Abstract
Nowadays, the role of the majority of professional engineering communities, unfortunately, is devalued in Russia. It does not lead to the required development of engineering activities due to the disunity of individual specialists the lack of motivation to coordinated decision of professional issues, the lack of participation in the general professional labor market, the impossibility of direct communication with leaders in a particular field of knowledge, etc. The number of members in professional society with significant work experience is constantly decreasing. Professional communities that have not been able to build the structure of their work and become interesting for specialists usually disappear or have a formal status. The paper describes the successful world experience of the professional communities existence, considers the basic principles of the activities of such communities as: ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) and BGA (British Geotechnical Association). The success of these communities is evidenced by the fact that ASCE has unified a global community of engineers since 1852, with more than 150,000 members. The BGA has functioned since 1949 with over 60 collective members representing the UK's proponent geotechnical agencies. The advantages of membership in these societies for both professional engineers and students are given, including: rapid career growth supported by the community; active participation in the life of society, based on individual and social benefits; establishing personal contacts and obtaining first-hand information on topics of interest; great benefits or free membership for students; a large amount of events held under the auspices of ASCE and BGA , etc.