The Royal Society of Arts and Sciences of Uppsala promotes research in the disciplinary domains at Uppsala University and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. It does so by arranging lectures and discussions, publishing scholarly works and awarding prizes. Interdisciplinary contacts, along with an endeavour to involve young academics, give the Society its distinctive character. Members are not divided into separate sections according to their fields of research. The rules of the society expressly stipulate that at least half the new members elected are to be researchers at the beginning of their career.
The Society consists of 36 Swedish working members, 24 Swedish and 24 foreign corresponding members, and permanent and honorary members. After a maximum of 12 years, a working member is transferred to permanent membership.
At regular meetings of the Society, one of its members, often recently elected, gives a lecture.
Special meetings are also held, at which topics of current interest are discussed.
Every year the Society awards a prize for outstanding work either of interdisciplinary nature or within popular science. Considerable sums are also made available each year in support of members` international contacts.
Thanks to a generous donation from the nurse Margit Bäxell, the Society is able to support medical research and to award an annual postgraduate scholarship to a young student of medicine.
In the series Acta Academiæ Regiæ Scientiarum Upsaliensis, a total of more than 20 volumes are appeared. The Society also publishes a yearbook, Annales, featuring the inaugural lectures of new members and other articles reflecting the breadth of the Society’s interests.