Full Member
If you are a healthcare organisation from a country not currently involved in the International Horizon Scanning Initiative, you can apply to become a Full Member.
As a Full Member of the International Horizon Scanning Initiative, your organisation can:
- Access the IHSI Joint Horizon Scanning Database
- Access High Impact Reports, which specifically focus on upcoming disruptive innovation
- Participate in the Executive Committee and shape the future of the initiative
- Access an extensive pool of resources and expertise from global member countries
- Coordinate the participation of other organisations within your country that have applied for Affiliate Membership.
Terms and conditions
Full Members can adhere through the signing of an adherence form, thereby agreeing with the by-laws, internal regulations and the Formula for Repartition of IHSI. The adherence form will be circulated in execution form to all interested countries. To this adherence form, two important annexes need to be attached:
- An outline of the decision-making process for the approval by the competent national authority of the adherence by the candidate Full Member; and
- Proof of the approval by the competent national authority – a Full Member is indeed a representative of the participating country and, therefore, there can only be one such representative per country.
After signing the adherence form, the Full Member will be financially bound to IHSI for a minimum duration that is equal to the entire duration of the agreement with the database supplier (the “Minimum Duration of Membership”):
- The Full Member will still be able to resign as a member of IHSI at any time, implying it will no longer participate in the organs and bodies of IHSI.
- However, the resigning Full Member will not be liberated from its minimum financial commitment towards IHSI and towards the other participating countries, having taking on a share of the costs of the multi-year-agreement with the database supplier (i.e. the costs for the actual database and the high impact reports, together the “Core Data Set”).
This minimum financial commitment is required in order to both award the tender and run the database without risking a deficit in the longer term (as the contract price for the Core Data Set is fixed).
The membership fees of the Full Members only cover the fixed costs for the Core Data Set4, i.e. the database and the high impact reports, as will be set out in the tender documentation. If a Full Member would exceptionally like to acquire an additional analysis from IHSI in addition to the Core Data Set, IHSI will invoice this additional task separately to the Full Member in question – such invoices will not be considered as part of the membership fees covering the costs for the Core Data Set.
Full Members will have full access to the database for the entire minimum duration of Membership, even if they resign at a date earlier than the completion of this period. The right to access the database is thus linked to the financial contribution of the Full Member. This also implies that, if the Full Member fails to pay its membership fees, it can be denied further access to the database by the Board of Directors (without this withdrawal of access releasing the Full Member from its duty to pay the remaining membership fees for the entire Minimum Duration of Membership).
If you are interested in becoming a Full Member of the International Horizon Scanning Initiative, please complete the online contact form available here.