In 1713,
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz suggested to establish an Academy, inspired by the
Royal Society and the
French Academy of Sciences. The "Kaiserliche Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien" was finally established by Imperial Patent on 14 May 1847. The academy soon began extensive research. In the
humanities the academy started with researching and publishing important historical sources of Austria. Research in
natural science also covered a wide variety of topics. The 1921 federal law guaranteed the legal basis of the academy in the newly founded
First Austrian Republic. From the mid-1960s onwards it became the country's leading institution in the field of non-university basic research. The academy is also a
learned society, and its past members have included
Theodor Billroth,
Ludwig Boltzmann,
Christian Doppler,
Anton Eiselsberg,
Otto Hittmair,
Paul Kretschmer,
Hans Horst Meyer,
Albert Anton von Muchar, Julius von Schlosser,
Roland Scholl,
Eduard Suess and the Nobel Prize winners
Julius Wagner-Jauregg,
Victor Francis Hess,
Erwin Schrödinger and
Konrad Lorenz.
Anton Zeilinger, predecessor of the academy's incumbent president, is Nobel Prize laureate in physics 2022. ==Research facilities==