This past year has been challenging for everyone across the world, and as you would expect the results from the seventh Wiley Society Member Survey, which was sent in May to members of learned societies across in every country and discipline across the globe, undoubtedly reflects that. Although the responses were lower than in previous years, we were able to see the areas societies are focusing on the most: Careers, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I), and open data. Despite the pressures being placed on them with an overwhelming need for access to fast-paced research, our responders still intrigued and even surprised us. Here’s what we learned from this year’s survey.

Respondent demographics

We received survey responses from 113 different countries across over 40 different disciplines. As holds true in previous years, the largest number of responders has come from Europe (25%) followed by the US (16%), Central Asia (14%), and the rest of the Americas (14%). Subject-wise, Social science were the largest group at 10%, followed by business, finance, and accounting, and engineering.

The number of women responders to our survey has stayed steady at 36%, but there are some important differences in diversity depending on subject and geography. Take engineering for example. 85% of engineers are men, and in the Middle East and Africa more than half of our responses also come from men. In the field of nursing, 71% are women, and 45% of US-based responses come from women. So, what does this mean? Not much in terms of gender difference, but it does show that there is still a way to go in terms of diversity across research. On a positive note, half of those with under 5 years’ experience are women, so there are changes happening.

Membership trends

Society membership is continuing to fall. 58% say they are currently members of a society, and we haven’t seen the percentage this low since 2016. Why is that and what can societies do? It’s not exactly clear why membership rates are falling, but we do know that the number of those who have never been a member is growing. Of those that aren’t members, 42% say they haven’t joined because they haven’t been asked and 23% say they don’t know what’s available. Societies need to better communicate the benefits of becoming a member, but the good news is the opportunity is there.

Belonging to more than one society is also a continuing trend, with the average member belonging to 3 societies and, like last year, around 8% belong to 6 or more. What we’ve learned though, is that those members who consume, produce, and utilize the most research are the ones who are most likely to join multiple societies - especially in the US.

Career support has always been important to members over the years, but this year it’s the primary concern. Significantly, 15% of those who left a society in the last 12 months say it’s because they weren’t receiving enough career support. This same group are also likely to be most negative about society membership in general. So, what can societies do?

The key to career success

Careers was a major focus for this year’s survey, since it seems that career support is the most important reason for being a society member across the board. But societies can do more. The level of satisfaction felt by members for career support continues to fall, down this year to 44% from 49% last year. However, those members who are offered careers support services really value them, especially learning and development. 83% say that they value the service they receive, and that group has a much higher recommendation rate of 57 compared to the average of 20. The opportunity for societies to win over members is clear: help members advance their careers, and they will become your biggest advocates.

The continuing rise of open data

Open data is particularly important to those who publish OA and OA publishing is growing, which is one of the contributory factors in the growth in the importance of open data, etc.

Open Access (OA) publishing is increasing and this year the survey highlights the growing importance of open data. 53% told us that open data was more important than it was 12 months ago, and momentum continues to grow, especially amongst those who have published OA and who want access to society journals without additional cost. Societies have recognized this and responded accordingly, because those societies who offer support for open data has also increased this year. Over a third of members would like their society to encourage the sharing of data (although only 16% would want it to be mandatory), but there is definitely a need for societies to provide guidelines as well as technical support for sharing data. So, there's much that societies can do to help support this momentum.

At a first glance look to our survey responses this year, the feedback looks good in terms of benefits such as open data. We plan on taking a deeper dive into the insights from our seventh Wiley Society Member survey in the coming months. As always, we’ll share trends, identify pain points that are important to members, and offer suggestions for how societies can improve their service. Stay tuned!