8. Membership engagement

In this exceptional moment for science, ISC Members have modelled the importance of international collaboration, and of ‘standing together’ to strive towards finding solutions to global challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate or the biodiversity crisis.

8. Membership engagement

The ISC headquarters appointed a Membership Liaison Officer in 2020 in order to act as a focal point for all membership-related matters within the Council, and to support consistent and regular exchanges between the Council’s headquarters and governance structures and the ISC membership.

As part of this work to strengthen engagement with ISC Members, one-to-one conversations with Members took place throughout 2020, and proved to be a great opportunity for the ISC headquarters to learn more about the individual organizational priorities and areas of interest of ISC Members, and to provide updates on opportunities to participate in ISC initiatives. These conversations will continue throughout 2021. In addition, the membership section of the ISC website has been expanded to feature and highlight news items from ISC Members and to provide a hub for all membership-related updates, as well as opportunities to get involved with specific activities via the ISC Membership Notice Board.

In response to requests for more opportunities for engagement and knowledge sharing among the ISC membership, the ISC Knowledge Sharing Series of online meetings was launched in November 2020. The meetings are open to all staff members, office bearers and representatives of ISC Members.


In this section:

Welcoming new Members that joined in 2020

The Council was delighted to welcome twelve new Members in 2020.

Read more

Regional impact

As part of the ISC’s Action Plan strategy to strengthen its presence and impact at regional level, three consultative meetings for its Members in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Asia-Pacific were held in March and April.

Read more

ISC Members

At the end of 2020, the ISC had 41 Full Members in Category 1 (international scientific unions and associations), 146 Full Members in Category 2 (academies of sciences, research councils or analogous not-for-profit scientific bodies representing a broad spectrum of scientific fields or disciplines in a country, region, territory or globally) and 37 Members in Category 3 (Affiliated Members).

Read more


Image: Sigmund via Unsplash.

Next up: Welcoming new Members that joined in 2020 

Skip to content