acatech is organized as a working academy that advises politicians and the public on forward-looking issues concerning the technical sciences and technology politics.

The academy sees itself as an institution that provides neutral, fact and science-based assessments of technology-related questions and serves society with far-sighted recommendations of excellent quality.

To further the acceptance of technical progress in Germany and demonstrate the potential of forward-looking technologies for the economy and for society, acatech organizes symposia, forums, panel discussions and workshops.

acatech, whose name stands for the combination of academia and technology, is made up of three bodies: General Assembly, Executive Board and Senate.

The Executive Board represents acatech and defines the guidelines for the contents of the work undertaken by members in project groups and topical networks.

Its members are CEOs and chairmen of major technological corporations, presidents of the main science organizations in Germany, such as the Fraunhofer Society, the German Research Foundation (DFG), the Leibniz-Gemeinschaft and representatives from politics.

The chairman of the Board of Trustees is Prof. Dr. Henning Kagermann, Global Representative and Advisor of the Plattform Industrie 4.0 and former Chief Executive Officer of SAP AG.

The reports are of the form of studies developed by interdisciplinary working groups in projects lasting one or several years and resulting in specific recommendations for action.

Apart from these series, acatech publishes an Annual Report, each spring, documenting the main activities and events of the past year.

However, in contrast to other European countries, e.g. the United Kingdom with its “Royal Society”, France with the “Académie des Sciences” or Sweden with the “Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences”, the idea of national academies, generally, did not come to fruition in Germany for a long time.

The first important step towards an integrated representation of the technical sciences was made only after years of discussion, on 21 November 1997.

The Convent decided to operate the snappy short name, “akatech”, which, in view of the international context of its functions, was subsequently changed into “acatech”.

On 23 April 2007, the BLK issued the recommendation to the “heads of government of the Bund and the Länder to implement an amendment to the framework agreement for research funding”.