After the death of Nikola Tesla, an American court, in January 1943, awarded custody of his property to Sava Kosanović. the son of Tesla’s youngest sister Marica. Sava Kosanović was a Serbian politician, publicist and diplomat who, at that time, was living in New York as a member of the Royal Yugoslav Government-in-exile.
Following his death, Tesla’s entire property was packed, sealed and handed over to the Office of Alien Property Custodian. His belongings were transferred from the New Yorker Hotel to the Manhattan Warehouse and Storage Co. where some of Tesla’s property was already stored.
On the initiative of Sava Kosanović, all Nikola Tesla’s personal property and writings were shipped to Belgrade, where Kosanović subsequently presented them to the state. Packed in sixty packages, suitcases, metal trunks and barrels, the legacy of Nikola Tesla arrived on the ship Serbia in the port of Rijeka in September, 1951. The material was then transferred by train to Belgrade, where it was stored in the Belgrade University Faculty of Electrical Engineering. In June, 1952, it was moved from the Faculty to the Genčić Villa at 51 Proleterskih Brigada, as the street was then known. That address is now the Museum.
On the basis of Article 80, Paragraph 2, of the Yugoslav Constitution, and at the proposal of the Government Council for Science and Culture, the Yugoslav Government, on December 5, 1952, resolved to establish the Nikola Tesla Museum. This resolution was signed by Josip “Tito” Broz, and published in the Official Gazette no. 59, on December 10 that year. The same year, Veljko Korać, a professor of the Belgrade University Faculty of Philosophy, was appointed the founding director.
The Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade was opened to the public on October 20, 1955. It was the first technical museum in Yugoslavia. The opening presented the permanent exhibition, which gave visitors the opportunity to see models built accurately according to Tesla’s drawings.
The museological work of the Nikola Tesla Museum may be seen as beginning in 1957, when the urn received by the Museum went on display as a permanent exhibit. On October 9, 1969, the city of Belgrade took over the founding rights, based on the agreement concluded between the city of Belgrade and the Federation. On May 21, 2020, at the proposal of the Ministry of Culture and Information, the Government of the Republic of Serbia adopted the Decision on taking over the founding rights of the Nikola Tesla Museum (number 022-3929/2020). The City of Belgrade transferred all founding rights, obligations and responsibilities to the Republic of Serbia free of charge, and the Nikola Tesla Museum received the status of a republican cultural institution.
The museological work of the Nikola Tesla Museum may be seen as beginning in 1957, when the urn received by the Museum went on display as a The Nikola Tesla Museum is today, by any criteria, a scientific and cultural institution which is unique in Serbia and the world. It is the only museum preserving the original and personal legacy of Nikola Tesla. Its holdings include the following exceptionally valuable collections:
More than 160,000 original documents
More than 2,000 books and periodicals
More than 1,200 historical and technical exhibits
More than 1,500 photographs and glass photographic plates of original technical items, instruments and devices
The Legal Affairs category contains various documents connected with the activity of Tesla’s companies (Tesla Company, Nikola Tesla Company, Tesla Electric Company, Tesla Electric and Manufacturing Company, Tesla Electrotherapeutic Company, and Tesla Household Appliance Corporation) from the period from 1889 to 1935. Under this classification are personal tax, taxes and fees in Tesla’s name, workers’ tax declarations, correspondence about taxes, check stubs, notes on recording of vouchers, notes on accounts, numbered sheets torn from notebooks in which records were kept of payments to various companies and other related documents.
Among the financial documents are a large number of checks and checkbooks (Guaranty Trust Company of New York, The Chase National Bank of the City of New York, the Chatham National Bank, The Harriman National Bank) as well as the accounts kept with them. Also in this category are accounts from the hotels in which Tesla lived, money orders and similar documents. Some of these documents are:
A copy of the contract between the Westinghouse Electric Company and Nikola Tesla. On the back of the contract is written in black ink: “S.N. Kosanović, Tesla’s first contract with Westinghouse received from…” The contract was drawn up on July 27, 1889, and signed on August 2, 1889.
A draft of an agreement between J.P. Morgan and Nikola Tesla as president of the Nikola Tesla Company for the transfer of shares from March, 1906.
A draft of the founding document for the Tesla Electric and Manufacturing Company with the issuing of shares in the company.
Minutes of meetings of the Board of the Tesla Company Inc. Draft minutes from meetings of the Tesla Company Inc.: The draft minutes of the meetings of this company include: the first meeting of the directors, minutes from the meeting of the Board and minutes from shareholder meetings.
A list of shares of the Nikola Tesla Company.
A statement from Nikola Tesla concerning the sale of 500 shares of the Nikola Tesla Company to John Jacob Astor, January 10, 1899.
List of shareholders of the Nikola Tesla Company: John Jacob Astor, Edward Adams, William Crawford and Ernest Hopkinson.
Certificate of incorporation of the Tesla Company Inc., dated July 21, 1916.
Financial report of the Nikola Tesla Company, dated August 30, 1916.
Various contracts between Nikola Tesla or his companies and third parties on the use, protection or transfer of rights to some of Tesla’s registered patents.
