SRCD President's Update April 2026
Dear SRCD members,
This month, I’d like to share two main updates on behalf of the Governing Council. One is somber, but the other is encouraging.
The somber update is that SRCD has not been spared from the widespread funding cuts that are affecting so many of us in terms of grants and other funding streams. We have been notified by funders that, through no fault of our own, we will not be receiving $1.9M in grant funding that we had anticipated for fiscal year 2027, which starts in July 2026. We count on grants not only for the specific programs that are directly covered by them but also to support SRCD staff time (through both direct and indirect costs).
SRCD staff and the Governing Council are hard at work on generating new revenue streams and cutting costs. We have a starting list of 48 ideas that we’re evaluating in terms of feasibility and anticipated impact. If your membership has lapsed and you can afford to renew, we would be especially grateful for your support at this time, and it would be very helpful if you could consider a two-year membership.
SRCD membership numbers always increase in years when we hold the Biennial but tend to lag in non-Biennial years, which has implications for SRCD’s finances. This pattern tells us that we need to build and showcase more membership benefits that go beyond the Biennial and access to our journals, which brings us to the encouraging part of the update.
The encouraging update is that our new three-year strategic plan is nearing completion. The strategic plan has been shaped by data from our recent member survey, focus group discussions, and individual interviews with members. Thank you to all who participated. We delved into SRCD’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
Through the strategic planning process, we have considered pain points experienced by members and how SRCD can help ease them. We have explored ways that we can realize our aspirations to be an international organization in more concrete ways. We have grappled with tensions between SRCD as a scientific society and its vital role in the policy and public sphere. We have discussed issues of governance, communication, and transparency. We will be providing additional information on all of these points soon.
We will soon have the finalized 2026-2029 strategic plan to share with you along with metrics to be able to assess quarterly and annual progress toward these goals. To operationalize the new plan, we are carefully considering what we should stop doing, what we should start doing, and what we should continue doing. One important goal over the next three years will be to increase members’ sense of belonging in SRCD. We want SRCD to be your professional home at all career stages—from providing networking and mentorship opportunities for students and early career scholars to opportunities for generativity and legacy-building for emeritus members.
Stay tuned—I look forward to sharing the full new strategic plan with you soon.
Please feel free to reach out to me with questions or suggestions. Thank you for your engagement with SRCD!
Warm regards,
Jen
Jennifer E. Lansford, PhD
SRCD President
Read March's GC Update
Read February's GC Update
Read January's GC Update
