Owing to a change in policy implemented by the TWAS Council, the Academy has no class of Fellows for 2017. In effect, the scientists elected to TWAS in December 2017 became Fellows in 2018.
This represents a change in the Fellows election calendar. Historically, TWAS would elect a new cohort of Fellows every year, in the autumn. The cohort elected in autumn 2015, for example, became "2015 Fellows". But they were not formally inducted into the Academy until the General Meeting held in 2016.
To clarify the status, the TWAS Council decided on a change: Beginning with the member election of 2017, the new class would become TWAS Fellows as of 1 January the following year, and then would be formally inducted later that year.
Thus, Fellows elected in December 2017 were inducted in 2018, and were considered "2018 Fellows".