
It was created in 2004 to stimulate a dialogue on IAS practices and possible forms of cooperation. Within the whole network, more than 500 researchers are hosted every year for up to one full academic year. NetIAS members share the objective of creating international and multidisciplinary learning communities. This openness and the freedom the fellows enjoy for their researches serve to promote scientific and intellectual exchanges. The fellows are released from their usual teaching and research obligations and pursue their project in a privileged environment, that stimulates reflexion and innovation. IAS tend to break from the intellectual routines, thus fostering the emergence of new perspectives, approaches and paradigms.

While sharing a common vision concerning the freedom of research, and representing an alternative to the national institutions of higher education and research, the IAS offer a considerable diversity in terms of fellowship conditions: individual or collective fellowships; invitations or open calls for applications; one academic year residencies or shorter periods. Furthermore, their scientific policies are characterized by different thematic or geographical orientations, a diverse openness to natural and hard sciences, or a special commitment to promoting early career researchers.
Presidents
Since 2021: Søren Rud Keiding
2018-2021: Nadia Al-Bagdadi, Director of IAS CEU and Professor at the Department of History at CEU.
2017-2018: Michal Linial, Director of IIAS Jerusalem, Director of The Sudarsky Center for Computational Biology, Department of Biological Chemistry, Institute of Life Sciences of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
2015-2016: Simon Goldhill, Director of CRASSH, Professor in Greek Literature and Culture and Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge.
2010-2013: Krzysztof Michalski, Rector of the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen (†)
2004-2010: Wim Blockmans, Rector of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study – Wassenaar.
Secretaries
Since 2009: Olivier Bouin, Director of the foundation Réseau français des instituts d’études avancées – Paris.
2004-2009: Joachim Nettelbeck, Secretary of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin.