Scientific Academies, History of

Abstract

Since their inception in seventeenth-century Europe, scientific academies have dealt with the production, reward, and dissemination of scientific knowledge, the training of practitioners, the evaluation of patent applications, and the advising of state and political authorities on scientific and technical matters. It is possible to identify at least three phases in the genealogy and the role of academies within the broader ecology of the social system of science: (a) patronage-based princely academies without statutes and corporate protocols up to the end of the seventeenth century; (b) peer-based academies with statutes, publications, and, in many cases, formalized relations with the state since the late seventeenth century, and mostly during the eighteenth century; and (c) dramatic increase of the scale and complexity of the social system of science associated with the multiplication of more specialized scientific institutions taking up most of the traditional roles of scientific academies (since the early nineteenth century). The importance of the largely symbolic role of modern scientific academies, however, should not be underestimated.