Finnish Physical Society updated its bylaws – new membership categories and lower fees

The Finnish Physical Society (FPS) had its Annual Meeting on 25th March 2021 as an online event in connection with Physics Days 2021. The new FPS board was elected with associate prof. Anu Kankainen as the new chair. The full list of board members 2021 can be found here.

The new board thanks the former chair prof. Emilia Kilpua for leading the society through its major renewal in 2020. FPS does not anymore have a fulltime, paid secretary. Instead, an external accounting firm takes care of the financial side of the society, and also provides a new membership registry for FPS.

The board members have now a more active role in running the FPS. The board is further divided into four committees. The management committee consists of the chair, vice chair, treasurer and the secretary of the society. It drives routine tasks of the society. The events, prize and communication committees focus on outreach, FPS MSc thesis prize (former Young Physicist Prize) and other FPS grants, and on communication to the members and public. To reach the members, a new FPS Newsletter summarising recent FPS activities and physics news in Finland is planned to be commissioned in 2021.

FPS wants to attract more younger members. To achieve this, the bylaws of the society were updated and the changes accepted in the FPS meeting 15th April 2021. We now have student and junior member categories with much lower membership fees. In fact, BSc and MSc students can now join the society for free (annual fee 0 EUR). Junior members, with MSc degree done in 2016 or later ( less than 5 years ago), pay only 15 EUR for the membership. In addition, the other FPS membership fees were reduced, the regular fee being now 50 EUR compared to earlier 65 EUR. To join the society, please use the registration form.

There will be several interesting FPS (online) events organised in 2021, such as the Night with the Space Nobelists in May. We encourage you to advertise the opportunity to join the society and stay tuned for more FPS activities!