SPIE is an international organisation promoting research and development in the field of optics and photonics. It encourages students not only to communicate their research for the benefit of the scientific community, but also to network and collaborate with other researchers.

The University of Southampton SPIE Student Chapter was formed on  28th January 2011 and is only the 4^th of its kind in the UK. SPIE will provide us with a chapter activity grant which will be used for co-organising academic and social events with the OSA Student Chapter at the ORC.

We are encouraged to collaborate with other Student chapters and other professional bodies, for which SPIE can provide us with additional funding. This will be of particularly interest to us for organising IONS-10 which will be held at Southampton later this year. The visiting lecturer grant can be used to invite a world renowned researcher to deliver a talk at the ORC.

Every year a chapter officer is awarded a travel grant to attend the student leadership workshop at Optics and Photonics, San Diego where the officer has the opportunity to attend a top conference and to exchange ideas with other student chapter members from around the world.

There are various benefits for student members of SPIE. A membership gives free access to any one of the SPIE journal and 10 free downloads from any other journal. A member also enjoys a reduced registration fee at SPIE conferences and stands a good chance of receiving a travel grant.

Only a month after our inception, we already have quite a few SPIE/OSA joint events planned like a seminar series, an industrial visit and some social events.