Campaigning and support to protect the rights and earnings of songwriters and composers.
The most prestigious celebrations of songwriters, composers and their champions.
Anyone aged 18 or over who’s a songwriter or composer can join The Ivors Academy.
As an individual, company or education provider, you can help support and empower songwriters and composers by becoming a friend of The Ivors Academy, corporate supporter or academic supporter. Find out more.
There are four membership tiers:
Membership tiers have been updated – what was previously Standard membership is now Core.
All memberships are annual commitments. You can choose to pay in full or in monthly instalments, though paying in full costs less over the year.
You can join for free as a Discovery member and pay for selected benefits.
Core and Professional members receive a 25% discount if they are also a member of one of the following organisations:
If you're aged 18–24, currently in Higher or Further Education, or have graduated within the last three years, you’re eligible for our early career discount - 50% off Core membership.
Yes, we welcome international members and there are no restrictions from joining from outside the UK.
If you would like to join as an international member, please note that some of our benefits and services are UK-based, including most in-person events, professional advice and networking opportunities. A range of benefits – including resources, watch-again content and discounts – are available wherever you live.
Our All-Ireland Council hosts events in the Republic of Ireland.
You can pay using a debit or credit card.
All memberships are annual commitments. Annual membership fees can be paid either in full in one payment or in monthly instalments.
If you're a Professional member and also a PRS member, you can choose to have your annual Academy membership fee deducted directly from your PRS royalties.
Your membership will renew annually automatically unless you cancel.
We’ll send a reminder ahead of your annual renewal date so you have time to review or make changes if needed.
If you miss a payment, we’ll contact you to help resolve it. Missing payments may lead to your membership being suspended or cancelled. If you rejoin and have an outstanding balance from a previous membership, this will need to be settled before full access is restored.
You can cancel your membership by contacting membership@ivorsacademy.com.
If you change your mind within 14 days of joining, you’re entitled to a full refund. Refunds after this period are not possible. You’re welcome to rejoin at any point in the future.
We are committed to protecting your privacy. Your personal information is stored securely and used only for the purpose of managing your membership and sharing relevant updates.
You can manage your communication preferences at any time through your member account or by contacting us directly. Find out more about our privacy policy.
If you’ve stopped receiving emails, please check your junk or spam folder and make sure your contact details are up to date in your member account.
You can also contact membership@ivorsacademy.com to check your membership status or communication preferences.
You can update your email address, payment details, communication preferences and other personal information by logging into your member account.
If you have any issues please contact our membership team at membership@ivorsacademy.com.
All members are expected to uphold the Academy’s values and standards of respectful and inclusive behaviour. You can read the full Code of Conduct and review our Members’ Charter to understand what’s expected.
The Ivors Academy office is at 1 Upper James Street, London, W1F 9DE.
The Ivors Academy champions songwriters and composers. As a not-for-profit organisation, we ensure that songwriters and composers receive fair compensation for their work, are recognised and respected, and have access to the resources and opportunities they need to succeed.
Through advocacy, education and awards, The Ivors Academy protects, empowers and celebrates you, the songwriters and composers who create all the value in music.
Find out more about us.
Yes. Anyone can enter an eligible submission for consideration including the songwriter or composer themselves.
You need to be an active member (Early Career, Standard or Professional) to enter the Rising Star Award with Amazon Music, which is presented each year at The Ivors.
You do not need to be a member to enter any of our other award categories.
Ivors Academy members can receive discounted entry. Please see further details under 'Are there any discounts available?'.
The overriding criteria for Ivor Novello Award consideration is that the songwriter or composer is a British or Irish national. For some categories residency also counts and in these instances you need to have been ordinarily resident in the UK during the entire award year. This is because a founding principal of the award was to celebrate British and Irish songwriting and composing talent.
For our competitive musical work categories, the work itself must have at least 33.3% British or Irish writing interest to qualify and have received a commercial release or UK premiere performance within the award year. Each ceremony and award category has differing requirements so please read the Rules & Guidelines for either The Ivors or The Ivors Classical Awards before starting to submit a work.
The Academy presents a second awards ceremony, The Ivors Classical Awards, where Ivor Novello Awards celebrate classical composition and sound art. Entries for this ceremony open in May. To ensure your music receives appropriate peer review please wait and enter your music into this ceremony instead.
The Ivors is when Ivor Novello Awards are presented to celebrate British and Irish written songs and original music composed for feature films, video games and television broadcasts.
An Ivor Novello Award is an award which recognises creative excellence in contemporary songwriting and composition. At its core is the principal of peer recognition as award categories are decided by music creators working in the particular award category's field.
First presented in 1956 an Ivor Novello Award is named in honour of Ivor Novello, Britain’s most successful and distinguished theatrical composer at the time.
