Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences (ANAS) (), located in Baku, is the main state research organization and the primary body that conducts research and coordinates activities in the fields of science and social sciences in Azerbaijan. It was established on 23 January 1945. The President of ANAS is Acad. Ramiz Mehdiyev. One section of the ANAS is Republican Seismic Survey Center of Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences. History The Academy was based on the Azerbaijan Society for Scientific Research and Studies, which was first affiliated with Baku State University and later with the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1923 the Azerbaijan Society for Researches and Studies that included history, ethnography, economics, and natural sciences, was established as the leading scientific institution of Azerbaijan by the initiative of Nariman Narimanov. In 1929 the Society was reorganized into Azerbaijan State Scientific Research Institute (ASSRI). ASSRI were coordinating scientific research works, and training scientific cadres for specialized high and secondary schools. In 1932, the Azerbaijani Branch of the Transcaucasian Affiliate of the USSR Academy of Sciences, consisting of 11 divisions and several committees, was organized on the basis of ASSRI. The head of the Branch was A. Ruhulla. Famous Russian scientists such as Ivan Gubkin, Alexander Grossheim, I. Meshshaninov, Iosif Yesman, and Azerbaijani scholars such as Bakir Chobanzadeh, Musa Afandiyev, Veli Khuluflu, A. Mammadov, Salman Mumtaz, A. Taghizadeh, etc. conducted scientific researches here. In 1935, Azerbaijani Branch of the Transcaucasian Affiliate of the USSR Academy of Sciences was reorganized into the Azerbaijani Affiliate of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Chemical, Botany, Zoology, History, Ethnography and Archeology, Language and Literature research institutions, as well as the Divisions of Energy, Physics, Geology, and Soil Science were established on the base of the existing departments of the Branch. In 1945, the USSR Council of People's Commissars ordered the society to be reorganized into the Academy of Sciences of the Azerbaijan SSR. During its first year, the Academy numbered 15 members; Uzeyir Hajibeyov and Samad Vurgun among them. In accord with the presidential decree (May 15, 2001), the Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences was granted the status of the "National Academy of Sciences" (ANAS), after 2 years ANAS was given the status of the supreme state body carrying out the scientific and scientific-technical policy of Azerbaijan. Its Charter was granted the state document. Following the presidential decrees dated January 12, 2004, and 5 May 2004, the