Licenses – Signed authorizations through which some of Tesla’s companies assigned the use of Tesla’s patents to some other company or individual.
Litigation or Declarations signed in court – these documents are connected to various claims, contractual obligations or business of Tesla’s companies.
Although Nikola Tesla began his inventing work at the beginning of the 1880s, in the period from 1881 to 1882 while he was working for the Central Telegraph Office in Budapest, there is no information of him attempting to obtain a patent for any of his inventions. He applied for his first patent, for an electric arc lamp, after his arrival in the USA on March 30, 1885, immediately after leaving Edison’s company and founding his own one “Tesla Electric Light and Manufacturing”. Over the next 43 years, up to 1928, Nikola Tesla protected many of his inventions with patents. The first was US patent no. 334,823 for a commutator for dynamo electric machines and the last US patent no. 1,655,114 for an apparatus for aerial transport.
Tesla held a total of 112 registered US patents, while the total of Tesla’s patents in other countries has not yet been definitively determined. To date, 199 patents held by Tesla have been identified from another 26 countries, apart from the US. The largest number of these patents (30) were granted in France. Patents were also held in the United Kingdom (29), Belgium (27), Germany (21), Italy (19) and Austria (16) with other countries granting between one and seven patents. Thus Tesla held a total of at least 311 patents from 27 different countries on five continents. However, many of these patents related to the same inventions.
The reason for the same invention being protected by several patents in various countries is the limited territory of patents, which means that they are valid only in the state in which they are granted. The collection of patents which protect the same invention in various countries is known as the patent family and these patents are known as equivalent patents. The first patent registered is known as the basic patent.
Analysis and comparison of Tesla’s patents has established that he was granted 116 basic patents for his inventions, 119 in the US and 7 in the UK, protecting a total of 125 inventions. The remaining 195 patents are equivalents of these basic patents. The inventions that Tesla protected in the largest number of countries were his pump and turbine (US patents 1,061,142 and 1,061,206), for which he was granted 23 patents in 22 countries. In contrast to this, 54 patents granted to Tesla in the US do not have equivalents in other countries. The greatest number of patent applications submitted by Tesla was in 1889, a total of 37 applications relating to his polyphase system.
The Archives of the Nikola Tesla Museum hold records of around 33 failed American patent applications, as well as patent applications which Tesla prepared but did not submit. Tesla also created a significant number of inventions for which he did not attempt to secure patent protection, such as the application of high frequency current for medical purposes.
Tesla’s transformers also produce electromagnetic waves, or signals. He used these signals to make the first remote control device – a remote control ship. Tesla’s work on remote control was first shown to the public in 1898. It is one of Tesla’s most important and protected patents and, together with its four-circuit resonance system, forms the basis of wireless communication.
Fountain
Another invention that Tesla developed out of necessity, trying to resolve his financial difficulties, was a fountain. In 1914 he protected the invention of fountain whose functioning was based on a great water mass circulation. He was trying to establish a business cooperation with Louis Tiffany, a famous jeweler and inventor of a special vitrage-making technique.
Long Island Laboratory
After the experiments in Colorado Springs, Tesla’s perspective was changed. The realization that information and energy can be made available at every point on the planet gave birth to exciting performances one after the other. All that was needed was to prove to the world the possibility of wireless energy transmission. He was able to gain interest in his project by one of the biggest financiers, John Pierpont Morgan, to whom he outlined that part of his plan relating to overseas wireless communications. He remained silent that his main goal was wireless power transmission.
In early 1901, a contract was made and Tesla received funding from Morgan to build his transatlantic messaging system. In Shoreham, Long Island, he purchased a 120-acre piece of land called Wardenclyffe and began construction of the laboratory and its giant oscillator. Tesla ordered strict secrecy, and apart from him no other person knew what exactly was being built and what the final purpose of the project was. Thanks to the patent “Electricity Transmission Device”, which he submitted in 1902 and was granted only in 1914, today some details of the technical realization of his idea are known. The essence of the construction of the new transmitter was its alignment with the electrical properties of the planet. He also came up with a new name for this device: Magnifying Transmitter.
At the end of 1901, Guglielmo Marconi was able to transmit a signal across the Atlantic. The event surprised the entire scientific world, including Tesla himself. Tesla knew that with his patent-pending devices Marconi could not perform such a feat, and he suspected him of using his apparatus. Primarily, the event, as well as economic circumstances, influenced the disruption of Morgan and Tesla’s communication and the continued funding of Tesla’s project. In addition to the funds he received from Morgan, Tesla also invested a large amount of its own money and, by shutting down the project, experienced a complete financial ruin. In the fall of 1906, Wardenclyffe was completely abandoned. In 1917, the 87-meter high Tesla tower on Long Island was demolished.
Induction Motors
One of the most important and well-known inventions of Nikola Tesla is the induction motor, which represents the beginning of the second industrial revolution and the cornerstone of the whole system of production, transmission and consumption of electricity used to this day. He built his first induction motor Tesla in 1883, and in 1888 Tesla was granted by the United States Patent Office all seven patents in the field of polyphase systems, covering basic models of induction motor in two-phase and three-phase construction, as well as two-phase and three-phase generators.
