I very much like the following quote from Groucho Marx:

I don’t care to belong to a club that
accepts people like me as members

Recognition
Many professional societies like to acknowledge members that are exceptionally good at their profession. If in addition the activities of these specialists are useful and visible to a broader public, acknowledgment can also come from outside the professional circle. As a result prizes, without and with competitions, and other tokens of recognition are bestowed on the exceptional achievers. The community of scientists also has its medals, prizes, and decorations.

To the normal recognition for a scientist belong published papers in good journals and being invited to give a talk at a prestigious conference. More special recognition can be obtained through:

1. Special membership of learned societies. Such organization typically allow 1 to 2 percent of their members to be upgraded to the status of Fellow. See for instance Optical Society of America and American Physical Society .
2. Memberships of extremely prestigious national academies like the Institut de France and the The Royal Society, the members of which are selected through co-optation, upon the basis of excellence in science.
3. Prizes
4. Honorary positions. Being invited as a visiting scientist at an renowned institute. Such invitations are also often indicated by the term fellow.

Many scientists feel that they do not get enough credit. As a matter of fact all scientist consider themselves to be undervalued.

Complete Curriculum vitae
The problem with honorary fellowship (item 1 above) is that a number of colleagues (about three) have to take the initiative to start the upgrading procedure for a certain scientist. Let us say that scientist X feels his time has come for him to become a fellow. He can wait until this process happens spontaneously. However, according to him and he is probably right, this will be too late. In a lot of (European) cultures asking colleagues to do this for you is socially unacceptable. What scientist X can do, is to have his cv readily and publicly available. With in it all the necessary information (including lists of publications, list of key publications, list of supervised theses). When he downloads the fellowship-nomination form he can see exactly what information his supporters would have to supply. He can put all this also in his cv. Some occasional hyperlinking by X in his emails to his web page might do wonders. Life has become now very easy for his supporters, as they only need to perform some copy-paste to fill out the form. No embarrassing, secrete phone calls to secretaries or institute directors have to take place any longer to get the information.

This complete cv will also increase the chances to be rewarded for the other recognition tokens (point 2-4 above)

Complaining in public
I have heard (and read) a number of times senior scientists complaining in public (in writing, in columns, during presentations) not being member of such and such society. Or complaining about stupid referees not understanding their great ideas. They might be right that they have been treated unjustly, but complaining in public is for losers. Although I must admit that some of these losers have won the Nobel prize.

Action Points for Scientists who Want More Credit:

• Have your curriculum vitae available on the net. This cv-page should be very well structured and up to date. Make also printable versions (pdf, Letter size) available on your site. Make navigation on your site such that the cv-page is easy to spot. Check with search engines that people can easily find it that way as well.
• Never ever complain about lack of recognition in public. Be very careful when doing this in private.
• Do great science
• Refrain from politics

Follow