Electronic ISC Extraordinary General Assembly - International Science Council

Background

As announced in August 2023, the ISC Governing Board asked ISC Members to vote on a proposed revised set of Statutes and Rules of Procedure in an electronic extraordinary General Assembly on 28-29 February 2024 (with voting from 29 February to 6 March).

ISC Members were simultaneously asked to vote on a proposal for a process to introduce staggering of the terms of office of Governing Board members.

Both the revised Statutes and Rules of Procedure and the proposal for the transition to staggered governance arrangements were the result of a long process of consultation with Members, led by a dedicated Working Group on Constitutional Revision.

Summary of results

Of 147 Members in good standing eligible to vote, 123 Members (83.7%) voted on Question 1 (proposal for revised ISC Statutes and Rules of Procedure) and 124 Members (84.4%) voted on Question 2 (proposal for a process to introduce staggering of the terms of office of Governing Board members).

A quorum (50%) was therefore reached on both questions put to the vote.

The proposal for the revised Statutes and Rules of Procedure was approved by 89.6% of the weighted votes actually cast, with 10.4% of the votes against.

The proposal for the transition to staggered terms of office of Governing Board members was approved by 90.6% of the weighted votes actually cast, with 9.4% of the vote against.

👉 Read the tellers’ report

General Assembly, documents and voting process

On 28 February the ISC President presented the proposed revised Statutes and Rules of Procedure in two virtual sessions. View the agenda and watch the recordings below.

Further to those meetings, the final documents were made available for consideration:

1️⃣ Proposal for revised ISC Statutes and Rules of Procedure

➡ With tracked changes: updated and final version of 29 February 2024, showing the modifications introduced since 2 February, including:

Editorial changes introduced since 2 February;
Changes made live during the first e-GA session on 28 February (no changes were made during the second session);
Changes introduced after the closure of the second session on 28 February, in the interest of consistency with the change of the title of the Vice-President and Committee for ‘Finance, Audit and Risk’ to ‘Finance, Compliance and Risk’. These latter changes have been highlighted in yellow to distinguish them from the changes presented during the e-GA sessions.

➡ Clean, no tracked changes: updated and final version, 29 February 2024, with all changes accepted.

2️⃣ Proposal for a process to introduce staggering of the terms of office of Governing Board members

➡ Proposal for transition to staggered Governing Board arrangements of 13 December 2023

Each Member organization eligible to vote was invited to designate one voting delegate by 27 February 2024.

On 29 February the voting link was sent to the designated and validated voting delegates. Votes could be cast until midnight UTC on 6 March 2024.

ISC Extraordinary General Assembly

SESSION 1
📅 Date: 28 February 2024
🕗 Time: 08:00 – 10:00 UTC
📃 Slides

ISC Extraordinary General Assembly

SESSION 2
📅 Date: 28 February 2024
🕓 Time: 16:00 – 18:00 UTC
📃 Slides

Additional information

On 20 February the ISC President and Secretariat were available to take questions of clarification from the ISC Members via two Zoom sessions. View the recordings below.

SESSION 1
📅 Date: 20 February 2024
🕗 Time: 08:00 – 09:00 UTC

SESSION 2
📅 Date: 20 February 2024
🕓 Time: 16:30 – 17:30 UTC

An additional pre-eGA information meeting with the President was held on 26 February. View the recording below.

📅 Date: 26 February 2024
🕗 Time: 14:00 – 15:30 UTC
📃 Slides

For reference

Who may vote

Full Members in good standing (that is, Category 1 and Category 2 Members having paid their membership dues for the past three years up to and including 2023 or, for new Members of less than three years’ standing, since joining the Council and until 2023 inclusive) are eligible to vote (Statute III, Article 9). Affiliated Members (Category 3) may not vote.

Voting system

In sessions of the General Assembly a quorum shall consist of a minimum of 50% of the voting Full Members (Rule of Procedure 1.1) – that is, at least half of the eligible Members must vote.

Any change to the Statutes requires the approval of two thirds of all Members present and voting (Statute XIII, Article 42).

The voting system that applies to this vote is set out in Statute V, Article 15.ii:

Regarding voting on elections and other procedural matters:

Each Member of Category 1 will have a weighted vote equal to the total number of country, territory or region votes divided by the total number of Members of Category 1, within the total membership base.
Each Member of Category 2 shall have one vote, except in cases where there is more than one Member of Category 2 representing the same country, territory or region as defined by the General Assembly, in which case the Members from that country, territory or region need to agree on a common voting position resulting in a single vote. Should there be no agreement amongst them, each Member of Category 2 shall have a proportion of that one vote. Exceptions to this voting rule may be agreed by a resolution of the General Assembly.