National Coalition of Independent Scholars

The National Coalition of Independent Scholars (NCIS) is the principal professional association for independent scholars. NCIS supports the work of independent scholars worldwide, and its members and mission extend internationally. Although based in the United States, where it is registered as a 501(c)(3) organization, NCIS has members and affiliates in fifteen countries over five continents, including the USA and Canada, Great Britain, Western and Eastern Europe, Australia, China and India.

NCIS represents independent scholars from all disciplines, including unaffiliated scholars, adjunct and part-time faculty, graduate students, research professionals, artists, and curators. NCIS enables scholars working in the arts, humanities, social science and STEM fields to access and share resources and support, which are typically unavailable to those who are not affiliated with a university or other institution.

NCIS offers a broad range of benefits to its members in support of their work as scholars. An issue of great concern to independent scholars is the lack of access to libraries and journals. NCIS helps to address this by offering its members access to JSTOR through a discounted JPASS subscription. NCIS also helps address the financial needs of independent scholarship through sponsoring grants, maintaining a grant and fellowship directory, and administering institutional, third-party grants to its members (for more information on grants, please see end of article). Perhaps just as importantly, NCIS addresses the need of independent scholars to network with other scholars by offering discussion networks and facilitating the creation of local organizations of independent scholars and assisting existing local groups.

Another benefit of membership in NCIS is access to member-only information resources. For example, NCIS publishes a comprehensive library guide on its website, including access and collection information for public and university libraries in the United States. Other guides include a directory of Open Access Resources and a Directory of Grant Opportunities available to independent scholars.

NCIS offers many more benefits, including letters of introduction, personal web pages, NCIS email addresses, business cards, discounted professional editing and translation services under the NCIS, and much more.

NCIS offers two levels of membership: Regular Member and Associate Member, each with its own rights and benefits.

Regular Members are active scholars who are pursuing knowledge in any field or discipline, but whose research is independent of, and not supported by, employment in an academic or research institution; this includes some graduate students and scholars retired from academic positions. The rights and benefits of regular members include: access to the Membership Directory and discussion forum, permission to vote as well as run for the Board and Executive Committee; listing in and access to the Membership Directory and database; eligibility for both internal NCIS as well as NCIS-administered grants; ability to attend NCIS events at a reduced registration cost. A variation on the Regular Membership is the Life Membership. Life Membership is awarded on payment of the Life Fee, on condition that the Member demonstrates evidence of independent scholarship as defined by NCIS (see below).

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