Academicians

An academician is a full member of an artistic, literary, or scientific academy. In many countries, it is an honorific title used to denote a full member of an academy that has a strong influence on national scientific life. In systems such as the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, the title grants privileges and administrative responsibilities for funding allocation and research priorities.

A related title also exists in some countries — a Corresponding Member (French: membre correspondant; Russian: член-корреспондент "chlen-korrespondent") is a person who is eminent in respect of scientific discoveries and attainments but is not normally resident in the country where the academy is located. Because they are unable to read their communications in person, they have to use "correspondence". For example, Corresponding Members of the Australian Academy of Science who reside outside of Australia include: Sir David Attenborough (United Kingdom), Rolf M. Zinkernagel (Switzerland), Elizabeth Blackburn (USA) and Gunnar Öquist (Switzerland).

Historically, the meaning for the title of Academician follows the traditions of the two most successful early scientific societies: either the Royal Society, where it was an honorary recognition by an independent body of peer reviewers and was meant to distinguish a person, while giving relatively little formal power, or the model of the French Academy of Sciences, which was much closer integrated with the government, provided with more state funding as an organization, and where the title of Academician implied in a lot more rights when it came to decision making. While both approaches are, to a degree, political, normally in the scientific academies shaped after British model, the nature of politics involved in becoming an academician is more rooted in scientific argument, while organization modeled after French typically involve a lot more vested funding interests and purely political reasons that have nothing to do with science.

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