The Austrian Academy of Sciences (German: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften; ÖAW) is a legal entity under the special protection of the Republic of Austria.

[citation needed] The academy is also a learned society, and its past members have included Theodor Billroth, Ludwig Boltzmann, Christian Doppler, Anton Eiselsberg, Otto Hittmair, Paul Kretschmer, Hans Horst Meyer, Albert Anton von Muchar, Julius von Schlosser, Roland Scholl, Eduard Suess and the Nobel Prize winners Julius Wagner-Jauregg, Victor Francis Hess, Erwin Schrödinger and Konrad Lorenz.

During his term as president of the academy (1991–2003), Werner Welzig initiated the establishment of the Galerie der Forschung (English: Gallery of Research).

[6] In 2005 the Gallery organised its pilot event "Mapping controversies: the case of the genetically modified food",[7] which was staged in the Alte Aula in Vienna.

Other publications are the Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum and eco.mont – Journal on Protected Mountain Areas Research and Management.