Collegium pro Academia

Science and research, no less than the arts, need the support of private initiatives as well as funding from public sources. This is not a new discovery and has not become necessary only now that state funding is ever more limited: it was also true, and especially important, in the first critical years after German reunification, a time when, in Berlin and the new Federal States of the former East Germany, the universities and research institutions faced the challenges of making a new start. For this reason, when the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities began its work in 1993, a supportive group of leading figures in science and business came together and has accompanied the Academy ever since, providing it with assistance both material and immaterial. Seven founding members signed the Society’s founding document, and it now has around 180 members – including 8 corporate members – from all areas of society that are directly or indirectly involved in science and research. Since the foundation of the Collegium, it has been able to provide around 350 TEuro from member’s subscriptions and donations, with which the Academy has been able to further its scientific and outreach activities.

In May 2001, the General Meeting of the members of the Society passed a resolution as part of a reform of the Society’s bye-laws, adopting the name ‘Collegium pro Academia – for the promotion of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities’. The established purpose of the Society remains unchanged, as does the range of its goals in providing support: the financial contributions of the Society should primarily benefit the Academy’s research projects, the events it organises relating to science and science policy, its publications and engagement with the public, and – not least – the support of young scholars. It has increasingly become helpful to focus the limited resources available on certain areas. For example, the Society initiated and set up a fund for the programme RARA, which has made it possible to restore the holdings of the Academy Library and Archive that were of historic importance but at risk of deteriorating in condition.

The Academy is still in a process of development and, thanks to its increasing numbers of members, will be an ever more fertile source of ideas and scientific initiatives, so in the coming years it will need of the support of the Collegium more than ever.