The Society of Friends of IRGO (SF*IRGO) was founded in Cologne, Germany, in 2012 by nine founding members. Since then, its non-profit status has been regularly reviewed and recognized by the German tax authorities.

SF*IRGO is open to all persons willing to actively support the aims of the society.

These aims are:

• to support the independent International Research Group on Ostracoda (IRGO), both internally and externally
• to help IRGO in administrative and financial routines
• to give aid to organizers of conferences related to Ostracoda
• to promote training courses and research activities on Recent and fossil Ostracoda
• to support, promote and supervise the scientific analysis of research data on Ostracoda in the framework of the ‘Kempf Database Ostracoda’
• to promote the importance of ostracod research outside of IRGO

The bylaws of SF*IRGO invite the current IRGO president to be a member of the Advisory Board of the Society.

SF*IRGO operates the yearly European School on Ostracoda (ESO) since 2016.