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National academy

Organizational body

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The extent of official recognition of national academies varies between countries. In some cases, like France or Spain, they are explicitly or de facto an arm of government; in others, as in the United Kingdom, they are voluntary, non-profit bodies with which the government has agreed to negotiate, and which may receive government financial support while retaining substantial independence. In some countries, a single academy covers all disciplines. In others, there are several academies, which work together more or less closely; for example, France, where the Institut de France groups five self-governing Academies, or Spain, where the Institute of Spain fulfills a similar function. In many states, they are organized in academies of science. In the countries of the former Soviet Union, and in the People's Republic of China, the national academies have considerable power over policy and personnel in their areas. There is, however, a growing consensus among international federations of learned academies that bona fide national (or learned) academies need to adhere to certain criteria:

  • The fellowship is elected, on the basis of excellence, by existing fellows (members)
  • The number of fellows is restricted either to a total number or to a rate of accretion
  • The governance of the academy is democratic and "bottom up". The fellowship is the ultimate source of the academy's authority
  • The academy is independent of government, industry and professional associations. Most, if not all, academies derive some financial support from some or all of these other organisations but this support needs to be given in a manner that does not compromise the academy's independence.

Significance

Election to a leading national academy is one of the strongest forms of peer recognition in science and engineering: official academy sources describe it as among the highest professional honors, and empirical studies show that learned-academy fellows are drawn overwhelmingly from the extreme upper tail of scientific achievement. Academy members are also substantially overrepresented among Nobel laureates, although academy election should be understood as elite peer recognition rather than as a formal predictor of Nobel-, Turing-, Abel-, or Fields-level prizes.

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