Academic Events
Academy of Athens
The Academy of Athens was established in 1926 in the city that 2,400 years previously had been the site of the world’s first academy, that of Plato. The building chosen to house the Academy was designed by Hansen and Ziller. A beautiful structure gracing the centre of the capital, it had been given to the Greek state by Simon Sinas after its completion in 1887.
From the first, the Academy brought together dozens of leading representatives of the sciences, literature and the arts. Its full members, who today number forty-four, are elected for life by their peers. They fall into three classes: Positive Sciences; Literature and the Arts; and Moral and Political Sciences.
The work achieved by the Academy of Athens during the eighty-five years of its existence is of considerable note. Its basic activities consist of communications and lectures by its members (both full and corresponding), the operation of twenty-five Centres and Offices with a research staff of many hundreds, its publications (sixty-five distinct works), support for a large number of scholarly and scientific projects through the organization of conferences and research programmes or the awarding of prizes and scholarships, and collaboration for cultural purposes with corresponding foundations in other countries.
