Press release
31 March 2023
2023 Open Day at the Romanian Academy
The Romanian Academy, the highest scientific and cultural forum of Romania, will celebrate on Tuesday, April 4, 2023, in a festive General Assembly, 157 years since its founding. The event, starting at 10, will take place in the Romanian Academy Hall (125 Calea Victoriei, Bucharest).
The festive session will be opened with an address by Academician Ioan-Aurel Pop, President of the Romanian Academy, who will highlight the most important moments in the venerable institution's history over more than a century and a half. Acad. Dorel Banabic, President of the Technical Sciences Section, will briefly present the evolution and development of fundamental research in academia and its role in society.
On this occasion, the Romanian Academy offers the public the opportunity to meet with Prof. Adrian Bejan, honorary member of the Romanian Academy, through the conference entitled "Freedom, Beauty, Evolution, Nature", a high-level scientific event that approaches the topic from inter- and multidisciplinary perspectives.
Starting at 12 noon, during the Open Day, the public will be able to visit the most representative spaces in the Romanian Academy headquarters - the Academy Hall, the Academicians' Club, the Memorial Museum - and will benefit from a guided tour of the Romanian Academy Library.
During the festive day, a meeting of the leaders of the Romanian Academy and the Academy of Sciences of Moldova will take place online.
Chronological milestones
The Romanian Academy, the supreme forum for consecration in Romanian culture and science, has its birth certificate in the Decree of the Princely Lieutenant of April 1/13, 1866, by which the Romanian Literary Society was established in Bucharest, having as its first tasks the establishment of the orthography of the Romanian language, the elaboration and publication of the dictionary and grammar of the Romanian language.
The society was initially composed of 21 members elected from all the Romanian provinces (three from Moldavia, four from Muntenia, three from Transylvania, two each from Banat, Maramureş and Bucovina, three from Bessarabia and two from Macedonia).
A year later, in August 1867, the Romanian Literary Society was established as the Romanian Academic Society, with the aim of "working to advance letters and sciences among Romanians" and to include three sections: literary-philological, historical-archaeological and natural sciences.
In a third stage, on March 29/April 10, 1879, the law was promulgated that declared the Romanian Academic Society a National Institute, now known as the Romanian Academy.
Article 2 established the ideals of the institution: "The culture of the national language and history, of literature, of sciences and of the fine arts".
Since 1990, the Romanian Academy has had 14 sections, covering fields such as: literature, linguistics, history, philosophy, psychology, theology, pedagogy, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, geonomic sciences, technical sciences, information science and technology, agronomy, medicine, economic and legal sciences, sociology, arts, and architecture. By law and statute, the Romanian Academy has a maximum number of 181 full and corresponding members and 135 honorary members, of which at most 40 are from the country.
The Praesidium of the Romanian Academy decided, on April 4, 2000, that the Romanian Academy Day would be celebrated every year on this date.
The Romanian Academy Communication Office