Annual Report for the Fiscal Year July 1, 1980- June 30, 1981

The Institute for Advanced Study: Background and Purpose
The Institute takes the following premises on the
nature of learning as fundamental: most important
work is the product of the disciplined and creative
individual mind; accordingly, the individual scholar
must be responsible for how he uses the precious
resources of his own time and energy; the com-
munity of peers in his area of intellectual work is
the ultimate judge of the results. (From Procedures
FOR Academic Governance of the
Institute.)
The Institute for Advanced Study, an independent,
private institution devoted to the
encouragement, support and patronage of
learning, was founded in 1930 as a community
of scholars where intellectual inquiry could
be carried out in the most favorable circum-
stances. Focused on mathematics and classi-
cal studies at the outset, the Institute today
consists of the School of Historical Studies,
the School of Mathematics, the School of Nat-
ural Sciences and the School of Social Science.
Each School has a small permanent Faculty,
and some 160 fellowships are awarded an-
nually to visiting members from other re-
search institutions and universities through-
out the world.
The objectives of the Institute were de-
scribed as follows in the Founders' original
letter to the first Trustees: "The primary purpose
is the pursuit of advanced learning and
exploration in the fields of pure science and
high scholarship to the utmost degree that the
facilities of the institution and the ability of
the faculty and students will permit." During
the past half-century, these goals have been
implemented by a Faculty of exceptional merit;
by an annually renewed group of carefully
selected visiting members; and by the development
of facilities and a mode of operation
designed specifically to support and assist the
Institute's intellectual purposes in every way
possible.
Although the Institute is small when measured
in terms of the size of its immediate academic
community or of its operating budget,
its intellectual weight is great and its influence
on science and scholarship extraordinary. From
its earliest years, it has been internationally
recognized as one of the world's leading cen-
ters of research. Indeed, its successful example
has created numerous imitators both
in the United States and abroad.
From the beginning the Institute has been
an international organization, although
American in location and organizational form.
It has operated throughout its existence on
the premise that science and learning transcend
national boundaries and that scholars
and scientists are members of one commonwealth
of the mind. Of the present Faculty,
many have begun their scientific and scholarly
careers outside the United States. Onethird
of the visiting members come from
abroad, mostly from the great centers of
learning of western Europe and, to a lesser
extent, from other regions of the world.
With its devotion to the continuing exam-
ination of new and centrally important questions
as they arise at the frontiers of knowl-
edge, the Institute partakes of the character
of both a university and a research institute,
while differing in significant ways from both.
It is unlike a university, for instance, in its
small size—its academic membership an-
nually numbers somewhat under 200—and in
the fact that it has no formal curriculum, no
scheduled courses of instruction, no commitment
that all branches of learning be represented
in its Faculty and members. It is unlike
the usual research institute in that it supports
many separate fields of study, maintains no
laboratories and determines its programs in