History of the Academy

The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences owes its start to a Frenchman. On 8 May 1808, King Louis Napoleon – placed on the throne of the Kingdom of the Netherlands by his brother Napoleon Bonaparte – signed a decree establishing the “Royal Institute of Science, Letters and Fine Arts”. Other countries in Europe had founded similar organisations long before. Louis Napoleon felt it was high time for the rather lethargic Dutch to have their own “learned society”.

In the words of the Royal Decree, the new institute was to “endeavour to perfect the Sciences and the Arts, to make such improvements in the Kingdom known to Foreigners, and to introduce inventions or improvements from elsewhere here in the country.” In other words, the Netherlands was to focus on progress.

Funding and a French bias

The institute followed the French model in having as members “the most excellent scientists and scholars from throughout the Kingdom”. There were four “categories”:

• mathematics and physics;
• Dutch literature and history;
• ancient and Eastern literature;
• history and fine arts.

From the outset, Louis Napoleon made sure he had the support of these “most excellent scientists and scholars”; Johan Meerman, Marinus van Marum, Jan Hendrik van Swinden and Willem Bilderdijk were closely involved in the Institute’s founding. Other early members were physician Gerard Vrolik, poet Hendrik Tollens, jurist/poet Rhijnvis Feith and linguist Matthijs Siegenbeek.

The Academy’s history has been tied up with the Trippenhuis Building in Amsterdam since its beginnings as the “Royal Institute”. In its early years, the Institute did not have its own building and members gathered at different locations in the city. The annual general meeting was held in the left half of the Trippenhuis Building, located along a canal in Kloveniersburgwal.

The left side of this double property was owned by Cornelis Roos, an art collector, poet, and member of the fourth “category” of the Academy. He had purchased the house from the Trip family in 1797.

A mighty hall of arts and sciences

Louis Napoleon wanted to house all the institutes and museums that he had founded in a single building – a mighty “Hall of Arts and Sciences”. Unfortunately, the political tide turned against him. Napoleon Bonaparte recalled his brother and made the Netherlands part of France.

By then, the members of the Institute had taken note of the right side of the Trippenhuis Building, which stood empty. Thanks to Amsterdam’s maire, who intervened on their behalf, the members were able to rent the right side from the City of Amsterdam. Starting on 25 May 1812, the four categories of members assembled at the new location in Kloveniersburgwal.

Stately building

The members were duly impressed by their new accommodation. “The Institute is now housed in a building suitable for all its functions, whose stateliness is fit for an assembly convened by the Emperor, and whose lustre is precisely what it should be for the Third City of the Empire.”

Cornelis Roos had by then sold the left side of the property to the state. In 1814, it was transformed into the National Museum and Rembrandt’s The Night Watch was moved there. Whenever the learned society met, the doors of the museum remained closed.

In around 1850, the Netherlands was bent on economising. King William I had virtually bankrupted the country in 1841. After the constitutional reform of 1848, the Thorbecke Government tightened the purse strings. The budget for the Royal Institute was cut from 11,000 Dutch guilders to a mere 5,000 in 1849. This did not make Prime Minister Johan Rudolf Thorbecke –  who was himself a member of the Institute – a popular man among intellectuals or the establishment.

When the Institute once again received only a paltry sum of money the following year, members began to resist. MP Groen van Prinsterer, another member, proposed amending the budget so that the Institute would once again receive 11,000 guilders. Parliament rejected his proposal, however.

Closure and conflict with Thorbecke

The Institute then took a major gamble and threatened to shut down rather than suffer a chronic shortage of funds. Almost riskier was its decision to call in the help of King William III. The king fanned the flames by providing money out of his own pocket. William III and Thorbecke famously hated each other. Thorbecke also detested Amsterdam. There was no repairing the relationship between the prime minister and the Institute.

For professionals only

On 26 October 1851, Thorbecke issued a Royal Decree closing the Institute. In its place, he established a Royal Academy of Sciences. The Academy was to focus on the exact sciences. The Government had already benefited more from the advice of the First Category (mathematics and physics) than from that provided by fine arts. After the first Thorbecke Government fell, the new Cabinet extended the Academy’s mission to include “the advancement of linguistics, literature, history and philosophy”. Since that time, the Academy has had two Divisions: Literature (humanities and social sciences) and Natural Science (science, medicine and technology). The artists and amateurs never returned.

The early twentieth century was a golden age for Dutch science and scholarship. Indeed, it is sometimes referred to as the “Second Dutch Golden Age”. The history of the Nobel Prizes speaks volumes: the very first Nobel Prize for Chemistry was awarded to Dutch chemist Jacobus van ’t Hoff, and the year thereafter, the Nobel Prize for Physics went to Academy members Hendrik Lorentz and Pieter Zeeman.

