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April 1–June 30, 2023

Every day FASEB offers real value to its members by providing programs and services of benefit to you. Here are just a few recent initiatives that demonstrate the value of your FASEB membership and our dedication to you and your society members. Spread the word about the member benefits your society receives—share this information with your leadership and staff. 

Honoring Your Members’ Achievements in the Life Sciences
Recipients of the 2023 FASEB Excellence in Science Awards were announced in April. The awards recognize excellence, innovation, leadership, and mentorship of women whose research has contributed significantly to a particular discipline in biological science. This year’s winners are

  • Lifetime Achievement Award: Elaine S. Jaffe, MD, from American Society for Investigative Pathology
  • Mid-career Investigator Award: Paola Arlotta, PhD, from the Society for Developmental Biology
  • Early-career Investigator Award: Diana Libuda, PhD, from the Genetics Society of America

Individual members at Full Member societies are eligible for the awards. Encourage your members to submit their nominations. Nominations for 2024 Excellence in Science awards will open September 1, 2023. 

Supporting Your Members from Historically Excluded Communities
This spring your members were invited to apply for two programs within the FASEB Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion Program: CARES (Career Advancement and Research Excellence Support) and LEAD (Leadership Engagement and Appreciation of Differences). CARES provides $5,000 awards to alleviate burdens associated with caregiving—enabling your members to continue their scientific training, professional development, and career progression. LEAD is an innovative reverse-mentoring program that pairs senior-level professionals with junior-level mentors. Both programs are designed to help your members navigate long-standing institutional barriers. Meet those selected for this year’s CARES and LEAD programs. 

Focusing on Strategies to Sustain Your Society and FASEB
The FASEB Board of Directors, which is made up of representatives from all FASEB Full Member societies, continued to make direct impacts on our short- and long-term planning. The Board met in person in June, heard program updates, and continued its discussion on the viability of a concept for a new organizational structure. Read the meeting summary. 

Celebrating a Culture of Data Sharing and Reuse
Many of your members were among the winning research teams for this year’s DataWorks! Prize and were featured in the DataWorks! Prize Symposium, where they shared their learnings and tactics to advance scientific discovery through data reuse and sharing. Designed to incentivize innovative practices and increase community engagement around data sharing and reuse, we teamed with National Institutes of Health to sponsor the prize. Encourage your members to take part in this year’s prize, in which research teams will share a prize purse of up to $500,000.Submissions will close August 15.

Educating Congressional Staff About the Role of Animal Research
FASEB partnered with the American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges to host a briefing on Capitol Hill to educate staffers about the role of large animal research in advancing biomedical research, veterinary medicine, and agricultural progress. The briefing illustrated how your members’ research benefits both humans and animals and emphasized that animal research must be accessible, encouraged, and robustly funded by the federal government. 

Advancing a More Diverse Culture in Society Publishing
FASEB co-authored a report to provide guidance on how your society can address diversity and inclusivity matters within its journal programs. Titled “Recommendations for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Initiatives for Society Publishers,” the report was published by the Society Publishers’ Coalition, of which FASEB is a member. FASEB’s participation as a co-author was a key step forward in our pursuit of diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusivity goals, which include efforts to ensure a more inclusive and diverse culture within our journals publishing processes. 

Enhancing Your Members’ Advocacy Skills
To enhance your members’ advocacy and communications skills, we launched the Howard Garrison Advocacy Fellowship. This new program builds on our mission to advance science policy goals, pursue sustainable funding for scientific research, and support researchers’ training and professional development.

Individual researchers at FASEB Full Member societies were eligible to apply. Participants will receive a 10-month cohort experience with instruction in advocacy, science policy, science communications, leadership development, and career exploration outside academia. Selected participants will be announced in September. 

Spotlighting Your Members’ Science
Do you want to raise your members’ profiles, as well as their research and your society’s science?  Your society and its members have a unique opportunity to share cutting-edge research through our Science Research Conferences and Catalysts Conferences. SRCs are 4- to 5-day conferences that feature a mix of scientific presentations, poster sessions, and networking activities. Catalysts Conferences are half-day virtual conferences that take place April through December and enable your members to explore new, emerging topics. Encourage your members to apply to organize an SRC or a Catalyst Conference. Applications for an SRC in 2025 are due September 28; applications for Catalysts Conferences are ongoing. 

Helping You Sustain Your Early-Career Members
FASEB's Early Career Representative Engagement Task Force released its recommendations for how your society can support early-career scientists and encourage their active membership. In its report, “Early Career Representative Engagement Task Force: Final Report and Recommendations,” the task force suggests best practices around five themes: networks and mentoring, career exploration and career transition readiness, safe and inclusive environments, support for international students in the U.S., and society structure and governance. 

Providing New Resources for Your Advocacy Efforts
FASEB updated its series of factsheets that highlight science, technology, engineering, and mathematics workforce data. Each one page, the factsheets collate data from disparate National Science Foundation sources into themes of interest for your members' advocacy efforts. The factsheets illustrate several data, including female representation among PhDs, PhD recipient debt, and PhDs with a disability, to name a few. 

Did You Know?

  • Individuals at Full Member societies receive exclusive opportunities to participate in many FASEB awards and programs—including Excellence in Science Awards, CARES, LEAD, and Howard Garrison Advocacy Fellowship.
  • Effective advocacy comes in many forms and we have the tools to help your society. Full and Associate Member societies can use our advocacy tools, including factsheets, reports, and action alerts, to help your members become effective science advocates.

See more ways to maximize the value of your FASEB membership