A national academy is an organizational body, usually operating with state financial support and approval, that co-ordinates scholarly research activities and standards for academic disciplines, most frequently in the sciences but also the humanities. Typically the country's learned societies in individual disciplines will liaise with or be co-ordinated by the national academy. National academies play an important organizational role in academic exchanges and collaborations between countries.

The extent of official recognition of national academies varies between countries. In some cases 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 government has agreed to negotiate, and which may receive government financial support while retaining substantial independence. 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:

Raymond Mitchell (October 6, 1897 in Gilbert Plains, Manitoba – June 15, 1984) was a politician in Manitoba, Canada. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba as a Liberal-Progressive from 1949 to 1958.

Mitchell was educated at Grand View, Manitoba and worked as a farmer and rancher. He served on the Board of Grain Commissioners of Canada, and was president of the Union of Manitoba Municipalities.

He first campaigned for the Manitoba legislature in the 1941 provincial election, but lost to Stanley Fox of the Social Credit League by over 600 votes in the Gilbert Plains constituency. Both Mitchell and Fox were supporters of the coalition government led by Premier John Bracken. Ironically, Mitchell defeated Fox for the coalition nomination in the 1949 provincial election, and went on to defeat CCF candidate Jacob Schulz by 330 votes on election day.

Mitchell was re-elected in the 1953 election, defeating CCF candidate Robert J. Wilson. He served as a backbench supporter of Douglas Campbell's government during his time in the legislature.

Abraham Lincoln ⁱ/ˈeɪbrəhæm ˈlɪŋkən/ (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through its greatest constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union while ending slavery, and promoting economic and financial modernization. Reared in a poor family on the western frontier, Lincoln was mostly self-educated. He became a country lawyer, a Whig Party leader, Illinois state legislator in the 1830s, and a one-term member of the United States House of Representatives in the 1840s. After a series of debates in 1858 that gave national visibility to his opposition to the expansion of slavery, Lincoln lost a Senate race to his arch-rival Stephen A. Douglas. Lincoln, a moderate from a swing state, secured the Republican Party nomination. With almost no support in the South he swept the North and was elected president in 1860. His election was the signal for seven southern slave states to declare their secession from the Union and form the Confederate States of America. The departure of the Southerners gave Lincoln's party firm control of Congress, but no formula for compromise or reconciliation was found. And the war came.

Dorothea Rockburne (born c.1932 in Montreal, Canada) is an abstract painter drawing inspiration primarily from her deep interest in mathematics and astronomy. Rockburne's attraction to Mannerism has also influenced her work. In 1950 she moved to the United States to attend Black Mountain College, where she studied with mathematician Max Dehn, a lifelong influence on her work. In addition to Dehn, she studied with Franz Kline, Philip Guston, John Cage, and Merce Cunningham. She also met fellow student Robert Rauschenberg.

In 1955, Rockburne moved to New York City where she met many of the leading artists and poets of the time. Rockburne is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the National Academy of Design.