IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - June 2013 - 6

President's Message

RAS Member Survey
By David E. Orin

T

he IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) conducted a Strategic Planning
Retreat on 25-26 January
2013 in San Francisco. The retreat was
organized by President-Elect Raja
Chatila, the chair of the RAS LongRange Planning Committee, and I
assisted. Shelly Alcorn, a certified
association executive, facilitated the
meeting. Our Society administrators
Kathy Colabaugh and Rachel O. Warnick were also very instrumental in
organizing the event in which more
than 30 RAS officers, Administrative
Committee members, and volunteers
participated. We are pictured together
in Figure 1. I would like to express my
appreciation for all who attended and
dedicated their valuable time to this
important endeavor.
The interactive discussions around
critical questions during the retreat were
very dynamic and will be helpful to
shape our strategic environment for the
next five years. Many ideas were shared
regarding how RAS can capitalize on its
significant membership growth. These
will be duly considered as an integrated
part of the RAS strategy.
The Strategic Planning Retreat was a
part of a three-day series of meetings,
which included meetings of the RAS
Executive Committee and the Conference Activities Board. This was a good
opportunity to consider nearer-term,
continuing goals and implementation
plans for 2013.

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MRA.2013.2255420
Date of publication: 6 June 2013

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IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE

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jUNE 2013

Figure 1. President David Orin (seated at lower right) with participants of the RAS
Strategic Planning Retreat in January in San Francisco.

Membership Growth
As a part of our preparation for the
Strategic Planning Retreat, we collected
data on our membership at the end of
2012. Some of the key facts from the
data included the following:
● The number of members topped
10,000 for the first time in 2012, and
grew to more than 11,500 members
by the end of the year.
● The growth of membership in RAS
has been quite dramatic over the past
five years, considering that we had
less than 7,000 members in 2007.
● We have some 1,600 student members, and 1,700 graduate student
members, which together represent
nearly 30% of our membership.
● We have grown in every IEEE region,
but more than doubled our membership in Region 9 (Latin America) and
Region 10 (Asia and Pacific) over the
past five years.
● About one-third of our membership
have been members for just one year,
and two-thirds of our membership
have been members for fewer than
four years.
● We have 122 Chapters in 47 countries.

As we continue to understand the
demographics of our Society, we are
considering how we can best serve our
members, especially in regions outside
the United States. We also recognize
that there is a tremendous opportunity
to transition our student and graduate
student members into long-term members of RAS, if we provide them with
the benefits that are important to them.
RAS Member Survey 2012
We also conducted a survey of the RAS
membership in October/November
2012. Around half of the total members
received the survey, and a good representative group responded. Through a
series of questions, we hoped to understand who are our members, what are
their expectations of RAS, and what role
does RAS play in the lives of our members. Some of the results are given here.
The vast majority of respondents
(83%) were satisfied with the IEEE and
82% were satisfied with RAS. Sixty-eight
percent (68%) were likely to recommend
membership in RAS to a colleague.
Surveyed members were asked to
indicate their relative level of interest in
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