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.
Accordingly, within systems such as the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, the title grants privileges and administrative responsibilities for funding allocation and research priorities.
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.
Recently, Nobel Prize winner Frances Arnold was elected to the Royal Academy of Engineering.
[citation needed] Sweden does not use the Academician concept, but membership in learned societies are noted in the Swedish State Calendar.
Countries where the term academician is used in this way include the Russian Federation, China, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Mongolia, North Macedonia, Romania, Turkey, Serbia, Slovenia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Belorussia, Uzbekistan, and Estonia.
Finnish academies are less recognized globally due to its lack of international exposure and use of English language.