What Matters to You?– Part 3

Wendy Wilson provides a final update on the status of actions from IChemE’s Member Engagement Survey

IN 2019, all members were invited to take part in a survey that was commissioned by Trustees and Congress to understand your priorities and views of IChemE’s performance.

The findings informed IChemE’s Strategy 2024 document, and the progress of the actions being taken following your feedback were reported in issues 937/8 and 944. I wanted to provide a final update ahead of a new survey planned for April.

IChemE as a qualifying body

Efforts are underway to implement Programme SMART, which is a series of projects designed to deliver sustainable membership growth (latest article: https://bit.ly/2OBi46o).

A highlight has been the soft launch of the Individual Case Procedure (ICP), along with the formation of an ICP panel. To date 18 candidates have been through the ICP process, a further 15 are progressing, and a final five are just starting. The existing membership application system will be replaced in the first half of 2021 and this will then enable the full implementation of all the Programme SMART changes. New applicants will see the first changes introduced from early April. Members affected by the changes have and are being contacted directly via a communications campaign as the old processes are replaced with the new.

IChemE as an ambassador

Strategy 2024 was launched in 2019 and last year the Board of Trustees reviewed progress against each of the four aims. These are IChemE is: respected for professionalism and technical competence; recognised as a vibrant learned society that addresses the Global Grand Challenges; acknowledged as an institution of choice in which an engaged membership receives and adds value; known as a high performing organisation delivering significant value.

Good progress has been made in some areas though it was acknowledged we are still early in the journey and some won’t be completed until 2024. An article will be published on this later this year.

Furthermore, more than 60 volunteers are working on the IChemE centenary project which aims to promote the contribution of the profession; and IChemE supported the arrangement and promotion of three IChemE Fellows featuring on the UK Discovery Channel’s safety series Disasters Engineered.

IChemE as a learned society

I am pleased to report there has been a lot of progress in this area. A peer-reviewed funding mechanism for SIGs is in place and budgets have been allocated for 2021; the Learned Society Committee was created and is now delivering on its remit; and the online Knowledge Hub has been launched.

A significant highlight was the member consultation and subsequent launch in November of IChemE’s Position Statement on Climate Change (https://bit.ly/3ca2qr4). This was an enormous collaborative effort, so thank you to all involved.

The Learned Society Committee has identified three priority topics to focus on under Strategy 2024: responsible production, major hazard management, and digitalisation (https://bit.ly/3bqNXrC).