Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences

(Československá Akademie Věd), the highest scientific institution in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic and the Czech Socialist Republic. Founded in Prague in 1952, the academy includes the Slovak Academy of Sciences. Its predecessors were the Royal Bohemian Society of Sciences (1790) and the Czech Academy of Arts and Sciences (1890). The academy carries on the progressive traditions of Czech and Slovak science.

In 1976 the academy, with more than 150 members, included 19 scientific boards responsible for the development of their respective disciplines and 135 research institutes, of which 60 were institutes of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. Twenty-three of these institutes are conducting research in mathematics, physics, geology, and geography; 15 in the technical sciences; 11 in chemistry; 33 in biology, medicine, and agriculture; and 34 in the social sciences. The academy also serves as an advisory body to the government of Czechoslovakia on scientific matters. The first president of the academy was Z. Nejedlý; since 1970 the post has been held by Academician J. Kožešnǐk, a foreign member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR since 1971.

The academy plans the development of Czechoslovak science, prepares government plans for basic research, coordinates and directs the execution of such plans, trains scientific workers, and represents Czechoslovak science abroad. As of 1974, more than 13,000 workers were employed by the academy’s institutions, including some 5,500 workers with higher education.