Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences

The Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences or Polish Academy of Learning (Polish: Polska Akademia Umiejętności, PAU), headquartered in Kraków and founded in 1872, is one of two institutions in contemporary Poland having the nature of an academy of sciences (the other being the Polish Academy of Sciences, headquartered in Warsaw).

The Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences is co-owner of the Polish Library in Paris.

The Academy traces its origins to Academy of Learning founded in 1871, itself a result of the transformation of the Kraków Learned Society [pl], in existence since 1815. Though formally limited to the Austrian Partition, the Academy served from the beginning as a learned and cultural society for the entire Polish nation. Its activities extended beyond the boundaries of the Austrian Partition, gathering scholars from all of Poland, and many other countries as well. Some indication of how the Academy's influence extended beyond the boundaries of the Partitions came in 1893, when the collection of the Polish Library in Paris, the largest collection of Polish materials amassed by the Great Emigration, was transferred to the ownership of the Academy, and a branch was founded in Paris, though this latter step had been preceded by the establishment of the Rome Expedition (annual trips to Roman archives).

After World War I, the Academy was renamed "Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences" (PAU), and became the official representative of Polish learning, which entailed its participation in works of international learned organizations. Among other things, the PAU was a founder member of the Union Académique Internationale (UAI). The period between the world wars was the time of greatest activity at the PAU, especially in the sphere of publications: over 100 publication series were then in print, among them the monumental Polish Biographical Dictionary (Polski Słownik Biograficzny). It was also in this period that the Scientific Station in Rome replaced the Rome Expedition.

The PAU was initially organized into four sections:

In 1942 a successor body of the Polish Academy of Learning, the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences, was established in New York City by Bronisław Malinowski, Oskar Halecki and other scholars associated with the Academy, which had been forcibly closed down by the occupying Germans. Following the collapse of communism in Poland, the Polish Academy of Learning was revived and became affiliated with the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America (as the latter had meanwhile been renamed).

After the German Occupation, the PAU continued its activities in the same fields until 1952, when the authorities decided to take over its agencies and assets on behalf of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, which was then being established. The PAU was never formally dissolved, however, and after two unsuccessful attempts at its reactivation in the years 1956–57 and 1980–81, it was finally able to resume activities in the immediate aftermath of the transformations of 1989.

Among the honorary members of the PAU were: