The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (RSAS) or Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien ("KVA") is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden. The Academy is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization which acts to promote the sciences, primarily the natural sciences and mathematics.
The Academy was founded on 2 June 1739 by naturalist Carl Linnaeus, mercantilist Jonas Alströmer, mechanical engineer Mårten Triewald, civil servants Sten Carl Bielke and Carl Wilhelm Cederhielm, and politician Anders Johan von Höpken.
The purpose of the academy was to focus on practically useful knowledge, and to publish in Swedish in order to widely disseminate the academy's findings. The academy was intended to be different from the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala, which had been founded in 1719 and published in Latin. The location close to the commercial activities in Sweden's capital (which unlike Uppsala did not have a university at this time) was also intentional. The academy was modeled after the Royal Society of London and Academie Royale des Sciences in Paris, France, which some of the founding members were familiar with.
Committees of the Academy act as selection boards for international prizes:
- Nobel Prizes in Physics and Chemistry
- Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (also known as the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics)
- Crafoord Prizes in astronomy and mathematics, geosciences, biosciences (with an emphasis on ecology), and polyarthritis (rheumatoid arthritis)
- Rolf Schock Prizes in logic and philosophy
- Gregori Aminoff Prize in crystallography
- Oskar Klein medal
and national prizes:
- Göran Gustafsson Prizes for research in the natural sciences and medicine
- Söderberg Prize in economics or jurisprudence
- Tage Erlander Prize in physics, chemistry, technology, and biology
- Ingvar Lindqvist Prizes for teachers in the fields of physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics.
Read more about Royal Swedish Academy Of Sciences: List of Permanent Secretaries, Publications
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