Munich

Belgian scientists are on a collision course with their government over plans to evict the country's science academies from their home in central Brussels.

The Palace of the Academies, built in the 1820s and considered an outstanding example of the architecture of the time, houses the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts (KVAB) and its French-speaking equivalent, the Royal Academy of Science, Literature and Arts of Belgium.

Members of the academies first discovered the government's plan to take back their building in July. “We got the news from a television report,” says Niceas Schamp, an organic chemist at Ghent University and permanent secretary of the KVAB. “There was no warning, nobody was informed and no consultations were held with the management of the academies.”

The KVAB is currently attempting to convince the government to abandon its plan. A statement drafted last month, calling on Patrick Dewael, prime minister of the regional government of Flanders, to oppose the move, has received 900 signatures, mainly from academy members.

Schamp says the threatened move would be a “humiliating loss of status” to his organization. The palace currently serves as a meeting and working place for eminent scientists and artists.