What are the benefits of being Chartered?
In the Society's vision for its membership it seeks to provide a spiritual home for all geoscientists, from which we can nurture the collaborative outlook that is known to be so essential in advancing knowledge, achieving solutions and encouraging the next generation.
Chartership is relevant to all geoscientists, regardless of their role. We all have a responsibility to foster a collective attitude to communicating the importance and societal relevance of Earth sciences. Chartership status benefits to you include:
- Be publicly recognised for your professional excellence
- Improved career prospects and employability
- Higher earning potential
- Be the one that stands out
- Become a leader within your field
- Greater influence within own organisation and industry
- International recognition of competence and commitment
- Demonstrate your ethical credentials
- Enhanced status and skills leading to higher self-esteem
A key attribute of a Chartership qualification is the difference between an academic qualification and a professional qualification. In court cases, for example, acting as an expert witness role, an academic qualification is not recognised as a professional qualification.
You must be a Fellow of the Society (pay your fees and adhere to the Code of Conduct) and be able to demonstrate through your application and interview that you meet the Chartership competency criteria.
To remain on the register, you must demonstrate you are maintaining or advancing your skills and knowledge through continuing professional development (CPD) and you must continue to pay your fee.
No. Our accredited degrees provide an established benchmark of quality, although it does not preclude someone from applying for Chartership with a different degree. We just undertake a few more checks on its credentials in relation to the UK QAA standards, as part of the eligibility checks. If your qualifications are not degrees accredited by the Society, you are welcome to contact us ahead of applying to check your eligibility.
You can start an online application and take as long as you need to complete it. Most people fill in their application over several sessions, a section at a time. After the submission deadline has closed, it typically takes ~14 weeks for: the initial document checks to be completed; the two assessors to review your application; the interview to take place; and Chartership elections to be made via the Council meeting. The dates are advertised on the web page.
We have a cap of 50 applications per round so we recommend that you aim to submit well ahead of the deadline. Our online application portal is updated to advise how many slots are left for the next round.
The best place to start is finding a mentor or supporter, who can provide some steer and guidance as you prepare your application. We recognise that, sometimes, this is not straightforward and have a dedicated LinkedIn Mentors group where you can reach out to find a mentor. We also encourage candidates to find support within their Regional Groups or Specialist Group, and through our Early Careers Network.
We would also recommend that you familiarise yourself with the Chartership criteria and consider how your career portfolio and CPD records will be used to evidence how you meet the criteria.
We encourage you to develop your application alongside your supporter or mentor, in such a way that it reflects your own career progression towards fulfilling the requirements for Chartership. No one career is the same and the range of specialisms and experience held by candidates is very wide-ranging.
In addition, due to GDPR, we cannot share application documents submitted by previous candidates. Equally, the types of documents which can be used to evidence how you meet the Chartership criteria are extremely wide ranging and, even in a redacted format, having a limited number of examples can then be counter-productive.
Other Chartership talks, organised by groups within the Society, are sometimes recorded. These may include recently Chartered Fellows sharing their experiences including how they approached preparing their documents. Check out the following:
We ask candidates to have a Supporter with (i) the same qualification as the one they are applying for so that the Supporter has first hand experience in understanding the Chartership criteria to be met and can provide the right guidance to the candidate. Supporters should also have (ii) known the candidate professionally for at least three years.
However, we recognise that some candidates may struggle with this e.g. works for a small company with no other Chartered colleagues, has been with their employer for less than three years, or is self-employed. In these cases we recommend that candidates aim to have more than one Supporter if the two criteria cannot be met by one individual.
Typically, Supporters might expect to be a candidate's current or previous line man
Chartered status is highly relevant to anyone across the breadth of geoscience specialisms where their expertise is underpinned by a geological knowledge base. As research areas diversify, these are accommodated under this geoscience umbrella term and the Society has recently reviewed its list of specialisms to ensure there is a place for all under its roof.
The central factor for someone gaining Chartership is to demonstrate that they meet the competency criteria, which is not necessarily the same thing as being 'good at your day job'.
For those in academia, Chartership facilitates the means to demonstrate wider achievements such as teaching, management, reviewing, conference organisation, and services to society and knowledge transfer, including offering academic expertise to the media. Chartership is a stamp of excellence that can be readily recognisable to the wider public who may not otherwise be familiar with academic scoring measures, and to demonstrate professional expertise.
We recognise that people's careers evolve and may shift in their specialism over time. By demonstrating their competencies for Chartership and having this wider awareness of professionalism, holders of this professional qualification are recognised in their capacity for judging their own knowledge limits and where they are qualified or suitably experienced to practice. This is governed through the adherence by Chartered Fellows to the Society's Code of Conduct and, in turn, those of other subsequently gained professional accreditations for which Chartership was a pre-requisite. Chartership status therefore provides an assurance to the wider public and so on of the holder's capacity to practice whilst facilitating the ongoing growth of the holder's career.
Being a professional geoscientist indicates to clients, regulators, employers and the general public that the holder is a competent person at a high professional level and is not just about your level of specialist geosciences or scientific knowledge. It shows you have:
- Built on your academic achievements and developed professional skills
- Gained in-depth knowledge and critical awareness of your chosen area of the sciences
- Developed strong scientific and transferable skills and are committed to improving them and developing your career
- Contributed to the success of your organisation, business or institution
- Shown personal and professional integrity
- Contributed to the profession and are committed to advancing excellence in Earth sciences
Since Chartership is a mark of excellence and a public recognition of professional standards and integrity, it is essential that these standards are of real and tangible value, both within the geoscience community and the perception of Earth scientists by those outside of the profession. Undertaking a peer-reviewed interview contributes to this commitment to professional and ethical conduct, which builds public trust and confidence of professional geoscientists in both an academic and commercial or industrial setting.
In addition, with the increase in prevalence of the use of Artificial Intelligence, validating the application via an interview safeguards the professional integrity of the application and review process.
