These have included the Central Institute of for Physics of the Earth (ZIPE), which was an institute of the Academy of Sciences in the former German Democratic Republic that was actively involved in Geodesy. The history of the GFZ can be traced back to the Geodätische Institut Potsdam, an institution of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. Under the directorship of Friedrich Robert Helmert from 1886 to 1917, the institute developed into the world's leading center for scientific geodesy.