The European initiative was initiated by the German National Academy Leopoldina based in Halle, Germany in 2019. The initiative investigates the history of learned societies and academies from three perspectives – the international and interactive, the comparative and the contextual and directs its man focus on “Academies and Politics. The Cold War and beyond”. Affiliates of so far 7 European national academies have agreed to conduct workshops on a specific subject fitting the main topic. In May 2021 the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei made the start.

• 3. Workshop in Vienna (May 2023), organized by Johannes Feichtinger at the Austrian Academy of Sciences on Developing Science Policy in occupied and liberated Europe, ca. 1930s–1960s
• 2. Workshop in Stockholm (June 2022), organized by Karl Grandin at the Royal Academy of Sciences on Neutral Science and the Cold War
• 1. Workshop in Rome (May 2021), organized by Giovanni Paolini at the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei on the history of European academies in the 20th century: State of the art and institutional issues