The statuette, designed in 1955 by Hazel Underwood, is a representation of Euterpe, the Greek muse of singing and lyric poetry. The solid bronze statuettes are cast and hand finished in the UK and weigh 5lb, 3oz each.
Central to what makes it so special, an Ivor Novello is a peer-recognition award at heart. The nominated award categories are judged by individual panels of established classical composers, sound artists and practitioners within contemporary new music. The gift of the Academy awards are chosen by the Awards Committee, a sub-committee of The Ivors Academy Board, which is also exclusively populated by songwriters and composers.
The Ivors with Amazon Music is the annual awards ceremony when Ivor Novello Awards are presented to recognise and celebrate creative excellence by British and Irish songwriters and screen composers. It is the Academy's oldest ceremony, having taken place every year since 1956.
Further details about the current presentation of awards at The Ivors can be found here.
Central to what makes it so special, an Ivor Novello Award is a peer-recognition award at heart. The nominated award categories are judged by individual panels of established songwriters and screen composers, with the exception of PRS for Music Most Performed Work which is a statistical category based on data held by the award's title sponsor, PRS for Music. The gift of the Academy awards are chosen by the Awards Committee, a sub-committee of The Ivors Academy Board, which is also exclusively populated by songwriters and screen composers.
The Ivors Classical Awards is the awards ceremony at which Ivor Novello Awards are presented to celebrate classical British and Irish composers and sound artists. Founded in 2003, The Ivors Classical Awards were known as the British Composer Awards until 2019 and The Ivors Composer Awards until 2022.
We campaign to protect and advance our members' rights, lobbying Governments, the music industry and other influential decision-makers.
Find out what we are campaigning for.
Alongside the funds, Copydan provides The Ivors Academy with a breakdown of the royalties due to rightsholders. Sometimes this information specifies for which works and sometimes only the rightsholder. We cross-reference this information against various databases - primarily our membership database and with PRS for Music. We also carry out desk research to identify rightsholders, contact them and confirm the correct bank account information to send funds to.
We do this regularly throughout the year so that if there are any rightsholders we were unable to contact initially, we have made efforts to contact them and ensure their royalties are paid.
Depending on how you manage your own accounting and tax returns, you may need to raise an invoice to account for the income you’ve received for your Copydan royalties. In the first instance, please contact your accountant for advice on this if you have one.
If you need to raise an invoice for VAT purposes, please raise this with zero-rated VAT to:
Copydan Writing, Bryggervangen 8, 2.sal, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark
Danish VAT number: DK 18463504
You must include the following statement: “This supply is subject to the reverse charge.”
Send this invoice to copydan@ivorsacademy.com or by post to The Ivors Academy, 1 Upper James Street, London, W1F 9DE. Do not send your invoice directly to Copydan.
The Ivors Academy processes distributions in two phases, one in July of the same year of receipt from Copydan and another in January of the following year if there are still balances to pay out.
It is The Ivors Academy’s responsibility to take all reasonable endeavours to contact the rightsholders who are due royalties payments in order to ensure their royalties are paid to them. We report details of these efforts back to Copydan; if after three years we are unable to contact the recipients then funds due to them become non-distributable revenue which the Academy is only entitled to use on activities which will serve the general best interest of songwriters and composers in the UK.
The Ivors Academy applies an administration fee to Copydan royalties payments to rightsholders. For 2025 royalties received, the administration fee for members of The Ivors Academy is 10% and 15% for non-members.
This administration fee covers our expenses to distribute the funds, including the resources required to identify rightsholders who are due funds, contact them and ensure we have all required financial information.
Royalties are due to songwriters and composers whose works have been reproduced in Denmark by educational institutions and private and public businesses since 2015. Copydan supply The Ivors Academy with this information alongside the funds based on their own methods of measuring and allocating royalties to rightsholders.
These rightsholders may or may not be members of The Ivors Academy, and we make the same efforts to contact rightsholders regardless of whether they are members or not.
You will have heard from us if you are a member of The Ivors Academy and are due any Copydan royalties. However, this is an ongoing agreement with Copydan, so if you have not earned any royalties to date, you may in the future.
If you are not a member of The Ivors Academy, and have not heard from us, but believe you may be due royalties from Copydan over the last five years, please get in touch at copydan@ivorsacademy.com
Copydan Writing (Copydan) is a collection management organisation that specialises in text and sheet music. They negotiate agreements regarding copying with educational institutions and private and public businesses. These agreements with Copydan allow their customers to legally copy text and sheet music material, ensuring that rights holders receive remuneration for the copies made.
As this right does not exist in UK law, PRS or MCPS does not cover this specific use of music. Copydan has requested that The Ivors Academy (the trading name for BASCA: the British Association for Songwriters, Composers and Authors) distribute the royalties on their behalf.
The Ivors Academy is not a collection society but acts as an agent for Copydan Writing in the UK.
