The IPA is governed by an Executive Committee and a Council consisting of representatives from 26 Adhering Bodies having interests in some aspect of theoretical, basic and applied frozen ground research, including permafrost, periglacial phenomena, seasonal frost, and artificial ground freezing.

Members are: Argentina, Austria, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States of America.

[3] These are: The International Secretariat is based at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research under the direction of Inga May (Germany).

Annual membership contributions are used for producing and distributing Frozen Ground, and support of Working Parties and committee activities and representations at international meetings.

Proceedings of peer-reviewed papers are produced for each International Permafrost Conference by the host country, as are field trip guidebooks.

The IPA cooperates with the American Geological Institute by providing literature to its Cold Regions Bibliography Project.

Several regional permafrost and soils conferences have been held, including: The IPA coordinates and cooperates with several other major international programmes and organizations.

The Circumpolar Active Layer Monitoring (CALM) program has 125 reporting stations,[31] and TSP has identified over 800 boreholes;[22] both include a total of over 15 participating countries.

The main areas of cooperation are on the roles of permafrost on water and carbon balances, and data assimilation and modelling.