Recommended Practices from the IEEE Council on Superconductivity The IEEE Council on Superconductivity (CSC) has a number of practices in place that may be of interest to other IEEE societies. The IEEE CSC best practices include the following. Student Outreach Program: The Council uses its student outreach initiatives to strengthen its engagement with member Societies. Initiatives include a program that provides fellowships to graduate students that include membership in both IEEE and the member Society, funding for graduate students and in-need scholars to attend Council sponsored or co-sponsored conferences, and a year of membership to IEEE and one member Society for student awardees. Superconductivity News Forum: To give members advance notice on important papers, the Council added a “News Forum” on its website that includes selected paper preprints, which are removed when the papers are published. As a result, both transactions subscriptions and conference attendance have increased. Awards Program: The Council’s awards programs have been very successful in enhancing the image of IEEE in the CSC community. Winners receive awards at conferences prior to the first plenary sessions, giving them high visibility. A special awards luncheon is also arranged. The prestige of these awards gets noticed by the awardees’ institutions. Ensuring High Quality Publication of Large Special Issues: The Council publishes a large volume of special issues for its Transactions on Applied Superconductivity. A special editorial process involving a hierarchy of editors, including a special EiC, lead editors by topic, and special issue editors –along with a custom workflow for the reviews – has been an excellent system of quality control for these issues. Nomination of Conference Attendees to Senior Member Status: The Council uses its sponsored and co-sponsored conferences to identify, through its volunteers, IEEE members in attendance who have the experience and credentials to be elevated to Senior Member Status. At conference booths, these attendees are encouraged to submit their CV for consideration by other IEEE Senior Members and Fellows in attendance to sponsor them for status elevation. In turn, they become more committed and involved in IEEE and the Council. Collegial Approach in its Interactions with Member Societies: The Council continuously strengthens its relationship with member societies through joint special sessions at conferences, sharing awards and recognitions best practices, and helping manage publications and conferences. Member societies have benefited from increased membership as a result. Outreach to Improve Member Society Representative Engagement: The Council uses joint conference sessions to identify potential member Society volunteers that might serve as Society representatives. It also funds member Society representative travel to Council AdCom meetings, which has led to increased participation.
