How to join

We welcome national groups to join us as Members with their own objectives and organisation, but with an interest in global collaboration to meet our mission.

There is no single model for our  national members; some are respiratory charities (eg NAC Australia); others are sub-groups of the national GP group (eg RespiRO, Romania); others are standalone primary care groups (PCRS-UK, GRAP Spain), and others are a mix of respiratory-interested colleagues working on the frontline, some of whom may hold secondary or tertiary care roles too. 

Country groups with a primary care respiratory interest who want to join the IPCRG must meet the ten joining criteria:

  1. Have a written purpose of the organisation.
  2. Have written rules including inclusive membership rules appropriate for a primary care group with a respiratory interest in that country.
  3. Have a geographical spread: representation from more than one university/region.
  4. Have independence from undue influence (eg pharmaceutical industry, tobacco industry, politics, secondary care, commercial enterprise).
  5. Have a non-personal bank account, so that funds raised for primary care respiratory purposes are safeguarded for those purposes.
  6. Have elected officers with a limit on the terms of office, and written down responsibilities and roles.
  7. Have an up-to-date list of individual members that the group represents, and a way of contacting them.
  8. Have a process for seeking and representing individual members' views.
  9. Have a written plan about existing/future direction and materials (membership, activities, resources, research, presence and influence).
  10. Agree to include the IPCRG logo on your website, and actively promote our meetings, conferences and any educational or research project as requested.

To accept your organisation as a Member, please complete the online form with details of how you meet these criteria. 

If the IPCRG Board are satisfied these criteria are met, they will recommend the country group be granted full (“Ordinary” in legal terms) membership at the next Annual General Meeting of the IPCRG. Applications received by mid-April  can be reviewed by our Board of Directors and then issued to the Members to be voted on at the AGM – which normally takes place in May at our conference.

The IPCRG also warmly welcomes associate corporate members who support our mission and can contribute to our activities. Associate corporate members do not have voting rights.

If you are interested in joining IPCRG, please email BusinessManager [at] theipcrg [dot] org for more information. 

Examples of constitutions