German Academy of Sciences at Berlin

The German Academy of Sciences at Berlin, German: Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (DAW), in 1972 renamed the Academy of Sciences of the GDR (Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR (AdW)), was the most eminent research institution of East Germany (German Democratic Republic, GDR).

The academy was established in 1946 in an attempt to continue the tradition of the Prussian Academy of Sciences and the Brandenburg Society of Sciences, founded in 1700 by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.^[1] The academy was a learned society (scholarship society), in which awarded membership via election constituted scientific recognition. Unlike other academies of science, the DAW was also the host organization of a scientific community of non-academic research institutes.^[2]

Upon German reunification, the Academy's learned society was dissociated from its research institutes and any other affiliates and eventually dissolved in 1992. Since 1993, activities of the AdW's members and college have been continued by the newly established Leibniz Scientific Society (Leibniz-Sozietät der Wissenschaften). The AdW's pending and unfinished research projects and holdings were forwarded to and are carried out by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, established in 1992. The academy's numerous institutes were dissolved on December 31, 1991 and partially reorganized into other organizations such as the Leibniz Association, the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres, the Max Planck Society and the Fraunhofer Society. A number of minor institutes and associated projects have been preserved and were transferred to other institutions such as the German Archaeological Institute.