The Nobel Prizes did not make a very deep impression on other Academy members. The prizes had only recently been established, and were not yet viewed with the almost mystical reverence with which they are currently regarded.

Lorentz, Zeeman and Van ’t Hoff

The minutes of the Academy meeting of 27 December 1902 mention the prizes in passing; indeed, the document wastes few words on them: “The Chairman reminded the Meeting that Messrs Lorentz and Zeeman had been accorded the Nobel Prize for Physics. He praised them and thanked them on behalf of the Division for the way in which they had endeavoured to bring honour to Dutch science.” The meeting then carried on with its normal business.

There is no mention whatsoever in the Academy’s annals of Van 't Hoff’s Nobel Prize. Van 't Hoff had departed for Berlin several years before then, however, and his full membership had been converted into a corresponding membership. Lorentz was in any event unconcerned by the brief report of his honour: he served as the chairman of Science Division from 1909 to 1921.

Academy members who have won the Nobel Prize

1901: Chemistry: Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff
1902: Physics: Hendrik Antoon Lorentz and Pieter Zeeman
1910: Physics: Johannes Diderik van der Waals
1911: Peace: Tobias Asser
1913: Physics: Heike Kamerlingh Onnes
1924: Physiology or Medicine: Willem Einthoven
1929: Physiology or Medicine: Christiaan Eijkman
1936: Chemistry: Peter Debye
1953: Physics: Frits Zernike
1969: Economics: Jan Tinbergen
1973: Physiology or Medicine: Nico Tinbergen
1975: Economics: Tjalling Koopmans
1984: Physics: Simon van der Meer
1995: Chemistry: Paul Crutzen 
1999: Physics: Gerardus 't Hooft and Martinus Veltman
2016: Chemistry: Ben Feringa

Science has always been an international affair, but at the start of the twentieth century there was a genuine boom in international research partnerships – many 0f them overly ambitious – which then collapsed during the First World War. The Academy owes its three oldest institutes to these contradictory trends, one focusing on brain research, the other on developmental biology, and the third on fungal culture research.

Brains, embryos, fungal cultures

In 1903, the science academies of virtually every European country decided to set up a network of “brain institutes” that would enable them to share rare research material, specifically brain specimens. The Academy did not want the Netherlands to miss the boat, and urged the Government to establish the Netherlands Institute for Brain Research in Amsterdam –  the Academy’s very first research institute.

In 1917, the Academy became the custodian of a collection of embryos assembled by the founder of the Institut International d’Embryologie, A.A.W. Hubrecht. It was also made responsible for the Fungal Biodiversity Centre (CBS). All three institutes are still part of the Academy organisation, partly with different names. Honouring the first director, Johanna Westerdijk, the CBS became the Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute in 2017; the Hubrecht Institute was renamed in honour of its spiritual founder.

The Academy research institutes

The Academy now has fourteen research institutes, all of which are engaged in outstanding scientific and scholarly research. A number of the institutes also provide services to researchers and other users. The institutes are located throughout the Netherlands. Together they employ approximately 1,300 staff.

It is only fitting for a learned society such as the Academy to involve itself in any debate or issue that concerns science and scholarship. There is nothing new about the close relationship between science and society. The Academy regards its duty to provide solicited and unsolicited advice as an important raison d’être.

In 1857, the Academy produced an advisory report on spontaneous combustion in coal. In 1898 it advised on noise transmission in prisons. In 1951 it published a report on terrestrial rays, and in 1997 on the fall in the number of students studying science at university. Initially, advisory reports were entrusted to expert members or committees set up especially for that purpose. Today, however, the process has been streamlined and questions are considered by advisory councils and permanent advisory committees.

Good examples deserve to be imitated

The oldest advisory council is the Biology Council of the Netherlands, established in 1959. The council’s history goes back much farther, however, to 1923, when the need for international collaboration in the life sciences became increasingly clear. At first, the “Biology Council of the Netherlands” was run mainly by universities and societies of biologists. In 1948, however, the Academy became involved. From that year onward, the Science Division would appoint the Council’s chairperson.

When the Academy decided in the 1950s that the best way to advise the Government was through a system of councils, it was obvious to all that the Biology Council should be the first to be taken under its wing. And so, in 1959, the Council became the Academy’s first permanent advisory council. The second, installed in the same year, was the Social Sciences Council.

