Nomination and Election Process#

Invitation to membership of the Academia is by invitation only and follows a rigorous peer review selection process by each relevant section.

• The nomination process follows an annual cycle.
• The system is designed to prevent nominations where all parties to the nomination originate from a single country.
• Only existing members may propose new candidates for membership.

Nominations are made in two ways: #

1. Standard methods for nomination

Electronic submission. Detailed procedures regarding the electronic submission can be found here.

2. The Board List

Nominations to the Board List are meant to capture those eminent scholars who, for whatever reason, may have been overlooked in the past, or for candidates who do not easily fit the normal criteria for membership. See also detailed criteria. The ‘Board list’ candidates also pass through Section committees and Classes, for their opinion and advice. The final election of Board list candidates is a matter for the Board of Trustees, following receipt of Class chairs’ recommendations.

Evaluation of candidates (synopsis)#

Sections are clustered into Classes: Class 1 – Humanities (Sections A1, A2, A3, A4, A6 and A7); Class 2 – Social and related Sciences (Sections A8, A9, A10, A11, A12 and A13); Class 3 – Exact Sciences (Sections B1, B2, B3, B4 and B5); Class 4 – Life Sciences (Sections C1, C2, C3, C4 and C5), each with a Class chair.

After the closing date for applications, each Section committee evaluates their own candidate lists and make recommendations on suitability for election. Each Section committee evaluates against published criteria and uses a common scoring system. Section lists are then discussed in plenary during individual Class meetings to arrive at a single consolidated class list for each Class. These are formal hearings, where the individual section lists are compared, discussed and moderated. Class lists are then submitted to Council for a formal QA and new members then elected by the Board of Trustees. All newly elected members will receive a formal invitation from the President, inviting them to accept membership and an invitation to participate in the induction ceremony at the next annual member conference.

A.) Criteria for membership#

The Academia Europaea, wishes to elect into membership scientists and scholars of international distinction, irrespective of nationality, citizenship, gender, location or discipline. The primary criterion for membership is “sustained academic excellence in the candidate’s field” (2009 Regulations, Section 2 etc).

The Board of trustees is also willing to consider candidates who have made distinguished intellectual contributions in the past, but who are now making an important contribution to the management of European science and scholarship. Candidature of scholars working at the interface of disciplines or in non-traditional fields are especially welcome. Scholars resident and working in Europe (for at least six months in a year) are elected as Ordinary Members.

Scholars “not normally resident in Europe” but possessing all of the same qualities and attributes ordinarily necessary for membership (Section 2) may be elected as Foreign Members. Turkey, Russia and the former Soviet republics west of the Urals and Israel are regarded as part of Europe. At this time North African states and other states in the Middle East are not regarded as part of Europe for the purpose of defining the category of membership. Nationality and citizenship of a candidate is not relevant to the category of membership.

B.) Age of candidates#

There is no age restriction. All candidates will be considered, but in the case of candidates past formal retirement age, evidence must be provided that individuals are still active in either scholarship and/or other academically relevant activity, or where their individual international distinction merits particular consideration. Proposers must provide evidence of the year that the candidate became research active (or ended if appropriate) and include in the evidence, references to publications produced in the immediate past period of 3 – 5 years.

C.) The Nomination process#

All members can nominate candidates for membership to any section and in any field. Nominations for membership must be made by two members of the Academia. One nominator must be resident in a European country and one must be resident in different country from that of the candidate. It is important that both nominators have personal and professional knowledge of the distinction of the candidate. Nationality and citizenship of the nominators is not relevant to the process.

Wherever possible, candidates should have been approached by the proposers, and should have given their permission to have a nomination submitted, on a clear understanding that any nomination is without guarantee or prejudice. Nominators can ask the candidate to complete relevant parts of the form. The Nominator MUST however complete the case for election section.

Nominations can be made via the online nomination portal. PLEASE NOTE: The form must be fully completed and has to be submitted electronically to the specific nominations email address given on the form. Nominations must be made following the rules described. Any additional information (curriculum vitae, publications lists, etc.) or other formats may not be considered by the Nominations Sub Committee. Only applications submitted on the pdf form and as instructed will be considered.

It is the responsibility of the first nominator, to ensure that the “case for election” is fully and correctly completed. Both of the nominators must support the nomination. The completed dossier should be submitted using the procedures described. Nominators should where possible consult candidates and make sure they wish to be nominated before a dossier is finally submitted.

The Board are themselves able to make nominations. These will be examined by the appropriate Section Committee, in the usual way.

