Qualitative responses to the 2021 Membership Survey

Our annual membership survey provides members with an opportunity to feedback on the services we provide, as well as gathering thoughts on our planned projects for the coming year. As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and the significant impact on both our own and members’ working practices, we did not run the 2020 survey and were therefore particularly keen to hear from members in our 2021 survey.

Once we have summarised the quantitative survey results (see 2021 membership survey report), we consider the written comments in detail to see where we can improve our membership offering. As a member-driven organisation, the survey is a vital tool in collating members' concerns, queries and suggestions. This article summarises the qualitative responses from the survey and what we are doing in response to your suggestions.

Webinars

2020 saw a marked increase in the number of webinars we delivered, with 33 across the year covering a wide variety of topics and specialisms. We received a very positive response to this increased webinar offering and will be maintaining the frequency of webinars in 2021/22.

We are keen to ensure that our webinar programme reflects the diversity of our members’ specialisms and expertise, covering both specialist, technical topics, as well as broader, more general areas of interest across the environmental sciences. We received a lot of positive feedback from members about the range and frequency of our webinar offering, however some members expressed a wish for less specialised webinars, whilst others asked for more webinars relating to their specialism. To satisfy these contradictory requests, we recognise we need to maintain a good balance between the number of specialist and general topics covered, and we are working to ensure that our webinars reflect the diversity of members’ professional specialisms at varying levels of technicality and seniority.

We are always keen to hear ideas for potential webinar topics or speakers that you would like to see. If you are interested in presenting a webinar yourself or would like to suggest potential speakers or topics, please do get in touch.

All our webinars are recorded and posted to the analysis section of our website and to our YouTube channel so that you can watch again at your own leisure or catch up on webinars you were unable to attend live.

Events

As a result of the pandemic, our events schedule moved online in March 2020 and we were pleased to be able to deliver 33 webinars, 26 workshops, five forums, three AGMs, two conferences and one lecture virtually. We will be continuing to monitor when it is safe to return to physical events throughout this year.

In their feedback, several members informed us that they would like events to incorporate more interactive ways to connect with fellow members, particularly in the run up to the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in November. We have learnt a lot from running events online over the past year and we will continue to strive to make the format of our virtual meetings engaging and to use appropriate technology to drive interactions and networking.

COP26 is an important area of focus for many of our members and we have worked over the past six months to bring together members (in our COP26 Community), other professional bodies and environmental scientists from across the sector to help shape discussions ahead of the climate summit. As part of this work, we have held two interactive, themed discussions, with a further four discussion events planned for 2021.

Journal

We received very positive feedback from members about the environmental SCIENTIST journal, however several respondents requested clarification on the procedures for contributing articles. In response to this feedback, we updatd the journal webpage, including adding an FAQ section to provide responses to some of the most commonly asked questions about contributing to the journal.

We welcome contributions from members and ask that if you are interested in contributing to a future edition, get in touch with the Publications Officer in the first instance with the edition you would like to contribute to and a suggested topic for your article. The themes, planned publication dates and article submission deadlines for forthcoming journal editions can now be found on the right-hand side of the journal webpage. Please get in touch before beginning work on your article and no less than three months ahead of the publication date. Suggestions for potential articles will then be reviewed internally in collaboration with the Guest Editor of the relevant edition.

We also welcome suggestions for future journal themes. We received lots of great ideas through the membership survey for topics that you would like to see us tackle in 2021/22 but if you have any other suggestions, please let us know.

Quick-fire feedback

As the survey is anonymous, we are unable to respond to your comments and questions directly, however we have provided responses to a number of specific queries below.

“Mail the IES journals to international addresses please.”

All IES Fellows, Full Members and Affiliates receive a printed copy of the journal (unless they have opted not to receive these) regardless of their location. If you expect to receive a paper copy of the journal, please log into the Members’ Area, navigate to the ‘Your details’ section and check that the address we hold for you is correct. If needed, you can update your address details online. If your address is appearing correctly, please get in touch. Conversely, if you do not wish to receive a physical copy of the journal and prefer online-only access, please log into the Members' Area, navigate to the ‘Preference Centre’ and select ‘No paper journal’.

“There is usually no calendar invites. Would quite like the option of a calendar invite and also a link to the recording so I can watch it at a more convenient time?”

