The book is devoted to the analysis of state policy on the organization of science in Russia in the second half of the XIX and in the first decades of the XX century on the example of the history of the formation of the legislative framework of the country's highest scientific institution - the Academy of Sciences. The book consists of two sections - the study itself and the appendix, which includes a significant number of archival documents. The first published drafts of the new Academic Charter expand the source base of research on the history of the Academy of Sciences with new archival materials from the collection of the St. Petersburg branch of the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The new results obtained during the study can be used in work in such relevant historical and scientific areas as the study of the history of academic titles, the formation and development of divisions of the Academy of Sciences, publishing, and scientific ethics. The book is designed for historians of science and all those who are not indifferent to the fate of the Academy of Sciences.