A network of "scientific colonies"” “

“Not only centres for research or for the promotion and diffusion of scientific knowledge, the academies are currently called to lend their ear to society, to feel its pulse with the instruments at their disposal, working in synergy on a European scale”. So said the president of Italy’s scientific academy, the national Accademia dei Lincei, Edoardo Vesentini , in a comment to SIR during the general Assembly of ALLEA held in recent days in Rome. ALLEA (All European Academies) is an umbrella organization founded in 1994 of which 47 European scientific academies form part. Italy. The original project for Italy’s scientific academy, the Lincei (the earliest such institution in the country, founded in Rome by Federico Cesi in 1603, it will celebrate the 400th anniversary of its foundation on 17 August 2003) envisaged the realization of a network of ‘scientific colonies’ throughout Europe, but the condemnation of Galileo aborted the initiative in 1633. The academic institutions – pointed out the historian Giuseppe Galasso – “formed a république des lettres et des sciences that represented the real unity of Europe in the modern period, transcending political, economic and social conflicts”. Great Britain. Founded by eleven members, including mathematicians, chemists, philosophers and poets, in 1660, during the reign of Charles II, after the dissolution of the Commonwealth and the Restoration of the monarchy, the Royal Society of London has, ever since its origins, forged close relations with corresponding European institutions and, in more recent times, with those of North America. France. There are five academies, explains Jean Leclant, that form the Institut de France: the Académie francaise, the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres, the Académie des sciences, the Académie des beaux-arts and the Académie des sciences morales et politiques. It was Cardinal Richelieu who founded its first nucleus in 1635: a group of 40 literati and intellectuals under the protection of the State “with the aim of establishing fixed rules for the French language”. Germany. The Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina was founded by four physicians in 1652. It now devotes itself to scientific promotion through conferences and publications, as well as to the integration of the two Germanys following reunification. Russia. The Rossiskaja Akademia Nauk was founded by Peter the Great in 1724. The Academy – says Aleksander Fursenko – encountered serious difficulties after the 1917 Revolution. Due to its opposition to the revolution and to the Soviet regime, numerous of its members suffered arrest and persecution. Many died in the gulags, others emigrated abroad. Poland. The Polska Akademia Nauk was founded in 1952. It now cooperates with numerous international research institutes and coordinates within its own structure thirteen university and post-graduate courses in various disciplines. Its vice-president Wlodzimierz Ostrowski explains that “the education of youth, in the current phase of transition and in the prospect of European integration, is the real priority”. Romania. Concern is expressed about European integration by Eugen Simion, of the Academia Româna, whose members include John Paul II, given honorary membership during his visit to the country two years ago. “Will it be a Europe of the nations, respectful of the richness of cultural diversities, or a ‘European village’ that would prefer just one language?” wonders Simion; hence “the role of the national academies, called by their own vocation to be messengers of universalism, but at the same time defenders of national identities and values”.