The following guidance on completion of the nomination form should also be noted:#

1. Case for election to the Academia (all categories)

This section of the nomination is critical. The Nominations Subcommittee and the Council will base their decisions mainly on this account. It must express clearly and in detail the distinctions which led to the candidate being proposed. An entry to a national or international “Who’s Who” (including wikipedia or other such data formats) may be helpful, but is not sufficient on its own. The candidate’s personal contribution to original research is a particularly important component. Any major contribution to European collaboration or academic policy should also be clearly stated.

2. Foreign Membership (Additional criteria for Foreign Membership)

At their meeting of 5 April 2003, Council (at that time) accepted that eminent scholars from outside of Europe who are invited into membership, enhance the status and reputation of the Academia. Council decided that election as a Foreign member was a distinction and therefore any nominations to this category should be subjected to additional eligibility requirements. This has been re-confirmed by the Board of trustees on a number of occasions. So, in addition to the general criteria set out in the ‘case for election’ above, all candidates for election as Foreign members should present clear evidence of a strong and sustained collaboration and working links with European institutions and centres of scholarship. The award of honours by European institutions and periods of residence at European centres will provide additional evidence of such links (such as substantive positions held, honorary Professorships and visiting Professorships).

Regarding the classification as Ordinary or Foreign member the question of nationality and citizenship are irrelevant. If a candidate lives and works (principally) outside of Europe (and Israel) then they have to be considered as a Foreign candidate. Only if a candidate has a dual position and spends 6 months in Europe can she/he be nominated as Ordinary member.

3. Books and Major Publications

Not more than ten of the candidate’s most significant contributions should be listed. There should be a clear indication of authorship role (sole, principal, co-author or editor of any book). Any significant recent work may be included. Wherever possible, citation figures and evidence of impact should be included.

4. Honours and awards

These should be substantial national and international prizes, or other honours. For example; medals recognising sustained academia distinction; election to national Academies. The awarding of normal research grants and project funds are not in themselves of significant enough recognition. ERC grants can be cited.

D.) Assessment by the Section Committee#

After the closing date for submission, the nominations are made available to Section chairs and committee members. The chair will arrange for the individual section committee members to assess and rank the candidates. Members of the committee will be expected to place the candidates in order of preference using an unambiguous marking system. The recommended method is to use numerical marks in which a committee member gives Grades- as follows:

1: Should be elected now;
2: Strong candidate;
3: Future contender;
4: Not electable.

The summation and averaging of these marks gives a clear measure of the level of support as well as priority order.

The Section Chairperson will manage their individual committee assessments, and will make sure that a separate summary sheet is available, that contains the following:

• the total number of candidates that were: (a) considered and (b) proposed;
• the number of Section Committee members who voted;
• the results of the vote, including both average marks and an indication of the “spread” of marks received by each candidate. The individual marking given by each committee member to each candidate is not needed.
• a clear description of the voting method used, so that the Class chair and group is aware, for example, of the relative value of high and low marks.

E.) Subsequent parts of the election #

The Section Chairs submit their individual Section ranking lists and reports to their respective Class Chair. Each Class chair then convenes a meeting, where the Section chairs of each class collectively discuss the individual Section lists and a moderated, consolidated single class list of candidates is recommended to the Board of trustees, for election to the Academy. There will be one list per class.

The Board of trustees review and adopt the Class lists. In addition they undertake a final due diligence and QA procedure. This competes the election process.

Elected candidates are contacted by e-mail to invite them to accept their membership after the Class lists are released. New members are invited to choose which Section they wish to be listed under. Not elected candidates are not contacted.

The election and acceptance of an individual member is completed by payment of an establishment fee at which moment in time the member name is made public in the member register. Publication of member names marks the point at which the new member is officially recognised.

It is hoped that new members will attend the following Annual Meeting of the Academia, at which they will be personally recognised and welcomed.

Acceptance of membership is considered an honour. Members should want to play an active part in the life of the Academy and therefore, scholars accepting the invitation into membership are expected [in normal circumstances] to make an annual payment to help the work of the Academy as far as personal circumstances allow. Continued membership is not dependant on an ability to pay and flexibility for individual circumstances is always available.

Candidates designated as “not elected this year” can be re-nominated, as new. Any re-submissions will be considered alongside all other candidates for that year, in competition. If the specific reasons for a rejection (for example a lack of information) have been given, the candidate should only be re-nominated when any issues have been satisfactorily addressed.