Membership Terms & Conditions – British Educated Life Scientists

Privacy – BELS operates within a set of Guiding Principles, as set out in its Pledge to Members. As such, the BELS database will not be shared outside the organisation. This is both to protect Members from being inundated with approaches and to exert a level of quality control over interactions. As a BELS Member, you will always control your involvement. The BELS organisation will act as a screening mechanism to offer you selective, appropriate opportunities for engagement, and to broker your requests for insights, intelligence, introductions and interactions with other BELS Members.
Guiding Principles – British Expats in Life Sciences (BELS) operates within a set of Guiding Principles, as set out in the pledge below. As such, the BELS database will not be shared outside the organisation. This is both to protect Members from being inundated with approaches and to exert a level of quality control over interactions. As a BELS Member, you will always control your involvement. The BELS organisation will act as a screening mechanism to offer you selective, appropriate opportunities for engagement.

Our pledge to BELS Members:

To inform you of developments and opportunities in the UK health and life sciences
To present specific tailored opportunities to targeted BELS Members
To act as a trusted clearinghouse for inquiries from all interested parties
To act as a trusted clearinghouse for speaking opportunities for targeted BELS Members
To protect privacy of BELS Members and limit access to them
To not share the contact details of BELS Members without their express permission
To quality control interactions with UK entities, to the extent possible and appropriate
To provide BELS Members with opportunities to engage with each other in-market and while attending events in the UK

BELS Primary Membership is an on-going subscription service so your membership will be continuous and renewed automatically at the end of each annual membership period. We will send you an electronic reminder towards the end of your annual membership term to advise you of the details of the new subscription. Your renewal date is 4 days prior to the expiry date of your current membership. We will not be liable for any non-receipt of communication from us, including non-receipt of the renewal reminder. You are required to inform us if you change your correspondence address (both email and postal). Your membership will be renewed automatically on the final date of your membership term. If you do not want to renew your membership you should contact us by email at accounts@BELSconnector.co.uk at any point within your membership period and no later than 5pm BST on the working day preceding your renewal date. To opt out of automatic renewal, please email us at accounts@BELSconnector.co.uk
Full settlement of your Primary Membership fee is due upon joining. Primary Members shall pay the BELS organisation on admission and thereafter annually. Membership fees will be reviewed annually and may, from time to time, be revised; you will be informed of any such change/s in advance of your renewal date.

The generosity of BELS Charter Members helps to support the planning and delivery of BELS activities.
With their permission, BELS Charter Members will be recognized in appropriate BELS communications.
Full settlement of your Charter Membership is due upon joining.

BELS Founding Members generously supported the organisation to help us re-launch globally. was a special category available in recent years for a period of three years. Full settlement of your Founding Membership was due upon joining.
After the initial three-year Founding Membership period, your membership fees shift to that of Primary Membership, payable annually.
Founding Members are recognised as such in perpetuity, so long as you remain a member of BELS in good standing.
Their generosity help to support the planning and delivery of BELS activities. With their permission, BELS Charter Members will be recognized in appropriate BELS communications

If you wish to pay online via credit card, please go to Join BELS Now, complete a Membership Form, then submit payment.
If you wish to pay by check or wire transfer, please advise us: cclark@BELSconnector.org

We take the security of credit card data very seriously and utilise Stripe, the leading secure online payment gateway, for all on-line transactions. All card details are encrypted in a secure host environment.
Stripe meets and exceeds the most stringent industry standards for security. Click here to learn more about the technical details of Stripe’s secure infrastructure.
All card numbers are encrypted on disk with AES-256. Decryption keys are stored on separate machines. None of Stripe’s internal servers and daemons are able to obtain plaintext card numbers; instead, they can just request that cards be sent to a service provider on a static whitelist. Stripe’s infrastructure for storing, decrypting, and transmitting card numbers runs in separate hosting infrastructure, and doesn’t share any credentials with Stripe’s primary services (API, website, etc.).
Stripe is PCI-compliant. It has been audited by a PCI-certified author and has been certified as a PCI Level 1 Service Provider. Stripe has security information regarding this.

Keeping Your Email Address Current with BELS – In order to ensure that we are able to provide news, records and notices to you electronically, you agree to notify us immediately of any change in your email address by contacting accounts@BELSconnector.co.uk

Data Protection – Personal data is gathered in compliance with the Data Protection Act 1998. BELS is the Data Controller and Data Processor of any personal data you supply. The personal data you supply will be used to process and administer your membership subscription. As a member of BELS, your data will be used for marketing, statistical and analytical purposes and to administer your membership. You will receive our membership communications and from time to time we will let you know about promotions and information which may be of interest.

Last updated August 21, 2019