The Institut de France is a French learned society, grouping five académies, including the prestigious Académie Française, which defends the French language. The Institut was established in 1795 at the direction of the National Convention. Located on the Quai de Conti in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, the institute manages approximately 1,000 foundations, as well as museums and châteaux open for visit. It also awards prizes and subsidies, which amounted to a total of over €27 million per year in 2017. Most of these prizes are awarded by the institute on the recommendation of the académies.
The Institut de France – with the five Academies which work there in all fields of knowledge and the arts – pursues the mission assigned to it in 1795: “to contribute on a non-profit basis to the improvement and influence of letters, sciences and arts, and award rewards to useful inventions and discoveries, to distinguished successes in the arts, to fine deeds and to the constant practice of domestic and social virtues.”
