Annual Report 2007

2007 was a busy and successful year for ICOS with steady progress and achievement under all our objectives. Undoubtedly, one of the highlights of the year was ICOS’ international students’ forum, “Diverse Voices”, held in UCC in November and attended by over 130 international and Irish students from higher education institutions across the country. A report of the forum’s proceedings is available, providing some useful insights on the subject of the integration of home and international students on campus.

ICOS’ training and information services were also busier than ever in 2007 with delivery of over 25 separate courses/information workshops to staff and students of member institutions. There was a particular demand during the year to respond to the information needs of Careers Offices in the context of the publication, in February 2007, of the Employment Permits Act(2006). Working rights of non-EEA students and graduates remained the dominant theme from a policy perspective and was the subject of representations by ICOS to various government departments during the year.

Meanwhile, throughout 2007, ICOS continued to provide a broad range of support services to Irish Aid in relation to the management of the Fellowship Training Programme (FTP). Fellowship Programme support is ICOS’ key activity and the organisation was pleased, at the end of 2007, to receive an extension of its contract with Irish Aid to the end of 2008. A new dimension of ICOS’ activity in the context of management of the FTP was the conduct of a research project on the longer term impact of the fellowship on individual fellows’ career development. The finding that 87% of the returned study fellows who were surveyed felt that the programme was meeting its aim and making a contribution to capacity building in Ireland’s partner countries was encouraging and confirmed a similar finding in Irish Aid’s external review of the programme released in October, 2007.

ICOS’ solid achievements in 2007 are built on a strengthened organisation. ICOS welcomed three new institutional members in 2007 and the Board was reinvigorated with the election of 7 new member representatives at its AGM in June. Many individuals contributed to the work of the organisation over the year and we thank them all especially our small but dedicated staff team and member representatives from a wide range of institutions and student organisations who served on committees and working groups and assisted with events.

Thank you for reading our report and we look forward to your continuing support and interest as ICOS embraces new challenges over the years ahead.

Philip Curtis, Chair
Sheila Power, Director