

The Göttingen Academy of Sciences (in German Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen)^[1] 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.

1 History
2 Organisation
3 Prizes
4 Notes
5 Literature
6 External links

[edit] History

The Königliche Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften ("Royal Society of Sciences") 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 (Hanover), 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 (1652).

[edit] 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 Mathemaical-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 (Union der deutschen Akademien der Wissenschaften).

Current president of the Göttingen Academy is the chemist Herbert W. Roesky. Vice presidents are the ancient historian Gustav Adolf Lehmann and the neurobiologist Norbert Elsner.

[edit] Prizes

The Academy awards the following prizes:

Academy Prize for Biology (Akademie-Preis für Biologie)
Academy Prize for Chemistry (Akademie-Preis für Chemie)
Academy Prize for Physics (Akademie-Preis für Physik)
Grimm Brothers Medal (Brüder-Grimm-Medaille)
Gauss Visiting Professorship (Gauß-Professur der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen)
Dannie Heineman Prize (Dannie-Heineman-Preis)
Hans Janssen Prize (Hans-Janssen-Preis)
Hanns Lilje Prize (Hanns-Lilje-Preis)
Lichtenberg Medal (Lichtenberg-Medaille)
Sartorius Prize (Sartorius-Preis)
Wallstein Prize (Wallstein-Preis)
Wedekind Prize (Wedekind-Preis), the Academy Prize for History

[edit] Notes

^ Note that the German Wissenschaft has a wider meaning than the English "Science", and includes Social sciences and Humanities.

[edit] Literature

Karl Arndt: Göttinger Gelehrte. Die Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen in Bildnissen und Würdigungen 1751–2000. 2 Bände. Wallstein, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-89244-485-4.
Holger Krahnke: Die Mitglieder der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen 1751–2001. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 (Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Philologisch-Historische Klasse, 3. Folge, Bd. 246/Mathematisch-Physikalische Klasse, 3. Folge, Bd. 50).
Achim Link: Die Veröffentlichungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen 1751–2001. Bibliographie mit Schlagwort-Katalog. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82518-8 (Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Philologisch-Historische Klasse, 3. Folge, Bd. 245/Mathematisch-Physikalische Klasse, 3. Folge, Bd. 49).
Rudolf Smend, Hans-Heinrich Voigt (Hrsg.): Die Wissenschaften in der Akademie. Vorträge beim Jubiläumskolloquium der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen im Juni 2000. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2002, ISBN 3-525-82519-6 (Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Philologisch-Historische Klasse, 3. Folge, Bd. 247/Mathematisch-Physikalische Klasse, 3. Folge, Bd. 51).
Rudolf Smend (Hrsg.): Wissenschaft entsteht im Gespräch. 250 Jahre Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen. Wallstein, Göttingen 2002, ISBN 3-89244-624-5.