Colorado Springs Laboratory
The conditions that Nikola Tesla had in his lab on Houston Street no longer met his plans to build extremely high voltage oscillators, so he accepted an invitation from his friend and lawyer Leonard Curtis to go to Colorado Springs, where he was offered a free location for a new lab and electricity for powering his transformers.
He arrived in Colorado Springs on May 18, 1899. According to his instructions, a laboratory was built in two weeks – a simple wooden shed with two windows and a large door above which he inscribed a quote from Dante’s “Divine Comedy”: You who enter here leave all hope.
Tesla spent nearly a year in Colorado, doing continuous research. He made some of the most significant discoveries, and certainly one of them is the stationary waves of planet Earth, “which showed that the entire planet we live on, despite its incomprehensible size, can be made to respond by flickering in the quietest whisper of the human voice.”In addition to the large amount of notes in the research diary, it was never exactly known what Tesla had discovered in Colorado. In patents he later applied for and in numerous articles and interviews, he presented the basic idea, explained the technical and technological realization, but also gave a lot of confusing details. He claimed that, based on the discovery of stationary waves, he determined those basic electrical properties of planet Earth that he needed to adjust his oscillator with an additional coil so that the two systems, the oscillator and the Earth, could enter into resonant oscillation. He also claimed to have been able to generate a powerful current that toured the Earth, and wirelessly transmitted energy sufficient to light 200 light bulbs.
As part of Tesla’s legacy, there also arrived from America perhaps the most valuable part of the library collection – press clippings. While the books and magazines owned by Nikola Tesla allow us to assess his interests in the field of science and his literary taste, the clipping give us insight into the social context and the kind of response he received, both from the public and in professional circles.
The collection of press clippings and newspapers from the personal legacy of Nikola Tesla consists of bound and unbound clippings, pages from newspapers with articles marked for clipping, unannotated pages and entire issues of newspapers.
The bound clippings are in 57 individual albums and it is estimated that there are more than 20,000 of them. An original record of these is kept in a card index according to subject. Tesla instructed his associates and secretaries to clip articles from periodicals, most of which dealt with his work and activity in Europe and the USA. The articles are primarily classified by subject (energy, electrochemistry, teleautomatics, X-rays etc.) and, within that, chronologically. Every article is annotated by hand with the source of the clipping. Detailed inspection of this material has established that Nikola Tesla also engaged a specialized press clipping service.
As well as articles relating to Nikola Tesla, here may also be found research on other scientists and inventors who were working in the same fields of science and technology.
The methodical way in which these articles are classified bears witness to Tesla’s great devotion to, and skill at, collecting and utilizing information. If we also include all other sources of collecting and exchanging information, it becomes clear that Nikola Tesla created an analog version of what today we call the Internet. That is to say he had his own organized network of information which was indexed, described and arranged in an appropriate place within the entire system of his sources.
As well as containing unique information about Tesla’s life and work, these articles also reflect the social and scientific climate in which Tesla conducted research. For any historian of science, they are an essential source of information about events in science and technology at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, all available in one place.
A special collection – the Personal Collection of Nikola Tesla – contains monographs and periodicals from Tesla’s legacy and many loosely bound press clippings. Because of their exceptional importance, they are treated as a special section of this collection (Tesla’s Press Clippings).
Nikola Tesla’s personal library consists of 975 titles (in 1,172 copies), monographs (books) and 2,435 individual issues of 347 periodical titles (magazines and news-papers).
Text search of Inventory and of Correspondents Index can be delivered via e-mail to the interested user.
Request for delivery of Inventory text can be sent to: info@tesla-museum.org. Instructions for viewing documents in the Museum electronic reading room and for publication of the material users can request via the via the above mentioned e-mail.
In 2003, in recognition of the universal significance of Nikola Tesla and his inventions, UNESCO added Tesla’s archive, as part of the moveable human documentary heritage, to the Memory of the World Register, the highest form of protection of cultural assets. On the national level, the Parliament of the Republic of Serbia, in 2005, brought a Resolution declaring the archival material preserved in the Nikola Tesla Museum as the Personal Collection of Nikola Tesla to be cultural material of exceptional significance.
Basic protective measures for any kind of documentary material must include physical protection. In keeping with this, the Museum’s archival materials have been repacked in new folders and boxes, made to the highest standards. Special air-conditioned chambers have been designed and installed for the final disposal and preservation of the archival material, and a conservation and restoration program is ongoing.
One special aspect of protection is the digitalization of documentary material. The process of digitalization produces copies which may be used in place of the originals. The entire collection of the Museum has been digitalized and also microfilmed. This procedure secures the permanence of the material for future generations. The Nikola Tesla Museum, as a complex institution for the protection of cultural materials, embraces the vision of “permanent and universal availability of the documentary legacy” as the goal to which it aspires. In this it shares the lot of many similar institutions in terms of the particular restrictions on access to all parts of the moveable legacy of Nikola Tesla.
