Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities
The Göttingen Academy of Sciences () 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. 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). 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 Mathematical-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"). Prizes. The Academy awards the following prizes: Notable members. Current members include three Nobel Prize winners, throughout the history of the Academy, 74 of their members were awarded  a Nobel Prize.