Scientific advisory boards are frequently established to provide scientific insights and advice to policy makers. Advisory board appointing bodies often state that research excellence and scientific seniority are the main grounds on which advisory board members are selected. Many authors have pointed out that there is more to giving good scientific advice than just being an expert for a specific research field. The aim of this study is to analyse if and how research excellence correlates with the probability of being appointed as a scientific advisory board member. We have collected data for scientific advisory boards from both the US and Germany. Our dataset includes current board members and a control group of non-board-members with similar expertise. We use logit regression models to analyse how research excellence correlates with the probability of appointment to a scientific advisory board. We use the h-index as a highly cited proxy for individual research excellence and factor in the research excellence status of the associated institution as well as other potentially correlating factors indicating scientific seniority. Our results suggest that research excellence is insignificant or even correlates negatively with the probability of being appointed to a scientific advisory board.