At the April 2023 meeting, Council agreed to expand its size, adding two more members. The reason for doing so is to better resource the work of the Council to undertake strategic initiatives that are difficult to achieve with the current number of Council members. Furthermore, it was decided that one of these two new positions should be reserved for ECR (early career researcher) representation, defined here as someone who has no more than seven years of experience since completion of PhD at the time of their election to Council. This would complement well the current reserved position we have for a PhD student.
We propose that elections for these two new positions would take place in 2024 as part of the usual election cycle.
As stated in the constitution, this change to the size and composition of the Council requires a vote of the membership, with two-thirds being in favour of the change for it to be adopted. This is because it necessitates a change in the constitution itself and would involve amending clauses six and seven as highlighted below.
Clause six currently reads:
The affairs of EASST are governed by a Council, consisting of a President, eight regular members and the President-elect subject to clause 7 below.
Under this change the clause would now read:
6. The affairs of EASST are governed by a Council, consisting of a President, ten regular members and the President-elect subject to clause 7 below.
Clause seven would change from:
7. Members of Council are elected by the individual members of the Association, from among EASST members. One of the regular members will be a PhD candidate at the time of election. No member of the Association shall serve as President for more than two terms. The Council shall have a quorum of 5 members. The Editors of the Association’s publications will be co-opted members without voting power. The Council may co-opt up to four members in total without voting power either to undertake specialist tasks or to gain experience of Council before seeking election to full membership.
To:
7. Members of Council are elected by the individual members of the Association, from among EASST members. One of the regular members will be a PhD candidate at the time of election and one would be an early-career academic (no more than seven years of experience since completion of PhD at time of election). No member of the Association shall serve as President for more than two terms. The Council shall have a quorum of seven members. The Editors of the Association’s publications will be co-opted members without voting power. The Council may co-opt up to four members in total without voting power either to undertake specialist tasks or to gain experience of Council before seeking election to full membership.
The vote will be an online ballot, asking you as members to either agree or disagree with the proposal to add two more members to the Council, with one of these being reserved for ECR representation. The ballot is planned to take place in autumn 2023.
