The Institute for Theoretical Physics officially became the Niels Bohr Institute on 7 October 1965. The date was chosen for what would have been Niels Bohr’s 80th birthday, linking the renamed institution directly to its founder.
Bohr had established the Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of Copenhagen in 1921. It became an international centre for atomic and quantum physics, attracting leading researchers and helping shape what became known as the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics.
The institute’s original name can cause confusion because “Niels Bohr Institute” is often used informally for its entire history. The formal renaming happened decades after Bohr’s death in 1962, not when the institute was founded. Its early funding came substantially from the Carlsberg Foundation, with later support from the Rockefeller Foundation.