• As a global institution, with branches in the United States and Europe, Asia, South America, the Mid-East, Canada, and Australia, ICAM provides unique global access for its branch member scientists to new research and educational initiatives and a significant global platform for sharing their research findings and educational innovations.

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• ICAM’s international component, I2CAM (the International Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter) provides an unparalleled set of research opportunities in Europe, the Mid-East, and Asia for both junior and senior researchers at ICAM branch member institutions. Junior researchers receive support to attend workshops and summer schools abroad and to visit and develop collaborations at leading overseas laboratories, while senior scientists receive support to initiate or expand collaborations with their colleagues at the seventy-one overseas institutions presently affiliated with ICAM.

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• ICAM offers new modalities for enhancing cross-disciplinary research at a branch member campus. These include “worked” examples of mechanisms developed at ICAM branches for organizing interdisciplinary research seminars and improving communication between scientists in different departments and colleges.

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• Becoming part of ICAM’s growing global science education and engagement network offers a way to enhance substantially local campus education and outreach efforts through workshops and access to materials developed and lessons learned at other ICAM institutions.

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• ICAM is a bottom-up institution. Branch member scientists play a leadership role in ICAM and I2CAM and have privileged access to all ICAM-sponsored activities. Each branch names one member to the ICAM Board of Governors, Science Steering Committee, and Fellow Selection Committee, and is entitled to send at least two scientists to any ICAM-organized activity, and up to four representatives to the branch-members-only Annual Conference that brings together leading members of the ICAM community for 2.5 days each year. Participation by graduate students, postdocs, and junior staff in ICAM activities enables them to become connected to their counterparts at other branches and to gain international recognition.

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• Only branch members can host ICAM or I2CAM Exploratory Workshops for which ICAM provides up to $35,000 a calendar year in external support. Hosting a workshop makes it easy for students and postdoctoral researchers on the campus to participate and obtain a sense of the opportunities that lie ahead for research and teaching in complex adaptive matter.

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• Only branch members are eligible to join ICAM’s global working groups on energy, novel superconductors, and science education and engagement, and its nascent global research networks.

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• Only graduate students, postdoctoral, junior, and senior scientists at ICAM branches are eligible to apply for ICAM Fellowships that make it possible to carry out research at a second ICAM campus through a stipend that supplements existing support.