UNESCO is governed by the General Conference composed of member states and associate members, which meets biannually to set the agency’s programmes and budget. It also elects members of the executive board, which manages UNESCO’s work, and appoints every four years a Director-General, who serves as UNESCO’s chief administrator.
History
Origins
UNESCO and its mandate for international cooperation can be traced to a League of Nations resolution on 21 September 1921, to elect a commission to study the feasibility of having nations freely share cultural, educational and scientific achievements.[16][17] This new body, the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation (ICIC), was created in 1922[10] and counted such figures as Henri Bergson, Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Robert A. Millikan, and Gonzague de Reynold among its members (being thus a small commission of the League of Nations essentially centred on Western Europe[18]). The International Institute for Intellectual Cooperation (IIIC) was then created in Paris in September 1924, to act as the executing agency for the ICIC.[19] However, the onset of World War II largely interrupted the work of these predecessor organizations.[20] As for private initiatives, the International Bureau of Education (IBE) began to work as a non-governmental organization in the service of international educational development since December 1925[21] and joined UNESCO in 1969, after having established a joint commission in 1952.[22]
Creation
After the signing of the Atlantic Charter and the Declaration of the United Nations, the Conference of Allied Ministers of Education (CAME) began meetings in London which continued from 16 November 1942 to 5 December 1945. On 30 October 1943, the necessity for an international organization was expressed in the Moscow Declaration, agreed upon by China, the United Kingdom, the United States and the USSR. This was followed by the Dumbarton Oaks Conference proposals of 9 October 1944. Upon the proposal of CAME and in accordance with the recommendations of the United Nations Conference on International Organization (UNCIO), held in San Francisco from April to June 1945, a United Nations Conference for the establishment of an educational and cultural organization (ECO/CONF) was convened in London from 1 to 16 November 1945 with forty-four governments represented. The idea of UNESCO was largely developed by Rab Butler, the Minister of Education for the United Kingdom, who had a great deal of influence in its development.[23] At the ECO/CONF, the Constitution of UNESCO was introduced and signed by 37 countries, and a Preparatory Commission was established.[24] The Preparatory Commission operated between 16 November 1945, and 4 November 1946 — the date when UNESCO’s Constitution came into force with the deposit of the twentieth ratification by a member state.[25]
The first General Conference took place from 19 November to 10 December 1946, and elected Julian Huxley to Director-General.[26] United States Army colonel, university president and civil rights advocate Blake R. Van Leer joined as a member as well.[27] The Constitution was amended in November 1954 when the General Conference resolved that members of the executive board would be representatives of the governments of the States of which they are nationals and would not, as before, act in their personal capacity.[28] This change in governance distinguished UNESCO from its predecessor, the ICIC, in how member states would work together in the organization’s fields of competence. As member states worked together over time to realize UNESCO’s mandate, political and historical factors have shaped the organization’s operations in particular during the Cold War, the decolonization process, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union.[29][30]
In 1955, the Republic of South Africa withdrew from UNESCO saying that some of the organization’s publications amounted to “interference” in the country’s “racial problems”.[32] It rejoined the organization in 1994 under the leadership of Nelson Mandela.[33][34]
One of the early work of UNESCO in the education field was a pilot project on fundamental education in the Marbial Valley, Haiti, which was launched in 1947.[citation needed] Following this project one of expert missions to other countries, included a 1949 mission to Afghanistan.[35] UNESCO recommended in 1948 that Member countries should make free primary education compulsory and universal.[35] The World Conference on Education for All, in Jomtien, Thailand, started a global movement in 1990 to provide basic education for all children, youths and adults.[35] In 2000, World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal, led member governments to commit for achieving basic education for all in 2015.[35]
Arid Zone programming, 1948–1966, is another example of an early major UNESCO project in the field of natural sciences.[45]
In 1968, UNESCO organized the first intergovernmental conference aimed at reconciling the environment and development, a problem that continues to be addressed in the field of sustainable development. The main outcome of the 1968 conference was the creation of UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere Programme.[46]
UNESCO has been credited with the diffusion of national science bureaucracies.[47]
In the field of communication, the “free flow of ideas by word and image” has been in UNESCO’s constitution since it was established, following the experience of the Second World War when control of information was a factor in indoctrinating populations for aggression.[48] In the years immediately following World War II, efforts were concentrated on reconstruction and on the identification of needs for means of mass communication around the world. UNESCO started organizing training and education for journalists in the 1950s.[48] In response to calls for a “New World Information and Communication Order“ in the late 1970s, UNESCO established the International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems,[49] which produced the 1980 MacBride report (named after the chair of the commission, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Seán MacBride).[49] The same year, UNESCO created the International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC), a multilateral forum designed to promote media development in developing countries.[50] In 1993, UNESCO’s General Conference endorsed the Windhoek Declaration on media independence and pluralism, which led the UN General Assembly to declare the date of its adoption, 3 May, as World Press Freedom Day.[51] Since 1997, UNESCO has awarded the UNESCO / Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize every 3 May.[52]
