Polish Academy of Sciences

The Polish Academy of Sciences, headquartered in Warsaw, is one of two Polish institutions having the nature of an academy of sciences. The Polish Academy of Sciences (Polish: Polska Akademia Nauk, abbreviated PAN) is a Polish state learned institution, headquartered in Warsaw, that was established in 1952 by the merger of earlier learned societies, including the Polish Academy of Learning (Polska Akademia Umiejętności, abbreviated PAU), with its seat in Kraków, and the Warsaw Society of Friends of Learning, which had been founded in the late 18th century. The Polish Academy of Sciences functions as a learned society acting through an elected corporation of leading scholars and research institutions. The Academy has also, operating through its committees, become a major scientific advisory body. Another aspect of the Academy is its coordination and overseeing of numerous (several dozens) of research institutes. PAN institutes employ over 2,000 people, and are funded by about a third of the Polish government's budget for science. In 1989, the Polish Academy of Learning, in Kraków, resumed its independent existence, separate from the Polish Academy of Sciences, in Warsaw.