From associate to regular member
Associate Membership is designed for those who do not have a higher degree in an IEEE-designated field of interest nor have sufficient (6 year) experience in this field, yet still want to belong to IEEE. However, the reason why many of the Region 8 Associate Members* are not full, normal Members** is often due to communication problems during registration (sometimes, years ago), the different education systems outside the US and due to language issues. Sometimes this makes it hard for IEEE Staff to identify whether the applicant should be classified as a full Member or an Associate Member. Additionally, the IEEE designated fields became broader over the years.
As a consequence, many of our applicants did not comply with IEEE Member requirements when first registering and became Associate Members. In our opinion, most of the Associate Members in Region 8 do comply with the IEEE Member requirements.
In order to become a full Member (with the same fees, but with more benefits such as: the ability to upgrade your membership further to senior or fellow of the IEEE, the eligibility to hold office and to vote in elections), we are kindly asking you to simply fill in the following web form:
Associate to Member Elevation Form
If you encounter any problems, or if you have any questions regarding the qualifications, please don’t hesitate to contact Membership Development Officer <[email protected]> or any other member of the IEEE Region 8 Membership Development Sub-Committee. Of course, you can also contact your section membership development officer or chairman.
From IEEE Bylaws :
* Associate Member grade is designed for technical and non-technical applicants who do not meet the qualifications for Member grade, but who would benefit through membership and participation in the IEEE, and for those who are progressing, through continuing education and work experience, towards the qualifications for Member grade. ** Member grade is limited to those who have satisfied IEEE – specified educational requirements and/or who have demonstrated professional competence in IEEE-designated fields of interest. For admission or transfer to the grade of Member, a candidate shall be either:
a) An individual who shall have received a three- to- five year university- level or higher degree
- from an accredited institution or program and
- In an IEEE-designated field
b) An individual who shall have received a three- to- five year university-level or higher degree from an accredited institution or program and who has at least three years of professional work experience engaged in teaching, creating, developing, practicing or managing in IEEE-designated fields; or
c) An individual who, through at least six years of professional work experience, has demonstrated competence in teaching, creating, developing, practicing or managing within IEEE-designated fields.
The IEEE-designated fields are:
- Engineering;
- Computer sciences and information technology;
- Biological and medical sciences;
- Mathematics;
- Physical sciences;
- Technical communications, education, management, law and policy.
Upgrade from regular member to senior member
Senior Member is the highest grade for which IEEE members can apply. Any regular members with sufficient experience can apply for senior member status. To be eligible, candidates must:
- be engineers, scientists, educators, technical executives, or originators in IEEE-designated fields;
- have experience reflecting professional maturity;
- have been in professional practice for at least ten years;
- show “significant performance” over a period of at least five of their years in professional practice.
The ten years in the profession can include education (e.g. a masters degree counts as 4 years, a PhD as 5). Significant performance can be manager of a big project, responsible for development of a product, published papers or reports,…
You need to apply yourself (IEEE Senior member protal), and 3 references must support your application. These references must be senior, fellow, life senior or life fellow member and need to write write a few lines about how experienced you are, and how significant your performance was. Alternatively, you ask your section to nominate you, and you will only need two other references. The section can also help you identifying these references (past colleagues, former professors,…). When in doubt, contact your section, or you can contact us at [email protected].