In my first President’s Message column (March 2024), I articulated as a priority for this year a return to a balanced operating budget. To maintain ongoing programs and continue to adapt to new challenges, this means that we must make up for losses we incurred during the pandemic. The main revenue sources for the Society come from the Annual Meeting, membership dues, and royalties from the Biophysical Journal. Given that each of these programs accounts for about one-third of our annual income, it is imperative that we secure the financial strength of all three.
In last month’s column, I summarized how the Annual Meeting takes shape, and how you can engage with the process. We continue to welcome your feedback and are pleased the Annual Meeting remains healthy, with attendance averaging about 5,200 over the past 15 years. In a future column, I will address how our publications program serves our mission and supports our bottom line. However, BPS membership has more value and significance than simply allowing for discounted registration to the Annual Meeting or reduced publication fees in the Society’s journals. That is why this column is about membership, about the value it provides, and about its critical role in maintaining an active, vibrant organization.
Membership defines who we are and what we do. BPS is a non-profit, member-based organization. This means that it works for the benefit of its members and any profit that it generates is reinvested to support its articulated mission. As such, its members are both supporters and beneficiaries; membership defines the size and identity of BPS and speaks for its value, strength, and vitality.
The Society was born in 1958 as a spinoff from the American Physiological Society. This specialization was a natural result of two opposing forces. On one side was the unprecedented growth in quantitative tools stimulated by the war effort; on the other, the natural need for more focused interactions among the scientists who used and developed these tools to examine and serve life. The first meeting, held in 1957, attracted about 500 scientists and aimed to determine “if there was such a thing as biophysics and, if so, what sort of thing this biophysics might be” (according to the published proceedings of that meeting). It turned out that attendees identified enthusiastically with the new frankenword. They decided to initiate the process of creating a new, international, non-profit association that would advance and spread knowledge in biophysics. The following year, at their second Annual Meeting, biophysicists ratified the Constitution and Bylaws of what we now know as the Biophysical Society. With this act, members took on a new identity, that of biophysicist!
Over the past 67 years, BPS has stayed committed to its mission to lead an innovative global community working at the interface between physics and biology. It has grown to become the largest association of biophysicists across the globe, reaching a high watermark of ~9,000 members in 2010. This growth allowed the Society to expand its area of influence and develop programs in addition to the Annual Meeting and Biophysical Journal. Among the initiatives that help to make the Society more diverse, inclusive, and accessible are the creation of tailored membership types and a regular evaluation of membership composition.
Membership composition reflects our values. Five membership types support equitable access across career stages, geographical areas, and economic means. As of December 31, 2023, the Society consisted of 6,117 members, of whom only 2,920 were Regular members; Early Career (861), Student (1,967), and Emeritus (322) members combined made up more than half of the total. In addition, there were 16 Regular, 3 Early Career, and 28 Student members from developing countries. This distribution reflects our strong and consistent commitment to being an inclusive society.
Geographic diversity. About 30% of members are non-US members residing in 51 countries—mostly Europe (14%), Asia (9%), Canada (3%), and Mexico (1%), with the remaining 2% residing in South America, Australia and the South Pacific, Africa, and the Caribbean.
Gender diversity. Membership is made up of 63% Men, 34% Women, and <1% Non-Binary, with 3% Undisclosed.
Ethnic diversity. Self-reporting indicates that our membership is 45% Caucasian, 30% Asian, 6% Latino/Latinx or Hispanic, 3% Black or African American, 3% Middle Eastern, 1% Multi-Racial/Multi-Ethnic, <1% Native American/Indigenous/Alaska Native, and <1% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, with the remaining 13% Undisclosed.
Although we need to do more to improve representation and access, we recognize and prioritize this with our current strategic plan to foster a diverse and inclusive global community and to invest in the future of biophysics. It is important to keep in mind that to continue to afford programming, support, and reduced membership fees for vulnerable categories of scientists and future scientists, we need strong participation from Regular members. Therefore, how accessible and diverse we can be depends in large part on maintaining a healthy contingent of Regular members. A direct look at the data can inform our choices about what we can do to continue to support the global, inclusive community we aspire to be.
Membership size fluctuates. Like many other non-profit membership organizations, BPS has experienced a clear decline in membership over the last several years. This trend likely reflects changes in how we all connect and engage professionally, as well as generational differences in identification with a particular group. Economic uncertainties, including access to stable funding, the proliferation of scientific meetings, and the outgrowth of more specialized groups, compete for our—always finite—resources and influence which associations scientists join and continue to identify with and support.
An analysis of membership data reveals that the number of total members remained fairly stable between 2010 and 2014 at ~9,000, but has slowly declined since then, such that by 2020 it had experienced a 25% reduction. In 2021, when our Annual Meeting was virtual, membership declined precipitously to 5,400. Although it has increased since then (to 6,117 in 2023), we are yet to reach pre-pandemic levels.
Importantly, the number of Regular members declined steadily from a high watermark of ~5,000 in 2010 to ~3,500 in 2020. Although numbers have rebounded from the lowest of ~2,600 in 2021, we were still only at ~3,000 in 2023. Given that our overhead increases with inflation and cost of living, to continue to offer the programs we have developed over the years, it is imperative to keep in mind that although membership size fluctuates with environmental pressures, our commitment to leading an innovative global community depends in large measure on maintaining a strong contingent of Regular members.
Let me be clear: BPS remains a healthy and vibrant organization due to a strong contingent of core members and unrelenting stewardship by Council and staff. And, I believe we can do more!
Membership controls what we can do to support the global community. Although membership dues are essential to our financial health and sustainability at similar levels as our Annual Meeting revenues and Biophysical Journal royalties, membership size and composition control who we are and what we do to a much larger degree. Our membership, under the egis of BPS, has a wide sphere of influence. Members support the profession and the global community of practice, safeguard standards of rigor and ethics, and ensure its credibility with the public at large.
Our members organize Thematic Meetings, student chapters, networking events, Subgroup symposia, workshops, webinars, career panels, mentoring opportunities, education and learning resources, and more. Our members volunteer on our committees, establish policies and strategic plans, participate in governance, champion the discipline, advocate for funding from multiple federal agencies, promote biophysics globally, educate the public, and more. Our members define the profession.
If you identify with the BPS vision, mission, and values and want to support and shape our strategic plan, our programs, and our activities, I encourage you—I urge you—to consider where you invest your most precious resources (time, attention, effort, and talents), and to continue your BPS membership, attend our meetings, and publish in our journals. Encourage your peers and trainees to join our global community! Together we can stand strong for quantitative, rigorous science to, as stated in the Society's strategic plan, “seek knowledge, improve the human condition, and preserve the planet for future generations.”
—Gabriela K. Popescu, President