Direction: 
Pedro Miguel Etxenike.
Jakiunde.

Aims: Academies are fellowships of scholars elected by distinction and achievement in their disciplines. Academy members are well-networked, both nationally and internationally, individuals, who have shown their interest in offering their expertise and capacity for promoting the development of a fully enabled society. 

This, therefore, constitutes a strong group with an enormous capacity, both as thinkers and doers, which the society can benefit from, … if the role of the Academy is fitted, as precisely as possible, into modern societal organizations. 

This workshop comes timely, for we are witnessing nowadys a period where profound changes have been undertaken by a number of well-established traditional Academies. For instance, the 200-year-old Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences has recently embarked itself into a “rejuvenation” program. Likewise, German Science Academies have recently ended a years-long discussion with the decision that the Leopoldina, founded in 1652, will serve as the new German Academy of Sciences and as science adviser to the German Federal Government. 

Clearly, placing Academies into their proper perspective within nowadays societies is a complex task that requires serious consideration of a number of key matters that should be addressed by learned experts.

In collaboration with Jakiunde.