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Russian Academy of Sciences

academy of sciences

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 1, 2026
Entity authorityQ83172 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; Russian: Росси́йская акаде́мия нау́к, РАН, romanized: Rossiyskaya akademiya nauk, RAN) consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation; and additional scientific and social units such as libraries, publishing units, and hospitals. Peter the Great established the academy (then the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences) in 1724 with guidance from Gottfried Leibniz.

From its establishment, the academy benefited from a slate of foreign scholars as professors; the academy then gained its first clear set of goals from the 1747 Charter. The academy functioned as a university and research center throughout the mid-18th century until the university was dissolved, leaving research as the main pillar of the institution. The rest of the 18th century continuing on through the 19th century consisted of many published academic works from Academy scholars and a few Academy name changes, ending as The Imperial Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences right before the Soviet period.

Now headquartered in Moscow, the academy (RAS) is a non-profit organization established in the form of a federal state budgetary institution chartered by the Government of Russia. In 2013, the Russian government restructured RAS, assigning control of its property and research institutes to a new government agency headed by Mikhail Kotyukov. As of November 2017, the academy included 1,008 institutions and other units; in total, about 125,000 people were employed of whom 47,000 were scientific researchers.

Membership

There are three types of membership in the RAS: full members (academicians), corresponding members, and foreign members.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Russian Academy of Sciences” as academy of sciences. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1724, 1747, 2013, 2017—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1724-02-08. The account is most persuasive where Russian, Academy and Sciences can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as academy of sciences. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q83172. VIAF identifies the subject as 157037807. The Library of Congress control number is n81147418. Authority coordinates are 55.711, 37.578. 2 of 6 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1724, 1747, 2013 and 2017.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Russian Academy of Sciences”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Russian Academy of Sciences primary sources, Russian Academy of Sciences archive and Russian research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Russian Academy of Sciences” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.