Dear friends and colleagues all over the world,

Like every year, I am honored to address you in this brief message of the annual report. We have reached the end of another year, a difficult year with the continuing Coronavirus pandemic crisis. However, we do not have the same concerns we had last year about our Institute’s fate in this crisis. IIAS has shown its resiliency throughout this crisis, making us confident that it is here to continue its prestigious 90-year history.

In addition to the positive financial results that are expected at the end of this year, we have many achievements at the level of service delivery to our valuable members. We have resumed our onsite conferences although partially. We have developed a strong capacity to hold hybrid events. We expect all of our events to be hybrid in 2022 and there are six of them planned already. Our judicious investments in our virtual platform and online conferencing will come in handy. Publications are thriving with the new Open Access strategy alongside our traditional channels of IRAS and the Palgrave Book series. ICAPA has also restarted with a consistent pipeline of candidates for accreditations. IASIA and our regional groups in Asia, Europe, and Latin America have had good years as well. Their Presidents’ reports in this annual report are testimony to that. The key question now is where do we go from here?

One lesson we learned from this crisis is that our most reliable resource is our state members who constitute 80% of our membership revenue. This past year, we were able to enroll a new state member to represent the Kingdom of Jordan, the Institute of Public Administration. The priority for our membership drive in the year to come will be to enroll new state members. We have already started approaching some with our new services. Of course, membership depends on being able to offer and promote a value-added proposition. We believe that we have enhanced ours over the last few years, mainly through:

• The publication opportunities with the Open Access outlets like DinA, partner journals, and the IIAS Publication Governance series;
• The enhanced ICAPA services that we are now offering;
• The new model of conferences and events organisation that makes it easier for partners to join into co-organise events;
• Our enhanced setup of conferences and events.

We plan for more with an e-learning platform by IASIA, applying for funded research through consortia, and the development of a network of research centres to upgrade our current study groups and working groups at IIAS, EGPA, and IASIA.

Things have turned out to be quite good for IIAS thanks to the efforts of many:

• First, the IIAS Secretariat in Brussels under the leadership of Director General Sofiane Sahraoui has steered the Institute in the right direction despite the turmoil caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Reduced to a limited number of staff, he and his committed and industrious team were able to offer more with less.
• The governance boards of IIAS, namely the Council of Administration of IIAS, the Board of Management of IASIA, and the Steering Committees of our regional groups, EGPA, AGPA, and LAGPA. They provided support for the successful operations of IIAS to continue.
• The Finance and PRAC committees of IIAS, continue to provide the necessary financial and scientific guidance to the IIAS agenda.
• The ICAPA Board and accreditation committee, who resumed their operations successfully.
• Our publication partners in SAGE for IRAS and Palgrave for the IIAS Governance Book Series.
• Our strategic partners like the ETF (European Training Foundation), the UNDESA, the OECD SIGMA, and others who have supported our activities.
• Our strategic partners among other learned societies in other regions of the world like North America (ASPA and NASPAA), Europe (NISPACee), Africa (AAPAM and UCLG-A/ALGA), and the Middle East (MENAPAR). We continue to collaborate with these on strategic initiatives and events.
• And of course, last but not least, all participants in our events and recipients of our services.

Thank you all for the great 2021 we spent together. We are all looking forward to an eventful 2022 with even greater achievements.

 

 

Ra’ed Mohamed BenShams
IIAS President