Around the world
IChemE is committed to building and sustaining an active international professional community, united by a commitment to qualifications and standards that foster excellence, relevance and esteem and the delivery of benefits to society.
In 2010, the total number of IChemE members passed the 31,000 mark; the latest milestone in a history of near continuous membership growth that can be traced back to our formation. Today, IChemE’s reach spans over 120 countries from Albania to Zimbabwe and almost everywhere in between. Unsurprisingly, given IChemE’s British heritage, membership remains strong in the United Kingdom where 60% of members are based – though many are working on assignments elsewhere. But in an era of rapid globalization, membership growth in the UK is modest when compared with other territories and it seems very likely that more than half of IChemE’s membership will be found outside Europe before the end of the decade.
Distribution of new members 2009-2010
Australia and Malaysia both account for more than 3,000 members across all grades and the Institution has an office and a strong staff presence in Melbourne and Kuala Lumpur. IChemE can also claim a healthy presence on the ground in Singapore, New Zealand and South Africa, reflecting its wider British Commonwealth tradition. Nonetheless, IChemE is also well represented in North America with more than 1,000 members spread across the Caribbean, through Mexico to the USA and Canada. And recent strategic initiatives led by IChemE’s governing Council are driving exciting growth in India and China where new partnerships with the Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers and Chemical Industry and Engineering Society of China respectively, are opening up new opportunities for professional chemical engineers. In June 2010 a new IChemE office in Shanghai opened for business following a successful application for a wholly owned foreign enterprise (WOFE) business licence.
In March tce produced a special feature recognizing the admission of the IChemE’s 30,000th member, Tadafumi Adschiri, of Tohoku University in Japan.
In addition to sustaining strong international links directly through individual members, IChemE plays an active role in a range of regional chemical engineering federations including the European Federation of Chemical Engineering and the Asia Pacific Confederation of Chemical Engineering. IChemE is also a member of the World Chemical Engineering Council. The institution also maintains productive bilateral relationships with many leading chemical engineering organizations including the DECHEMA in Germany, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers in the USA, the Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering in Canada.