Membership

The Benelux section is one of the most succesfull sections within Region 8. The membership in the Benelux section keeps growing. With nearly 4000 members, we the fifth largest section in Region 8 (after UK and republic of Ireland, Germany, Italy and Spain).

Membership counts

The following data is available from the IEEE statistics.

IEEE grade	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009
Honorary member	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1	1
Fellow	56	55	59	58	57	65	70	81	84	88
Senior member	178	184	188	191	198	195	212	220	228	232
Member	1752	1637	1565	1739	1792	1788	1813	1968	2096	2331
Graduate student member								571	633	669
Associate member	466	568	542	319	253	252	241	260	256	108
Total higher member	2453	2445	2355	2308	2301	2301	2337	3101	3298	3429
Student member	415	411	478	442	497	544	707	275	250	241
Total students	415	411	478	442	497	544	707	846	883	910
Total	2855	2856	2833	2750	2798	2845	3044	3376	3548	3670

Or when a picture (graphs) says more than 1000 words (numbers):

All data:

Only student members:

Note that student member grade has been split in 2007 in graduate student member (those students with a degree) and student members. Graduate student members have all rights that a normal member has (can vote and can hold office), but pay the dues of a student member. The decline in the total number of student members is caused by a change in IEEE policy, where students are given member grade upon graduation (August) and not in the beginning of the next year.

Honerary members, fellows and senior members:

Distribution of IEEE grades in the Benelux (2009 data)

IEEE Life members (all grades), student members (graduate and normal), affiliate members and "the rest":

Associate member to normal member

Associate Member grade is designed for technical and non-technical applicants who do not meet the qualifications for Member grade, but who would benefit through membership and participation in the IEEE, and for those who are progressing, through continuing education and work experience, towards the qualifications for Member grade.

This means that associate members did not comply to IEEE member requirements when first registering.

The requirements for being a member are the following:

Member grade is limited to those who have satisfied IEEE-specified educational requirements and/or who have demonstrated professional competence in IEEE-designated fields of interest. For admission or transfer to the grade of Member, a candidate shall be either:

An individual who shall have received a three-to-five year university-level or higher degree (i) from an accredited institution or program and (ii) in an IEEE-designated field
An individual who shall have received a three-to-five year university-level or higher degree from an accredited institution or program and who has at least three years of professional work experience engaged in teaching, creating, developing, practicing or managing in IEEE-designated fields; or

An individual who, through at least six years of professional work experience, has demonstrated competence in teaching, creating, developing, practicing or managing within IEEE-designated fields.
This means every professional with a bachelor degree (graduaat or HBO) or a master (university or university college) or 6 years of experience in anything related to IEEE (Power engineering, computer science, plasma sciences, photonics,...) can be a full member.

If you are a student, you should apply for student membership which is much cheaper (27 $/year instead of 147 $).

Many of the Benelux associate members do qualify for full member but they are not because: problems during registration (e.g. when joined using handwritten forms), incomplete (old) data in IEEE records, unknown school systems outside of US (a "hogeschool" should be translated as college and not as "High school", which is our secondary school...),...

In 2009, we did an action to upgrade the number of associate members, and subsequently, the number of associate members reduced from 256 to 108. These associate members are now full member of IEEE.

In order to become a member (with the same costs, but more benefits), you should fill in this following webform. Not all the items are needed, you just need to clarify that you fulfill the requirements stated above.