Academy of Sciences
Ernst was a foreign fellow of the Estonian Academy of Sciences (elected 2002), the US National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Academy of Sciences, London, the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Korean Academy of Science and Technology and Bangladesh Academy of Sciences. He was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 1993. He was awarded the John Gamble Kirkwood Medal in 1989.