In the confirmation email that registrants receive for IES webinars and many other events, there is an option to add the event to your calendar in either Outlook, Gmail or Yahoo. However, we will look into trialing direct calendar invitations for members in the future to improve their experience. Many of our events, including all our webinars, are recorded, so please check the Analysis pages or our YouTube channel to view the recordings.

“As a person who would like to change professions late in life, I have found that most career services appear to be aimed at young people. I would still like assistance if it is available.”

Naturally, given the number of students and graduate members seeking work or placements, case studies and advice is skewed towards their challenges and experiences. However, our careers services, including our CV clinic and mentoring platform, are open to all members and career stages. The mentoring scheme has recently been revitalised and now offers mentoring to members regardless of career stage, including a bespoke stream for those looking to change career. Keep an eye on the careers pages of our website as we will be releasing several blogs and video interviews providing insights into the diverse career pathways of our members and the variety of opportunities available for environmental professionals in the near future. If there is something specific that you would like help with but do not feel that the services mentioned above are suitable, please get in touch and we will do our best to support you.

“I may have just missed them in which case I'm sorry! But could you please advertise the CV clinics on the emails about events?”

Last summer we ran several CV clinic workshops predominantly aimed at supporting students and recent graduates. Our ongoing CV clinic service is open to all members and we are looking to also offer our interactive workshops to our professional members in the future. Upcoming CV clinic workshops will be advertised on the Events page of our website and we will also include these in our events emails going forward.

“Please support the members who lost their jobs or furloughed. Consider waiving membership fees for those members. This will be a great help for many including me.”

Members who are unemployed, below the income threshold of £15,500 or on parental leave pay 25% of the normal membership fees. As a small charity it is not viable for us to waive our membership fees. To find out more about the reduced fees offered, please contact our administrative team.

“I think members would benefit from more information, advice and support for those in private practice or thinking of going into private practice. Running a business is not a common curriculum item at University and in many cases, where it is on the curriculum, it is not diverse enough to cover all the options. Some excellent scientists have gone under because they had limited or no knowledge of how to manage time and make sufficient money to live AND work.”

This is a timely question as we are currently working on training in this area. More details will be announced later in the year.

“More advice and help on what is required to upgrade membership.”

We have plans to create a series of ‘how to’ videos later in the year that will address this and other membership challenges.

“Why can’t we have direct debits for membership and make support for CEnv status clearer and easier to follow!”

We had plans to launch a new monthly subscription model based around direct debit or recurring card payments, but these were put on ice whilst we cut expenditure during the pandemic. We hope to return to these later this year.

“I think it should try and raise its profile among potential new membership areas, for example local government where there are many working in fields related to the environment, e.g. planning, environmental health, economic development, highways/footpaths and countryside. I'm sure there are some people there who would be interested in joining.”

Last year we undertook a membership drive in marine science with some experimental messaging and targeting. The trial was analysed by a volunteer marketing professional in December 2020, who gave us some valuable feedback about our approach. Other targeted membership drives will be undertaken when our new Events & Marketing Lead starts in June. We will make sure we consider the areas you suggest.

“The training IES does is good but I worry they are preaching to the choir. Could the IES team up with other institutions (e.g. ICE, IStructE, APM, RICS, RTPI etc) to break down silos and encourage members of the various disciplines to work together toward sustainable development?”

The IES has long been a champion of working with other professional bodies, which has historically been through the Society for the Environment and the Science Council. The IES was also a founding body of the Environmental Policy Forum. We are using our COP26 work to engage with a diverse range of professional bodies and other organisations for exactly this reason: the IES recognises that our understanding of environmental science and natural systems relies on nuanced multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary understandings. By bringing together partners from different specialisms and backgrounds, we hope to bring in fresh perspectives to enhance the learning available to IES members, while also expanding our own message beyond those in the immediate IES bubble. Extensive collaboration is key to the work the IES is doing to help guide policy makers to the synergistic goals of climate action and sustainable development.

“More online events on Indoor Air Quality please.”

We will continue to incorporate indoor air quality topics into our annual events calendar through discussion forums, our webinar series and sessions at our conferences focusing on indoor air quality topics. This year will also see the publication of our new Indoor Air Quality Guidance and we aim to celebrate this publication with a dedicated launch event. Following the success of our inaugural Indoor Air Quality Conference in 2020, we now plan to hold this event on a biennial basis, with the next conference taking place in 2022.

We apologise that we aren’t able to respond to all of your comments in this blog, however all feedback is collated and reviewed by the relevant member of staff. Thank you once again for completing the survey.

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