German Academy of Science and Engineering - History

History

The idea to create a national academy of sciences to represent the interests of the technical sciences in Germany is not exactly new. However, in contrast to other European countries, e.g. the United Kingdom with its “Royal Society”, France with the “Académie des Sciences” or Sweden with the “Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences”, the idea of national academies, generally, did not come to fruition in Germany for a long time. Consequently, there was no such superordinate representation of the technical sciences, either.

The first important step towards an integrated representation of the technical sciences was made only after years of discussion, on 21 November 1997. That was the day of the constituting session of the “Convent for the Technical Sciences”. This convent came into existence thanks to the initiative of the Berlin-Brandenburg and North Rhine-Westphalia academies of sciences. The inaugural assembly elected Professor Dr.-Ing. Günter Spur as Chairman of the Executive Board of the Convent. The members, initially just 50 in number, in their majority came from the technical sciences, natural sciences, engineering sciences and economics faculties of the two founding academies.

Right from the beginnings, the tasks to be undertaken by the Convent for the Technical Sciences included the promotion of research and new talent in the technical sciences; the strengthening of international cooperation; and the dialog with the natural sciences and humanities, politics, business and society about the role of forward-looking technologies.

To provide a broader base for development of the Convent for the Technical Sciences, the presidents of the, then, seven academies of sciences in Germany, agreed in April 2001 to bundle all national technical-sciences activities under the umbrella of the Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities. So, on 15 February 2002 the “Convent for the Technical Sciences of the Union of the German Academies of Sciences” was established and subsequently incorporated and registered as an associated for the common public good. The chairmanship of the Executive Board was awarded to Joachim Milberg, with Franz Pischinger as his deputy. (The two functions were renamed, by change of statute, to President and Vice President, respectively, in May 2003.) The Convent decided to operate the snappy short name, “akatech”, which, in view of the international context of its functions, was subsequently changed into “acatech”.

The breakthrough for the Convent to become a national academy was marked by the decision by the Federal and State Governments’ Commission (Bund-Länder-Kommission, BLK) of 23 October 2006, to accept acatech into the common institutional funding framework of the Federal and State governments of Germany. On 23 April 2007, the BLK issued the recommendation to the “heads of government of the Bund and the Länder to implement an amendment to the framework agreement for research funding”. In its reasoning for this decision, the BLK emphasized that the technical sciences are an important pillar in the “science landscape” and commended the concept of acatech as a convincing basis for the work of an independent, national academy of the technical sciences. Since 1 January 2008, acatech operates under the name “German Academy of Science and Engineering”.