The idea to create an academy for scientists from the developing world was first discussed among a small group of internationally renowned researchers in October 1981 during a meeting of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in Rome, Italy. Under the leadership of Abdus Salam, the Pakistani physicist and Nobel laureate, the Third World Academy of Sciences – TWAS – was founded in Trieste, Italy, in 1983, with a formal ceremony at the University of Trieste and the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP). The initial class of elected members – TWAS's Founding Fellows – was comprised of 42 scientists, nine of them Nobel laureates.