Last year we conducted our biggest, most wide-ranging survey ever into the needs of learned society members since the Wiley Society Member Survey began in 2015. So, in 2020 the question was: how were we going to top it? The answer was to reach an even more diverse group and go into even more depth on the trends that we uncovered. Despite the challenges of a pandemic, more society members than ever took the time to tell us how they feel about membership – and yes, there were surprises!

Membership profile across disciplines, geography, and gender

The largest number of responses came from Europe, at 25%, followed by the U.S. (16%), Asia-Pacific (15%), and the rest of the Americas (14%). This year we heard from more different disciplines than ever before, with representation from 17 different subject areas with at least 50 individual responses. The single largest group of responses came from researchers in the social sciences, representing 9% of all respondents, followed by those in engineering (7%) and clinical medicine (5%).

On top of the discipline diversity, more women (36%) responded than in previous years, significantly improving gender representation. 45% of respondents from the U.S. were women, and women made up 42% of responses from Europe. Responses from women were much lower (29%) in India and elsewhere in Central Asia and in Africa, where women made up just 22% of respondents, suggesting that gender parity in research in those regions has further to go.

Membership trends

Over the last 5 years, the proportion of survey respondents who belong to a society has been a relatively constant 60%. That’s true this year as well, with 62% of respondents being members of a society, very slightly up from 61% in 2019. 20% have never been members at all (slightly down from last year), and 12% have been members in the past, but are not currently members.

Society membership is most common in Europe, where 71% of respondents were members, and in the U.S., at 69%.  Those who live in Central Asia are least likely to be a member, with just 48% holding a society membership, down even from 2019’s 52% membership rate.

Last year, we discovered that if you belong to one society, you probably also belong to others. In this year’s survey we found that on average, a single member belongs to at least 3 societies, with members in the U.S. belonging to even more, while those in the rest of the Americas hold the fewest co-existing memberships. But multiple society memberships doesn’t stop at 3: 9% of members belong to 6 or more societies! We’ll dig deeper into that trend in future posts.

Just as membership rates have held steady, the rate of people leaving their membership is also consistent. In the past 12 months, 10% have left a society (down from 11% last year, but the same as in 2018). The reasons for leaving also remain similar – 23% left because they lost funding for membership fees, 15% cite lack of professional value, another 15% have changed jobs and 13% left because they entered retirement.

The importance of open research

In previous surveys, we explored society members’ perceptions of data sharing and other open research practices like transparent peer review. In this year’s survey, we looked at open data in even more detail. Around half of members don’t know whether or not their society supports sharing research data at all, with just over a third confirming that their society does support it. According to members, the most common ways that societies support open data are by encouraging the sharing of data (61%) and providing guidelines for sharing data (43%). Despite relatively low awareness of existing society data-sharing initiatives, 60% of respondents said that society support for data sharing is important, suggesting that societies should do more to raise member awareness of the work they’re already doing.

Engaging members virtually

Given the challenges to in-person meetings caused by COVID-19, we also wanted to know how members are adapting to more virtual society programming. We found that members are almost as likely to have attended a virtual annual conference (29%) or regional meeting (32%) as an in-person event (38% and 33% respectively). Of those who attended a virtual event, 47% believe they are a good supplement to in-person meetings, while 40% say they are not ideal but necessary right now. Reassuringly, given the ongoing limitations in many parts of the world on in-person gatherings, only 5% believe virtual events are not useful at all in replacing in-person meetings.

So, there we have it: a summary of the initial findings from the 6^th annual Wiley Society Member Survey. As always, there’s a lot more to learn in the detail so over the coming months we’ll take in-depth looks at these and many more findings, teasing out the trends that matter and offering ideas for how societies can improve their service to members. What membership areas are you most interested in learning more about? Leave us a note in the comments.