21st century
Changes in States’ memberships
Israel, Palestine, and the United States
In 2011, UNESCO admitted Palestine as a member.[53][54][55]
Laws had passed in the United States after Palestine applied for UNESCO and WHO membership in April 1989[56][57] mean that the United States cannot contribute financially to any UN organization that accepts Palestine as a full member.[58][59] As a result, the United States withdrew its funding, which had accounted for about 22% of UNESCO’s budget.[60] Israel also reacted to Palestine’s admittance to UNESCO by freezing Israeli payments to UNESCO and imposing sanctions on the Palestinian Authority,[61] stating that Palestine’s admittance would be detrimental “to potential peace talks”.[62]
In 2013, two years after stopping payment of its dues to UNESCO, the United States and Israel lost UNESCO voting rights, but without losing the right to be elected; thus, the United States was elected as a member of the executive board for the period from 2016 to 2019.[63] In 2019, Israel left UNESCO after 69 years of membership, with Israel’s ambassador to the UN Danny Danon writing: “UNESCO is the body that continually rewrites history, including by erasing the Jewish connection to Jerusalem... it is corrupted and manipulated by Israel’s enemies... we are not going to be a member of an organization that deliberately acts against us.”[64]
Also in 2023, the United States stated its intent to rejoin UNESCO, five years after leaving, and to pay its US$600 million of back dues.[65] The United States was readmitted by the UNESCO General Conference that July.[66] Three years later, in 2025, however, the United States stated its intent to withdraw again, to be effective as of December 2026.[67]
Russia
In 2023, Russia was not renewed as member of the executive committee for the first time, after failing to get sufficient votes.[68]
Cultural policies and sustainable development
In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and United Nations-wide efforts to achieve the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, the UNESCO reactivated in 2022 the cycle of MONDIACULT Conferences (World Conference on Cultural Policies and Sustainable Development) whose first edition had been held in Mexico City in 1982. The 2022 MONDIACULT conference was held again in Mexico, and a 2025 edition is planned in Barcelona, Spain.
UNESCO implements its activities through five programme areas: education, natural sciences, social and human sciences, culture, and communication and information.[69]
UNESCO supports research in comparative education, provides expertise and fosters partnerships to strengthen national educational leadership and the capacity of countries to offer quality education for all.
UNESCO Chairs, an international network of 644 UNESCO chairs, involving more than 770 institutions in 126 countries
Organization of the International Conference on Adult Education (CONFINTEA) in an interval of 12 years
Publication of the Education for All Global Monitoring Report
Publication of the Four Pillars of Learning seminal document
UNESCO ASPNet, an international network of more than 12,000 schools in 182 countries
UNESCO does not accredit institutions of higher learning.[70]
UNESCO also issues public statements to educate the public:
Seville Statement on Violence: A statement adopted by UNESCO in 1989 to refute the notion that humans are biologically predisposed to organized violence.
Designating projects and places of cultural and scientific significance, such as:
Promoting the safety of journalists and combatting impunity for those who attack them,[76] through coordination of the UN Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity[77]
Generating knowledge through publications such as World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development,[82] the UNESCO Series on Internet Freedom,[83] and the Media Development Indicators,[84] as well as other indicator-based studies.
Criança Esperança in Brazil, in partnership with Rede Globo, to raise funds for community-based projects that foster social integration and violence prevention.[87]
Health Education for Behavior Change programme in partnership with the Ministry of Education of Kenya which was financially supported by the Government of Azerbaijan to promote health education among 10-19-year-old young people who live in informal camp in Kibera, Nairobi. The project was carried out between September 2014 – December 2016.[88]
Migration Museums Initiative: Promoting the establishment of museums for cultural dialogue with migrant populations.[89]
UNESCO-CEPES, the European Centre for Higher Education: established in 1972 in Bucharest, Romania, as a decentralized office to promote international co-operation in higher education in Europe as well as Canada, USA and Israel. Higher Education in Europe is its official journal.
GoUNESCO, an umbrella of initiatives to make heritage fun supported by UNESCO, New Delhi Office[91]
UNESCO-CHIC BIRUP, UNESCO-CHIC Group (China) Biosphere Rural and Urbanization Programme[92]
The UNESCO transparency portal has been designed to enable public access to information regarding the Organization’s activities, such as its aggregate budget for a biennium, as well as links to relevant programmatic and financial documents. These two distinct sets of information are published on the IATI registry, respectively based on the IATI Activity Standard and the IATI Organization Standard.[93]
The second proposed list would focus on the world’s living species.[94][95]
Media
UNESCO and its specialized institutions issue a number of magazines.
Created in 1945, The UNESCO Courier magazine states its mission to “promote UNESCO’s ideals, maintain a platform for the dialogue between cultures and provide a forum for international debate”. Since March 2006 it has been available free online, with limited printed issues. Its articles express the opinions of the authors which are not necessarily the opinions of UNESCO. There was a hiatus in publishing between 2012 and 2017.[96]
In 1950, UNESCO initiated the quarterly review Impact of Science on Society (also known as Impact) to discuss the influence of science on society. The journal ceased publication in 1992.[97]
Official UNESCO NGOs
UNESCO has official relations with 322 international non-governmental organizations (NGOs).[98] Most of these are what UNESCO calls “operational”; a select few are “formal”.[99] The highest form of affiliation to UNESCO is “formal associate”, and the 22 NGOs[100] with formal associate (ASC) relations occupying offices at UNESCO are:
The institutes are specialized departments of the organization that support UNESCO’s programme, providing specialized support for cluster and national offices.
