The Academia Europaea is a European Academy of Humanities, Letters and Sciences. Among its members are seventy-two Nobel Laureates. Membership is by invitation and involves and a peer review selection process. To be eligible, an individual must demonstrated "sustained academic excellence". 

Honings research explores the foundations of musicality—investigating its cognitive and biological underpinnings—and examines the extent to which this capacity is shared across species. Through an interdisciplinary approach, his aim is to define the cognitive and biological mechanisms that underpin musicality.

The election feels like a great honour for Honing: 'As a distinguished academy that spans the full spectrum of scholarly and scientific disciplines across Europe, the Academia Europaea embodies a set of values which have never been more urgently needed. I am both honored and grateful to have been elected as a member.'