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Federations & National Memberships How to Join ICPSR

Federation Membership at ICPSR

A Brief History

Federation memberships have long played an important role in the history and growth of the Consortium. When data were delivered physically on reel tapes, federations provided a centralized distribution mechanism for ICPSR. "Hub" institutions served as the primary contacts for ICPSR and would receive and redistribute ICPSR data to researchers at fellow federation-member institutions. This arrangement was efficient for ICPSR and for the federation networks because requests could be bundled, dispatched, and tracked to one location.

Today, ICPSR delivers data directly to users' desktops, but federations continue to provide important benefits to their members and to ICPSR. Some federations, for example, have developed significant training programs focused on effective use of ICPSR and other social science data, thus adding value to the federation membership. Other federations promote the use of quantitative social science data in the classroom across member schools. Indeed, ICPSR continues to view federations as a valuable membership model, and a recent evaluation of ICPSR's membership structure strongly supported the federation concept.

Establishing a New Federation

There are four basic requirements for creating a new federation:

  • Each new federation must include at least one institution that is not currently an ICPSR member.

  • The aggregate of membership fees must not be reduced through the creation of a new federation. Thus, total federation membership fees, inclusive of discounts and with the addition of new institutions, must be greater than or equal to the aggregate of non-discounted fees of any current member schools had they not established a federation.

  • The new federation should have some rationale for its existence. For example, a federation might form around a state university system, an association of liberal arts colleges, an association of colleges in a geographic area, or a major research institution and surrounding smaller colleges.

  • Each federation must elect a federation hub that will receive a single invoice, and that hub will be responsible for the submission of one single payment on behalf of the entire federation.

Discounts are applied to each individual member's fee, which is based on that school's Carnegie Classification. Discounts are as follows:

  • 10% discount for federations with 2-5 member institutions

  • 20% discount for federations with 6+ member institutions

Steps to Follow

ICPSR suggests that institutions interested in federating proceed as follows:

  • Contact ICPSR (netmail@icpsr.umich.edu) for help in setting up the federation.

  • Contact all interested parties and get formal consent that each is willing to join.

  • Complete the necessary ICPSR membership forms.

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