The Institute of Professional Editors Limited (IPEd) is the editors' association of Australia and New Zealand. It aims to promote the profession of editing in these countries, support the work of its member editors, and maintain high standards for editing practice. IPEd has seven branches: Editors Aotearoa New Zealand, Editors NSW, Editors Queensland, Editors SA, Editors Tasmania, Editors Victoria and Editors WA. Each branch runs professional development and networking programs, while the governing body manages the IPEd Accreditation Scheme, a biannual conference, a register of freelance editors, a mentoring program and other activities. The institute has operated since 2008, following a 10-year process that brought the originally separate, mostly state-based, societies of editors together under one umbrella. In 2016, it became a direct membership association of editors with centralised operations. The institute is a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee, governed by a board that comprises one representative from each of its seven branches. History The first society of editors in Australia was founded in 1970 in Melbourne, Victoria, partly in response to the withdrawal of publishers from providing inhouse training for editors. To ensure editors could find appropriate training, the society ran courses and workshops and provided networking opportunities for its members. From the late 1970s, the society published the Freelance Register to assist publishers to find freelance editors. Over more than a decade, the society worked closely with RMIT University to establish in 1988 Australia's first postgraduate editing course. Societies of editors with similar aims and activities were also established in NSW (1978), Queensland (1990), Western Australia (1992), Canberra (1992), South Australia, and Tasmania. The societies maintained loose ties with each other until 1998, when they established the Council of Australian Societies of Editors (CASE), which represented the independent societies at the nationwide level. In 2001, CASE published the first edition of the Australian Standards for Editing Practice, which sets out core editing standards, the skills editors require, and what publishers should expect from editors. Also in 2001, CASE developed the first guidelines for editing research theses together with the Australian Council of Graduate Research. CASE also oversaw Australia's first national editors conference, in Brisbane in 2003. Over the following five years, the societies of editors undertook research and consultations to replace CASE with the Institute of Professional Editors (IPEd). However, it was not until 2016 that IPEd became a direct membership organisation, with branches no longer being independent,