On 4 May 2025, Nicaragua announced its decision to withdraw from UNESCO, effective 31 December 2026.[134][135]
The United States left UNESCO in 1984, rejoined in 2003, left again in 2018, and rejoined in 2023.[65][136][66] On 22 July 2025, the United States informed the Director-General of its decision to withdraw again, effective 31 December 2026.[137][136][138]
Governing bodies
Director-General
As of June 2023, there have been 12 Directors-General of UNESCO since its inception – nine men and two women. The 12 Directors-General of UNESCO have come from seven regions within the organization: West Europe (5), Central America (1), North America (2), West Africa (1), East Asia (1), East Europe (1), Middle East(1).
To date, there has been no elected Director-General from the remaining ten regions within UNESCO: Southeast Asia, South Asia, Central and North Asia, North Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, South Africa, Australia-Oceania, and South America.
The list of the Directors-General of UNESCO since its establishment in 1946 is as follows:[139]
Directors-General of UNESCOOrderImageNameCountryTerm1st
The UNESCO headquarters is located at Place de Fontenoy in Paris, France. Several architects collaborated on the construction of the headquarters, including Bernard Zehrfuss, Marcel Breuer and Luigi Nervi.[150]
Main conference room at UNESCO headquarters (Paris).
It includes a Garden of Peace which was donated by the Government of Japan.[151] This garden was designed by American-Japanese sculptor artist Isamu Noguchi in 1958 and installed by Japanese gardener Toemon Sano. In 1994–1995, in memory of the 50th anniversary of UNESCO, a meditation room was built by Tadao Ando.[152]
UNESCO’s field offices across the globe are categorized into four primary office types based upon their function and geographic coverage: cluster offices, national offices, regional bureaus and liaison offices.
Field offices by region
The following list of all UNESCO Field Offices is organized geographically by UNESCO Region and identifies the members states and associate members of UNESCO which are served by each office.[153]
Venice – Regional Bureau for Sciences and Culture in Europe
Latin America and the Caribbean
Carondelet Palace, Presidential Palace – with changing of the guards. The Historic Center of Quito, Ecuador, is one of the largest, least-altered and best-preserved historic centres in the Americas.[154] This centre was, together with the historic centre of Kraków in Poland, the first to be declared World Heritage Site by UNESCO on 18 September 1978.
UNESCO has been the centre of controversy in the past, particularly in its relationships with the United States, the United Kingdom, Singapore and the former Soviet Union. During the 1970s and 1980s, UNESCO’s support for a “New World Information and Communication Order“ and its MacBride report calling for democratization of the media and more egalitarian access to information was condemned in these countries as attempts to curb freedom of the press. UNESCO was perceived as a platform for communists and Third World dictators to attack the West, in contrast to accusations made by the USSR in the late 1940s and early 1950s.[157] In 1984, the United States withheld its contributions and withdrew from the organization in protest, followed by the United Kingdom in 1985.[158] Singapore withdrew also at the end of 1985, citing rising membership fees.[159] Following a change of government in 1997, the UK rejoined. The United States rejoined in 2003, followed by Singapore on 8 October 2007.[160]
Israel was admitted to UNESCO in 1949, one year after its creation. Israel has maintained its membership since then. In 2010, Israel designated the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron and Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem – both in the West Bank – as National Heritage Sites and announced restoration work, prompting criticism from the Obama administration and protests from Palestinians.[164] In October 2010, UNESCO’s executive board voted to declare the sites as “al-Haram al-Ibrahimi/Tomb of the Patriarchs” and “Bilal bin Rabah Mosque/Rachel’s Tomb” and stated that they were “an integral part of the occupied Palestinian Territories“ and any unilateral Israeli action was a violation of international law.[165] UNESCO described the sites as significant to “people of the Muslim, Christian and Jewish traditions”, and accused Israel of highlighting only the Jewish character of the sites.[166] Israel in turn accused UNESCO of “detach[ing] the Nation of Israel from its heritage”, and accused it of being politically motivated.[167] The Rabbi of the Western Wall said that Rachel’s tomb had not previously been declared a holy Muslim site.[168] Israel partially suspended ties with UNESCO. Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon declared that the resolution was a “part of Palestinian escalation”. Zevulun Orlev, chairman of the Knesset Education and Culture Committee, referred to the resolutions as an attempt to undermine the mission of UNESCO as a scientific and cultural organization that promotes cooperation throughout the world.[169][170]
On 28 June 2011, UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee, at Jordan‘s insistence, censured[clarification needed] Israel’s decision to demolish and rebuild the Mughrabi Gate Bridge in Jerusalem for safety reasons. Israel stated that Jordan had signed an agreement with Israel stipulating that the existing bridge must be dismantled for safety reasons; Jordan disputed the agreement, saying that it was only signed under U.S. pressure. Israel was also unable to address the UNESCO committee over objections from Egypt.[171]
