Company Profile
American Academy of Arts & Sciences
Company Overview
Founded in 1780, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs. With a current membership of 4,000 American Fellows and 600 Foreign Honorary Members, the Academy has four major goals:
• Promoting service and study through analysis of critical social and intellectual issues and the development of practical policy alternatives;
• Fostering public engagement and the exchange of ideas with meetings, conferences, and symposia bringing diverse perspectives to the examination of issues of common concern;
• Mentoring a new generation of scholars and thinkers through the Visiting Scholars Program; and
• Honoring excellence by electing to membership men and women in a broad range of disciplines and professions.
The Academy's main headquarters is in Cambridge, Massachusetts. With its geographically diverse membership, it has active programming around the United States and abroad.
Company History
For over 230 years, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences has been honoring excellence and providing service to the nation and the world. Through independent, nonpartisan study, its ranks of distinguished "scholar-patriots" have brought the arts and sciences into constructive interplay with the leaders of both the public and private sectors.
The Academy was founded during the American Revolution by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock, and other leaders who contributed prominently to the establishment of the new nation, its government, and its Constitution. Its purpose was to provide a forum for a select group of scholars, members of the learned professions, and government and business leaders to work together on behalf of the democratic interests of the republic.
In the words of the Academy's charter, enacted in 1780, the "end and design of the institution is...to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honour, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people."