The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a non-profit organization in the United States. Members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine". As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Election to the National Academy is one of the high honors in U.S. science.
The National Academy of Sciences is part of the National Academies, which also includes:
National Academy of Engineering (NAE)
Institute of Medicine (IOM)
National Research Council (NRC)
The group holds a congressional charter under Title 36 of the United States Code.
The Act of Incorporation, signed by President Abraham Lincoln on March 3, 1863, created the National Academy of Sciences and named 50 charter members. Many of the original NAS members came from the so-called "Scientific Lazzaroni", an informal network of mostly physical scientists working in the vicinity of Cambridge, Massachusetts (c. 1850).
In 1863, enlisting the support of Alexander Dallas Bache and Charles Henry Davis, a professional astronomer recently recalled from the Navy to Washington to head the Bureau of Navigation, Louis Agassiz and Benjamin Peirce planned the steps whereby the National Academy of Sciences was to be established. Senator Henry Wilson of Massachusetts was to name Agassiz to the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian.
Agassiz was to come to Washington at the government's expense to plan the organization with the others. This bypassed Joseph Henry, who was reluctant to have a bill for such an academy presented to Congress. This was in the belief that such a resolution would be "opposed as something at variance with our democratic institutions". Nevertheless, Henry soon became the second President of NAS. Agassiz, Davis, Peirce, Benjamin Gould, and Senator Wilson met at Bache's house and "hurriedly wrote the bill incorporating the Academy, including in it the name of fifty incorporators".
During the last hours of the session, when the Senate was immersed in the rush of last minute business before its adjournment, Senator Wilson introduced the bill. Without examining it or debating its provisions, both the Senate and House approved it, and President Lincoln signed it.
Although hailed as a great step forward in government recognition of the role of science in American civilization, the National Academy of Sciences at the time created enormous ill-feelings among scientists,whether or not they were named as incorporators. Later, Agassiz admitted that they had "started on the wrong track".
The Act states:
The Academy shall, whenever called upon by any department of the Government, investigate, examine, experiment, and report upon any subject of science or art, the actual expense of such investigations, examinations, experiments, and reports to be paid from appropriations which may be made for the purpose, but the Academy shall receive no compensation whatever for any services to the Government of the United States.
—An Act to Incorporate the National Academy of Sciences,
The National Academy did not solve the problems facing a nation in Civil War as the Lazzaroni had hoped, nor did it centralize American scientific efforts.
As of 2013, the National Academy of Sciences includes about 2,200 members and 400 foreign associates. It employed about 1,100 staff in 2005. The current members annually elect new members for life. Nearly 200 members have won a Nobel Prize.
The National Academy of Sciences is a member of the International Council for Science (ICSU). The ICSU Advisory Committee, which is in the Research Council's Office of International Affairs, facilitates participation of members in international scientific unions and is a liaison for U.S. national committees for the individual scientific unions. Although there is no formal relationship with state and local academies of science, there often is informal dialogue.
The National Academy of Sciences meets annually in Washington, D.C., documented in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, its scholarly journal. The National Academies Press is the publisher for the National Academies, and makes more than 3,600 publications freely available on its website.
There are several books on the National Academy of Sciences and the advice the National Research Council gives the U.S. government, including a critical piece of journalism The Brain Bank of America by Philip Boffey and a sociological study Science on Stage: Expert Advice as Public Drama.
Since 2004, the National Academy of Sciences has administered the Marian Koshland Science Museum, to provide public exhibits and programming related to its policy work. The museum's current exhibits focus on climate change and infectious disease.
Since June 2011, the NAS made a digital copy of most books and reports published by the National Academies Press available for free at their website. The catalog includes more than 4,000 works
The National Academy of Sciences maintains multiple buildings around the United States.
The historic National Academy of Sciences building is located at 2101 Constitution Avenue, in northwest Washington, DC; it sits on the National Mall, adjacent to the Federal Reserve and in front of the State Department. This neoclassical building was dedicated in 1924 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The building is used for lectures, symposia, exhibitions, and concerts, in addition to annual meetings of the NAS, NAE, and IOM. Approximately 150 staff members work at the NAS Building. In June 2012, it reopened to visitors after a major two-year restoration project which restored and improved the building’s historic spaces, increased accessibility, and brought the building's aging infrastructure and facilities up to date.