European Academy of Sciences and Arts
Academia Scientiarum et Artium Europaea

History

The founding of the Academy

The European Academy of Sciences and Arts is the result of a lengthy and careful ripening process. Its development began in 1985 with a working group in Salzburg, Austria; it concluded with the founding of the Academy by its three architects: heart surgeon Felix Unger of Salzburg; the former archbishop of Vienna, Franz Cardinal König; and the political scientist and philosopher Nikolaus Lobkowicz. With his vision of an academy, Felix Unger aimed for a clearly-defined goal: with the help of a close-meshed network of European scientists and artists, the problems and questions facing Europe should be examined from different perspectives and ultimately answered.
Unger had always taken an interest in seemingly distant scientific fields and therefore saw the opportunity for a lively exchange of ideas with colleagues. Moreover, he hoped to contribute to a positive development of the societies and cultures of Europe. The key to this approach had been handed to him in his early years by his parents and grandparents, who had taught him to respect people of different religions and philosophies and to seek dialogue with those holding opinions different to his own.
Since the middle of the 80s, Unger and Cardinal König held regular meetings with prominent scientists from Vienna, Munich, Innsbruck and Salzburg. For König, particularly the question of ethics in science was in the foreground: he regarded ethics as the reflection of reason as it pertains to human action - not just differentiating between right and wrong, but the difference between good and bad, between positive and negative values.

Cardinal König † also held the opinion that the differentiation of specialist fields and research was a risk. From his point of view, differences in specialized knowledge and terminology made communication more difficult and blocked the view of the whole: to him, this larger whole was more than the sum of the various specialized fields.
In the course of the talks in Salzburg, Unger and König decided to institutionalize the dialogue; they recognized the need for a new academy, which should take into account mankind's changing conceptualization of the world while also considering the transformation of the meaning of the term science itself: topics relevant to society should be dealt with vividly and in an interdisciplinary, transnational way. In 1988, Cardinal König introduced Felix Unger to the political philosopher and then president of the Catholic University of Eichstätt, Nikolaus Lobkowicz. It wasn't necessary to convince Lobkowicz of the benefits of an academy - he was enthusiastic from the start.
Nikolaus Lobkowicz had sought for possibilities to stem the decline in values which he saw in Europe. He realized that this challenge called for representatives of all disciplines - philosophers and historians, scientists and engineers. In the European Academy of Sciences and Arts he saw the means to convince its members and thereby science as a whole that they should undertake more joint research in this direction. An academy with a competent international membership could tackle the decisive problems of Europe and fulfill a pioneering intellectual role.
The alloy which resulted from the personal motives and motivations of these three personalities finally proved to be the perfect material for building an academy. This goal was achieved on March 7, 1990: the European Academy of Sciences and Arts was called into being in the Residence of Salzburg.

Founding Members

Salzburg, March 7th, 1990


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