President Huang Wei, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was elected Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) on October 28th local time for his academic achievement and international reputation as the pioneer of flexible electronics as well as expert in chemistry and material sciences.

Founded by Peter I the Great in St. Petersburg in 1724, the nearly three-century-old RAS never ceased to be the flagship scientific institutionof Russia in fundamental research including natural sciences, engineering sciences, social sciences and humanities. In the 2013 reform of Russian research institutions, RAS further secured its status as the "Thinktank of Russia" by merging other two state-own academic institutions--the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

Membership of RAS falls into three categories: Full Member/Academician, Corresponding Member, and Foreign Member. Academicians and corresponding members must be citizens of the Russian Federation when elected. Members of RAS are elected based on their scientific contributions and, therefore, election to membership is considered extremely prestigious. Under a cap of 1800 members, RAS renews its list of members every three years via months of stringent evaluation procedure; would-be academicians need to win more than 2/3 of the votes in the final decision, which explains the academic prestige and respectability received by RAS academicians. So far, 19 academicians of RAS are Nobel Laureates.