Membership FAQs

Membership in the ACNP is by nomination only.  You must be nominated by an eligible ACNP member. Interested Candidates may seek out ACNP members or fellow to nominate them for membership.

The College has prepared some guidelines for preparing to apply for membership.  Please view the document titled “Guidelines for Improving your ACNP Membership Application.“

ACNP Members, Fellows and Emeritus are eligible to nominate. ACNP Associate Members may not nominate candidates for membership. The nominee may play an active role in soliciting the nomination. Members of the membership committee are not allowed to nominate.

Each member’s status is available on the current membership list posted under the Membership tab.

While the College does not provide specific feedback on why applicants were not selected to membership, the College does provide “Membership Mentors”, who are recently retired members of the Membership Committee. Membership Mentors have agreed to give feedback to prospective applicants.  This feedback is informal and does not necessarily reflect the outcomes determined by the Membership Committee, as the applicant pool and available slots vary from year to year. Please view information on Membership Mentors.  It can also be valuable to seek out a senior colleague who is an ACNP member in your department and ask him/her to review your application and suggest areas for improvement.

Submissions open each year in late July.  Go to https://acnp.org/membership/applications-nominations/  to access procedures for submitting your nomination on-line. The deadline is in early-September each year.

Instructions on accessing a requested nomination in the system can be found here: 2024 ACNP Membership Nomination Instructions

Please visit the ACNP Conference website, http://acnp.societyconference.com and log-in with your username and password.  You will then select the “My Activities” tab, and export this information to a word document.  Please confirm all information is correct, and then save as a PDF to upload in your application.

Yes. There is general recognition that MD researchers often have competing clinical and research obligations that may result in relatively lower research productivity on average. However, it is important to note that the top MD candidates often have research productivity on par with PhD candidates.

Starting in 2019, all new Associate Member and Member nominees must have attended a minimum of one ACNP Annual Meeting prior to applying for membership. While the level and quality of previous involvement with the ACNP is regarded as the best indicator of future commitment to our organization, this consideration is balanced with other considerations such as being superb in national and international contributions to the emergence of new and important knowledge in neuropsychopharmacology.

Being PI of an NIH R01 is not a requirement for membership, but independent peer-reviewed federal funding is generally considered necessary to be in the top candidate pool. Thus, high quality applications without an active RO1 or similar grant can be acceptable. This is usually from individuals with one or more of the following characteristics: significant high impact publications, significant past NIH funding, or significant funding from other sources, including NSF, VA, DoD or major foundations. Also, expectations of NIH funding does not apply to individuals working in government or in pharmaceutical research and development, for whom active NIH funding might not be feasible or appropriate.

No. Serial application is not a consideration and does not influence the committee decision for membership. See Synopsis of Membership Considerations.

Two strong nominations from leaders in the field who can speak knowledgeably about the candidate should be sought. If there are perceived weaknesses in the candidate’s dossier, it is good for the nomination form to address those by way of positive explanation. Importantly, the nominations should be written independently rather than through endorsement of templates provided by the candidates.

Yes.  A member can nominate one person per category of membership (Associate or Full Member) per calendar year.  Additionally, members nominating a woman or an individual from a historically excluded group are permitted one additional nomination for that category.

ACNP defines historically excluded groups as Blacks or African Americans, Hispanics or Latinos, American Indians or Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders, individuals who identify as LGBTQIA2S+, individuals with a disability, and individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds as defined by the NIH.

 ACNP will make every effort to keep this information private; however, cannot guarantee this information would not be unintentionally released within the College through the course of inclusion efforts.

Nominations must be submitted online with the nomination package.  Only the nominator can submit this information to the system.  Nominees will select their nominator as a step during the submission process.  The nominator will receive an email requesting they log-in to the submission site, and complete specific sections to give a clear indication of how this nominee, if granted membership, would contribute to and promote the mission of the ACNP.  The nominee will not be able to see the information submitted.

Yes. Submissions can be saved and accessed through the submissions system up until the deadline.

The deadline for 2024 submissions will be September 5, 2024.  New members are announced in December at the ACNP Annual Meeting and notifications are emailed at that time to the nominees.

Yes, the committee tends to accept at or near the quota every year. Thus, a higher quality pool can result in a difference in entry for the lesser qualified applicants. See Synopsis of Membership Consideration

Please visit the ACNP Conference website, http://acnp.societyconference.com and log-in with your username and password. You will then select the “My Activities” tab, and export this information to a word document. Please confirm all information is correct, and then save as PDF to upload in your application.

The number of years in travel awardee status is not a consideration in achieving membership. See Synopsis of Membership Considerations.

Yes, individuals are encouraged to work with their member nominator to re-apply.  It is not unusual for applicants to be accepted for membership after more than one attempt at applying.

The ACNP Council retains decision-making authority, and the Membership Committee ranking of applicants is advisory. However, Council rarely alters the recommendations of the Membership Committee. The role of Council is not to try to redo the work of the Membership Committee, but rather to consider the recommendations in light of the broader goals and priorities of the College.

The proportion of applications accepted varies based on the number of applicants and the number of available slots.

The total number of Fellows, Members, and Associate Members of the College shall not be increased in any calendar year after 2012 by the addition of more than forty-five individuals, plus (from the previous calendar year): (1) the number elected to Emeritus status, (2) the number of Fellows and Members who have died, and (3) the number of Fellows and Members who have resigned or been expelled.

Yes. The Membership Commitee poster presented at the 2023 Annual Meeting details the new member application statistics. Click here to view poster.