In January 2014, days before it was scheduled to open, UNESCO Director-General, Irina Bokova, “indefinitely postponed” and effectively cancelled an exhibit created by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre entitled “The People, The Book, The Land: The 3,500-year relationship between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel“. The event was scheduled to run from 21 January through 30 January in Paris. Bokova cancelled the event after representatives of Arab states at UNESCO argued that its display would “harm the peace process“.[172] The author of the exhibition, professor Robert Wistrich of the Hebrew University‘s Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, called the cancellation an “appalling act”, and characterized Bokova’s decision as “an arbitrary act of total cynicism and, really, contempt for the Jewish people and its history”. UNESCO amended the decision to cancel the exhibit within the year, and it quickly achieved popularity and was viewed as a great success.[173]
On 1 January 2019, Israel formally left UNESCO in pursuance of the US withdrawal over perceived continuous anti-Israel bias.[174]
On 13 October 2016, UNESCO passed a resolution on East Jerusalem that condemned Israel for “aggressions” by Israeli police and soldiers and “illegal measures” against the freedom of worship and Muslims’ access to their holy sites, while also recognizing Israel as the occupying power. Palestinian leaders welcomed the decision.[175] While the text acknowledged the “importance of the Old City of Jerusalem and its walls for the three monotheistic religions”, it referred to the sacred hilltop compound in Jerusalem’s Old City only by its Muslim name “Al-Haram al-Sharif”, Arabic for Noble Sanctuary. In response, Israel denounced the UNESCO resolution for its omission of the words “Temple Mount” or “Har HaBayit”, stating that it denies Jewish ties to the key holy site.[175][176] After receiving criticism from numerous Israeli politicians and diplomats, including Benjamin Netanyahu and Ayelet Shaked, Israel froze all ties with the organization.[177][178] The resolution was condemned by Ban Ki-moon and the Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, who said that Judaism, Islam and Christianity have clear historical connections to Jerusalem and “to deny, conceal or erase any of the Jewish, Christian or Muslim traditions undermines the integrity of the site.[179][180] “Al-Aqsa Mosque [or] Al-Haram al-Sharif” is also Temple Mount, whose Western Wall is the holiest place in Judaism.”[181] It was also rejected by the Czech Parliament which said the resolution reflects a “hateful anti-Israel sentiment”,[182] and hundreds of Italian Jews demonstrated in Rome over Italy’s abstention.[182] On 26 October, UNESCO approved a reviewed version of the resolution, which also criticized Israel for its continuous “refusal to let the body’s experts access Jerusalem’s holy sites to determine their conservation status”.[183] Despite containing some softening of language following Israeli protests over a previous version, Israel continued to denounce the text.[184] The resolution refers to the site Jews and Christians refer to as the Temple Mount, or Har HaBayit in Hebrew, only by its Arab name – a significant semantic decision also adopted by UNESCO’s executive board, triggering condemnation from Israel and its allies. U.S. Ambassador Crystal Nix Hines stated: “This item should have been defeated. These politicized and one-sided resolutions are damaging the credibility of UNESCO.”[185]
In October 2017, the United States and Israel announced they would withdraw from the organization, citing in-part anti-Israel bias.[186][187]
Palestine
Palestinian youth magazine controversy
In February 2011, an article was published in a Palestinian youth magazine in which a teenage girl described one of her four role models as Adolf Hitler. In December 2011, UNESCO, which partly funded the magazine, condemned the material and subsequently withdrew support.[188]
Islamic University of Gaza controversy
In 2012, UNESCO decided to establish a chair at the Islamic University of Gaza in the field of astronomy, astrophysics, and space sciences,[189] fueling controversy and criticism. Israel bombed the school in 2008 stating that they develop and store weapons there, which Israel restated in criticizing UNESCO’s move.[190][191]
The head, Kamalain Shaath, defended UNESCO, stating that “the Islamic University is a purely academic university that is interested only in education and its development”.[192][193][194] Israeli ambassador to UNESCO Nimrod Barkan planned to submit a letter of protest with information about the university’s ties to Hamas, especially angry that this was the first Palestinian university that UNESCO chose to cooperate with. He never provided any evidence to support his claim of ties to Hamas.[195] The Jewish organization B’nai B’rith criticized the move as well.[196]
Listing Nanjing Massacre documents
In 2015, Japan threatened to halt funding of UNESCO because of the organization’s decision to include documents related to the 1937 Nanjing massacre in the latest listing for its “Memory of the World” program.[197] In October 2016, Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida confirmed that Japan’s 2016 annual funding of ¥4.4 billion had been suspended, although he denied any direct link with the Nanjing document controversy.[198]
United States and UNESCO
The United States withdrew from UNESCO in 1984, citing the “highly politicized” nature of the organization, its ostensible “hostility toward the basic institutions of a free society, especially a free market and a free press“, as well as its “unrestrained budgetary expansion”, and poor management under then Director-General Amadou-Mahtar M’Bow of Senegal.[199]
On 19 September 1989, US Congressman Jim Leach stated before a congressional subcommittee:[200]
The reasons for the withdrawal of the United States from UNESCO in 1984 are well-known; my view is that we overreacted to the calls of some who wanted to radicalize UNESCO, and the calls of others who wanted the United States to lead in emasculating the UN system. The fact is UNESCO is one of the least dangerous international institutions ever created. While some member countries within UNESCO attempted to push journalistic views antithetical to the values of the west, and engage in Israel bashing, UNESCO itself never adopted such radical postures. The United States opted for empty-chair diplomacy, after winning, not losing, the battles we engaged in... It was nuts to get out, and would be nuttier not to rejoin.