Advisory councils and committees

The Academy now has four advisory councils. They consist not only of Academy members but also of researchers who work at universities, for research institutes, and in industry. This ensures that a broad range of experts are involved in the Academy’s work. 

In 1938, the Academy added the word “Netherlands” to its name, giving it the title that it still bears today. From that year onward, it would be known as the “Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences”.

The designation “academy” is borrowed from Plato’s Akadèmeia, or school of philosophy. He built his school on land that he had purchased outside the walls of Athens, which legend had it originally belonged to the Greek hero Akademos.

Interrupted by World War II

The new Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences was not able to enjoy its new name for long. During the Occupation, the Nazis ordered it to remove the “Royal” designation from its name. The order came in August 1940, not long after the German occupying forces took control of the Netherlands. Throughout the war, it was known as the Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The new name was restored immediately after the end of the war.

In 1973, the Academy instituted the office of “president” –   an individual who would link the Academy’s two divisions and serve as its figurehead.

All of science and scholarship

The Academy has long consisted of two divisions: members belong either to the Humanities and Social Sciences Division or the Science Division. Together, the two divisions cover all of science and scholarship.

Since 1 January 2017 the society consists of four domains:

• Behavioural Sciences, Social Sciences and Law Domain
• Humanities Domain
• Medical, Biomedical and Health Sciences Domain
• Natural Sciences and Engineering Domain

The four domains have always operated independently of each other (except during the annual Joint Meeting or in the event of cross-disciplinary theme meetings); each has its own chairperson.

Mediator and figurehead

Hendrik Casimir, a renowned physicist and for many years the director of the Philips Physics Laboratory, became the Academy’s first president in 1973. Casimir had gained fame for predicting in 1948 that two uncharged metallic plates placed a few micrometers apart in a vacuum would nevertheless be attracted to each other, based on quantum field theory. The Casimir effect was later demonstrated experimentally.

The office of president

The president of the Academy serves a three-year term and is appointed alternately from the ranks of the Behavioural Sciences, Social Sciences and Law Domain & Humanities Domain and the Medical, Biomedical and Health Sciences Domain and Natural Sciences and Engineering Domain. The current president is Professor Marileen Dogterom, Professor of Bionanoscience.

One of the stated objectives in founding the Royal Institute in 1808 was to inform other nations about Dutch scientific, scholarly and artistic achievements, and to learn about such achievements elsewhere. In around 1990, the Academy began to take a more serious, systematic approach to meeting this objective. There are, after all, literally no boundaries when it comes to science and scholarship. International collaboration is becoming increasingly important.

Until about 1970, the Academy’s international relations were limited to its membership of the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) and (for the humanities) the Union Academique Internationale (UAI).

In the 1970s and 1980s, however, the Academy’s international standing grew considerably. It became a member of the European Science Foundation (ESF) and concluded bilateral agreements with sister academies in order to facilitate researcher exchanges.

In around 1990, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the growing influence of the European Union led to an intensification of international partnerships.

China and Indonesië

The Academy has long been interested in cooperation with Indonesia and China. It participates in a number of exchange and joint research programmes with China, and has set up the collaborative Scientific Programme Indonesia-Netherlands (SPIN) with Indonesia.

Cooperation between academies

In 1990, the Academy convened the very first meeting of all the national academies of Europe at the Trippenhuis Building in Amsterdam. Their cooperation led in 1994 to the establishment of All European Academies (ALLEA). Former Academy president P.J.D. Drenth played a key role in this organisation, whose office was housed in the Trippenhuis Building until 2013.

The Trippenhuis Building is also home to the InterAcademy Council, a multinational organisation of science academies and an advisory body. Although initially operating in a vacuum, the IAC gained international renown after the United Nations asked it to review the InterGovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Academy honours, funding and grants

The Academy offers various funding options in support of international knowledge-sharing and joint research. For example, it supports six annual meetings of leading scientists from around the world, known as the Academy Colloquia. It also offers researchers grants covering working visits and exchanges. In addition, the Academy awards various international prizes in science and scholarship.

The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences decided to set up The Young Academy in 2005. The Young Academy operates independently within the Royal Academy. It has its own working plan, organises its own events and is responsible for its own viewpoints. The Young Academy and the Royal Academy cooperate mainly on matters relating to content and interdisciplinarity.

On 8 May, the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences celebrated its bicentenary during a festive gathering in the Beurs van Berlage Conference Centre in Amsterdam in the presence of Her Majesty Queen Maxima.

In 2014, the Society of Arts was launched. At that time, there were 19 members. The aim of the Society of Arts is to be the voice of the arts in Dutch society (including politics) and to promote interaction between the arts, between art and society and between science and art.