Why URSI Individual Membership

The purpose of individual membership of URSI is to secure professional recognition of individual radio scientists and to establish their better connection with the URSI Board of Officers, Scientific Commissions, and URSI Member Committees. Three categories of individual membership (URSI Corresponding Member, URSI Senior Member and URSI Fellow) have been established.

URSI Corresponding Membership is the first step into the URSI community and provides:

• access to the proceedings of URSI Flagship Conferences via the website
• notifications of new editions of URSI publications.

In addition, URSI Senior Members and URSI Fellows benefit from the following:

• Reduced registration fees at URSI Flagship Meetings.
• Reduced registration fees at some meetings organised by partnering organisations such as (but not limited to) IEEE AP-S and EuCAP.
• A page charge reduction from 175 USD to 150 USD for papers published in the URSI journal, Radio Science Letters.
• An invitation to receive their individual membership certificate at an URSI Flagship meeting.

Fellowship is by invitation only; Senior Membership can be by invitation or application. Corresponding Membership is a streamlined, instant process.

Requirements for the URSI Individual Membership

URSI Fellows

An URSI Fellow:

1. Will be by invitation by the URSI Secretary General.
2. Will be offered to all who have served as a Commission Chair, a member of the Board, as an Assistant Secretary General, or as an Honorary President.
3. Will be offered to all URSI Senior Prize winners.

URSI Senior Members

An URSI Senior Member will have

1. a PhD (or equivalent degree); an MSc (or equivalent degree) is acceptable only with at least five years of research experience or equivalent professional experience in radio science;
2. and will have at least ten publications in any radio science discipline to demonstrate technical or scientific competence, at least five of which must be in peer-reviewed journals; the remainder may be papers given at major international scientific conferences.
3. and will show evidence of involvement with URSI in the form of at least two presentations at previous URSI Flagship meetings (GASS, AT-RASC or AP-RASC).

All three criteria must be fulfilled by a successful applicant. Alternatively, the applicant may submit a short text summarizing very strong reasons why they should be admitted even though the three requirements have not been met.

On request, URSI Senior Membership will be offered by the URSI Secretary General to members of the URSI Council and Official Members (being Member Committee representatives to the Scientific Commissions), without further supporting evidence.

URSI retains the right to rescind this honour if advised to do so by the candidate’s Member Committee or Scientific Commission and after due consideration by the Board.

URSI Corresponding Members

1. Is automatically offered to all participants of any of the URSI flagship meetings.
2. On submission of an abstract or paper or on registration to an URSI flagship meeting the contact data filled in the submission or registration form are used as an input to the database of Corresponding Members which is used solely for URSI purposes.
3. URSI Corresponding Membership will be for a period of three years at which point the URSI Corresponding Member will be invited by the URSI Secretariat to apply for Senior Membership.

How

Processing schedule for individual membership applications

A. URSI Corresponding member applications

1. The URSI Corresponding Membership is instantaneous on submission of an abstract or paper to any URSI flagship meeting.
2. The Secretariat transfers the contact data filled in the submission forms to the database of URSI Corresponding Members and makes them accessible to the Board of Officers, Member Committees, and Scientific Commissions in 6 weeks after the submissions deadline.

B. URSI Senior Member applications

1. The URSI Senior Membership applications are processed on a fixed schedule with a yearly deadline defined by the deadline of abstract/paper submission to an URSI flagship meeting (GASS, AT-RASC or AP-RASC) taking place in that year.
2. All applications received in a period after the last year's deadline and prior to the actual deadline are collected and prescreened by the Secretariat following the criteria described on this website. The Secretariat draws up a list of suitable and unsuitable candidates and this, together with a specification of unfulfilled criteria, is sent to the URSI Board of Officers for confirmation, together with the submitted forms.
3. Responses from the Board of Officers are expected within 4 weeks. Unanimous approval is required for each individual candidate. Reasons for negative decisions must be given.
4. At this point the candidate is informed of his/her application with the notification that revoking the membership is possible as described in point II-4.
5. At this point the application forms are also forwarded to the URSI Commissions and the Member Committees by the Secretariat for information.
6. On election the new individual Senior Member is allocated a Membership Number. This allows them to benefit from a lower registration fee for the upcoming Flagship meeting.
7. If membership is declined then the reasons are communicated to the candidate by the Secretariat on behalf of the Secretary General.
8. New Senior Members are invited by the Secretary General to receive their Individual Membership certificates during the upcoming flagship meeting.

C. Invitations to URSI Senior Membership or Fellowship

1. The URSI Secretary General offers URSI Senior Membership to new members of the URSI Council and new Member Committee representatives of the Scientific Commissions within 6 weeks after their written request is received by the URSI secretariat by email at info@ursi.org.
2. The URSI Secretary General offers the URSI Fellowship to former Scientific Commission Chairs, members of the Board of Officers, or Assistant Secretary Generals within 6 weeks of the end of service to URSI.
3. The URSI Secretary General offers the URSI Fellowship to an Honorary President and to URSI Senior Prize winners within 6 weeks of the announcement.

D. Revoking URSI Individual Membership

1. A Member Committee, Scientific Commission or a Member of the Board of Officers may propose to revoke membership of an URSI Senior Member or Fellow  - with reasons - at any time, by sending a letter to the Secretariat. The Secretariat informs the Board of Officers within 2 weeks of receipt.
2. This proposition is approved or reversed by the Board of Officers within 4 weeks. The majority of the Board members is required to reverse the proposition.
3. The decision (including reasons) is then communicated to the concerned URSI Individual Member and to the relevant Member Committee and Scientific Commission by the Secretariat within 2 weeks.

E. Termination of URSI Individual Membership

1. An URSI Corresponding Member, Senior Member or Fellow can ask for termination of their status and removal of their personal data from the URSI databases by sending an email to info@ursi.org.
2. Their data are removed by the Secretariat within 2 weeks and the concerned URSI Individual Member is informed about termination of her/his membership status.
3. Within the same period, the Board of Officers, relevant Member Committee and Commission(s) are asked by the Secretariat to remove any copies of the personal data of the former Individual Member.