Academy of Sciences and Literature

Preserving and advancing culture by nurturing science and literature - this is the maxim under which the Academy of Sciences and Literature was founded on 9 July 1949. This objective is implemented to this day in many different forms including interdisciplinary discourse, research projects, public events both inside and outside of the academy and, last but not least, awards and scholarships focusing on the advancement of young scholars.

The Academy in Mainz, like other member academies, supervises long-term research projects of general significance and national interest to scientific policy. Works include in particular printed editions of historic and literary source texts, corpora of monument categorization, dictionaries and special encyclopedias.

The musicology editions coordinated at the Mainz Academy, including complete editions of important German composers such as Brahms, Gluck, Haydn and Schumann, are worthy of special mention. The publication "Mainzer Reihe, Neue Folge", which publishes literary works and editions, forms a focal point of the literature class that is unique in the landscape of German research academies. Its activities include, among other things, the presentation of the Joseph Breitbach Award and the lectureship for poetics at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz.

The academy nurtures and encourages interdisciplinary discourse between departments in keeping with Leibnizian tradition. This initiative also includes public lectures with panel discussions and the series "Future Issues of Society", which debates the problems of globalization, biomedical ethics and new technologies. Young researchers can prove themselves in front of critical audiences at the "Colloquia Academica".

The academy's facilities also offer external organizations an excellent venue for engaging in discussion and exchange.