Membership

To become a member, a society needs:
(a) to have a developmental science focus
(b) to be multidisciplinary
(c) to be multinational

Please forward any request regarding membership to josafas@ufpr.br for information

1. The first goal is to facilitate collaborative multinational developmental research, across the lifespan and across the globe, in the emerging model of “Big Science”. This goal identifies new and innovative areas of developmental research for societies and their individual members.  Through collaborative sessions at the meeting of member societies as well as special sections or issues of society journals, broad and specific new areas of research can be identified and improved. The concern for global climate change from the consensus conference is one example of this.  Developmental science has an important contribution to make to this area.
   
2. The second goal is to represent Developmental Science in collectively informing international public policy. The goal of bringing developmental science to global policy is seriously needed given the increasingly global nature of society. For any science to survive in the current world, it must demonstrate its usefulness to society.  Each member society has its own efforts to disseminate the research of its members to policy makers, program developers, and the public at large.  ICDSS can coordinate these efforts, thereby increasing their scope and impact.  Furthermore, it can serve as a means of expanding these efforts globally thereby dramatically increasing the social value and hence support for societies and their members’ research.
   
3. The third goal is to share lessons learned and other good practices on the management of developmental science societies. This goal’s benefit to member societies became apparent during the pandemic.  Societies sharing how they grapple with issues of daily operations can improve functioning and increase the chances that each is able to implement its individual mandate.
   
4. The fourth goal is to expand collaborative training and research opportunities for young scholars. This goal can promote the collaboration between developmental science societies in organizing, for example, capacity building events, such as summer schools and writing weeks, pairing young scholars of different levels of expertise in different topics and different research methods.
   
5. The fifth goal is to address together global methodological issues in research (ethics committees, such as IRBs, open science, measurement across cultures).