Note that the student rate includes students, retired members and those not in paid employment.
How do I join?
You can join by downloading the membership form, available in MS Word and PDF format. If you have any queries please contact the ASAB Membership Secretary. Applications for membership should normally be supported by a current member of the Association.
ASAB Membership 1987 to 1998
The graphs below show the total number of ASAB members each year since 1987; the split between 'student'/full members and between UK/overseas members is also shown for the years 1992 to 1998 (figures not available before 1992). 'Student' members here includes retired members and those not in paid employment.
Number of full and student ASAB members
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ASAB membership fees
ASAB generates the income necessary to run the society through a variety of sources, the most important of which are profit from Animal Behaviour, investments and membership fees. The journal continues to do well, though income from journals is hard to predict due to the influence of electronic publishing. The value of our investments has declined substantially, following well-publicised trends. Membership fees are modest, and have not changed for 10 years. Costs incurred by the society are increasing. Conferences are becoming more expensive as universities increasingly exploit this as a source of their income, and the increased tendency of ASAB to have meetings outside the UK has increased costs.
In order to maintain the full range of activities ASAB undertakes, ASAB council decided at the Easter 2003 meeting to increase membership fees. After extensive debate the fees proposed are scheduled below. ASAB has lower fees for students, which council unanimously wished to maintain, and a reduced fee for people paying by direct debit. We have decided to do away with the reduction for direct debit as automatic bank payment is no longer a novelty, and this was only available to UK members. We do encourage members to continue paying by automatic bank transfer wherever possible. The new fees must reflect the fact that Animal Behaviour is now available on-line as an electronic journal, and most journals have additional fees for subscribers wishing electronic and paper copies. We have decided that the default delivery of Animal Behaviour will be electronic. Those wishing paper copies will have to pay an increased fee. This helps in a variety of ways, the publishers do not need to go to the trouble and expense of blocking on-line access to those opting for the paper journal only. Also, printing and postage of the journal for members is deducted from our income as part of the journal profit calculations, so again we will benefit financially. In fact, asking those wishing to have paper copies of the journal to pay the extra proposed does not reflect costs to the society (costs of supplying hard copies of the journal to members in 2002 were £24.48 per member, £15.91 of which is directly deducted from our income, so under the proposed scheme we are still subsidising members' paper copies by £5. In 2001 it was £19.85).
The current fees are:
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Full Membership |
Membership plus hard copy of Animal Behaviour |
| Ordinary Members |
£35 |
£45 |
| Student Members |
£15 |
£25 |
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Although these seem large increases, recalling that membership fees have not increased for ten years, this is around a 5% increase per year for the default fees, and we have set them in the expectation that they will not rise again for a similar period, hopefully. Life membership will remain 20 times the annual fee.
We realise that many of our members are active at universities which probably have institutional subscriptions to Animal Behaviour, so this may be an appropriate time to remind you what else members get for this money. ASAB members are eligible to apply for research grants, workshop grants (organizing and attending) and conference attendance grants through our schemes, which we feel are superior to those of other similar societies. A PhD student who pays fees for three years (totalling £45) might reasonably expect to receive funding for, say, two Easter meetings, a relevant summer or winter meeting and perhaps a contribution to attendance at an international meeting or a workshop. A pretty good return for your investment. In addition, we employ an Education Officer to encourage the wider dissemination of our subject, provide vacation scholarships to undergraduates, publish the Newsletter, fund several research workshops and organize and run three conferences in a typical year.
We hope you will agree that ASAB still provides very good value for your money, and that students especially are benefiting from membership.
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