Leach concluded that the record showed Israel bashing, a call for a new world information order, money management, and arms control policy to be the impetuses behind the withdrawal; he asserted that before departing from UNESCO, a withdrawal from the IAEA had been pushed on him.[200] On 1 October 2003, the United States rejoined UNESCO.[199]
On 12 October 2017, the United States notified UNESCO it would again withdraw from the organization, on 31 December 2018; Israel followed suit.[201] The Department of State cited “mounting arrears at UNESCO, the need for fundamental reform in the organization, and continuing anti-Israel bias at UNESCO”.[186]
The United States has not paid over $600 million in dues[202] since it stopped paying its $80 million annual UNESCO dues when Palestine became a full member in 2011. Israel and the United States were among the 14 votes against the membership out of 194 member countries.[203] When the United States announced it was rejoining the body in 2023, it also pledged to pay all past-due payments.[65]
On 4 February 2025, the White House said to conduct a review of US membership in UNESCO.[204] On 22 July, Donald Trump decided that US will again withdraw from UNESCO, effective at the end of 2026.[205]
Kurdish–Turkish conflict
On 25 May 2016, Turkish poet and human rights activist Zülfü Livaneli resigned as Turkey‘s only UNESCO goodwill ambassador. He highlighted the human rights situation in Turkey and the destruction of the historical Sur district of Diyarbakir, the largest city in Kurdish-majority southeast Turkey, during fighting between the Turkish army and Kurdish militants as the main reasons for his resignation. Livaneli said: “To pontificate on peace while remaining silent against such violations is a contradiction of the fundamental ideals of UNESCO.”[206]
Campaigns against illicit art trading
In 2020 UNESCO stated that the size of the illicit trade in cultural property amounted to 10 billion dollars a year. A report that same year by the Rand Organization suggested the actual market is “not likely to be larger than a few hundred million dollars each year”. An expert cited by UNESCO as attributing the 10 billion figure denied it, saying he had “no idea” where the figure came from. Art dealers were particularly critical of the UNESCO figure because it amounted to 15% of the total world art market.[207]
In November 2020, part of a UNESCO advertising campaign intended to highlight international trafficking in looted artefacts had to be withdrawn after it falsely presented a series of museum-held artworks with known provenances as recently looted objects held in private collections. The adverts claimed that a head of Buddha in the Metropolitan Museum’s collection since 1930 had been looted from a Kabul Museum in 2001 and then smuggled into the US art market, that a funerary monument from Palmyra that the Met had acquired in 1901 had been recently looted from the Palmyra Museum by Islamic State militants and then smuggled into the European antiquities market, and that an Ivory Coast mask with a provenance that indicates it was in the United States by 1954 was looted during armed clashes in 2010–2011. After complaints by the Met, the adverts were withdrawn.[208]
Products and services
UNESDOC Database[209] – Contains more than 146,000 UNESCO documents in full text published since 1945 as well as metadata from the collections of the UNESCO Library and documentation centres in field offices and institutes.
Information processing tools
UNESCO develops, maintains, and disseminates, free of charge, two interrelated software packages for database management (CDS/ISIS [not to be confused with UK police software package ISIS]) and data mining/statistical analysis (IDAMS).[210]
CDS/ISIS – a generalized information storage and retrieval system. The Windows version may run on a single computer or in a local area network. The JavaISIS client/server components allow remote database management over the Internet and are available for Windows, Linux, and Macintosh. Furthermore, GenISIS allows users to produce HTML Web forms for CDS/ISIS database searching. The ISIS_DLL provides an API for developing CDS/ISIS based applications.
OpenIDAMS – a software package for processing and analysing numerical data developed, maintained and disseminated by UNESCO. The original package was proprietary, but UNESCO has initiated a project to provide it as open source.[211]
IDIS – a tool for direct data exchange between CDS/ISIS and IDAMS
My impression is that Tesla's "free energy" would cover the Globe in microwave radiation of the kind that operates wireless chargers. If I am correct, that would certainly terminate all life on Earth.
I do love Me some Tesla data!!! Thank You!
My impression is that Tesla's "free energy" would cover the Globe in microwave radiation of the kind that operates wireless chargers. If I am correct, that would certainly terminate all life on Earth.