View source for ☞ 2014-2019 Strategic Plan

=The Strategic Planning Committee=

==Introduction==

The Strategic Planning Committee (SPC) was founded during a General Assembly (GA) session of the GA of the 62nd Congress of IVSA in Utrecht, The Netherlands, 2013. The idea had come to '''Pim Polak''', then President Elect of IVSA, that there was a need for a more long term vision for IVSA, but he was anxious about who would be suitable to chair the committee. It happened that by chance '''Jan Mattila''', former President, Trustee, Chairman of the Constitution Committee and Honorary Life Member of IVSA was present at the GA and offered to chair the committee, should the GA choose to elect him. Pim agreed to announce the committee and Jan was elected chair. Jan had already asked a few established members of IVSA if they would be willing to participate should the committee be founded. These members were:

*'''Jimmy Bost''', current Secretary General, Vice-President and former Constitution Committee member, 
*'''Frédéric Lohr''' former President and current Trustee, 
*'''Steen Smith''', outgoing Student American Veterinary Medical Association International Exchange Officer (SAVMA IEO) and chairman of the marathon GA meetings when the new Constitution was discussed, 
*'''Airina Sylte Kallmyr''', former Trustee and current Secretary.

After the composition of the committee was revealed there were complaints that there were no younger members of IVSA involved. To resolve this, the committee opened applications for a 6th member with requirements that the member should be a young student with little IVSA experience so as to have a fresh insight into IVSA's possibilities for the future. This 6th member became '''Victoria Drauch''', a 2nd year student for the University of Vienna, Austria.

The idea behind the SPC was to create these documents in which an abstract long term (10 year) and a more concrete short term (5 year) plan would be written down. The purpose was to have a vision of what IVSA could be and to provide Executive Committees (ExCos) of future years with ideas on what to work on. The goals outlined in these documents are not binding for IVSA members or ExCos, and nobody is required to take personal responsibility for any specific part of the work. The documents consist of guidelines and goals, which should both inspire the work of future ExCos and give them something which they can use to measure their achievements.

The work of the first SPC was conducted during late 2013 and early 2014 and these documents were submitted to the GA of the 63rd Congress of IVSA in Indonesia, 2014, where they were unanimously approved by the GA.

===Objectives===

These documents have been prepared in accordance with IVSA's objectives, as stated in the Constitution of IVSA:

*IVSA exists to benefit the animals and humans of the world by harnessing the potential and dedication of veterinary students to promote the international application of veterinary skills, education and knowledge.
*IVSA aims to:

A) Encourage veterinary students to use their knowledge and abilities for the benefit of both animals and humans.

B) Raise the overall standard of veterinary education worldwide.

C) Actively support measures to improve the standard of animal welfare worldwide.

D) Provide opportunities for veterinary students to undertake education in important areas outside traditional veterinary training.

E) Encourage cooperation between members, veterinary student associations and international organizations.

==5 Year Plan (mid-2014 to mid-2019)==

Unless otherwise specified, these statements relate to the position the Strategic Planning Committee suggest that IVSA aim to be in by mid-2019.

Overall, IVSA should continue to strive to be the voice of veterinary students all over the world and to fulfill its objectives as outlined in its Constitution.

===Expansion of IVSA===
*IVSA should seek to expand its membership to include at least 30 European countries, at least 15 Asian countries, at least 2 countries in Australasia, at least 12 countries in Africa, at least 5 North American countries (including Central America and the Caribbean) and at least 6 South American countries.
*IVSA should seek to represent at least 50 % of the veterinary faculties and at least 40 % of the veterinary student population on each continent (except for Antarctica) and at least 50 % of the total veterinary student population of the world.
*IVSA should seek to be composed of Member Organizations (MOs) from at least 75 countries with 50 MOs having been active for at least 3 consecutive years.
*Aside from length of time as an active MO and achieving at least one completed group exchange per 2 years, other measures of involvement and activity should be sought out, with the goal of encouraging our MOs to stay active and involved as IVSA expands. 
**For example, the ExCo could contact other student bodies at the faculties within which IVSA is represented, and ask them to estimate the level of awareness of IVSA among students within their faculty (e.g. to the nearest 10 %, with an appropriate target being 70 %).
*IVSA should seek to have a total membership of at least 60,000 veterinary students.

===Compartmentalization===
* At least 3 regional divisions (unofficial groupings of MOs) should be formally incorporated within IVSA as regional groups (official groupings of MOs).
* The regional groups should not be separate associations (cf. International Federation of Medical Student Associations, IFMSA and the separate European Medical Student Association, EMSA), but instead groupings of selected MOs of IVSA.
* MOs should be encouraged to form regional groups, but the ExCo should ensure that regional representatives are incorporated into the governing bodies of IVSA in some form regardless, to ensure that MOs in each region of the world naturally have one person to contact.
** This regional contact person would be elected annually by the GA at Congress.

===Congresses and Symposia===
*Organizing Committees (OC) should include abstracts from lectures during Congresses and Symposia in the proceedings.
*If the lecturer agrees, the OC should publish longer texts that summarize these lectures via the IVSA website after the Congress or Symposium. 
**Longer texts could be created by one dedicated lecture participant (rapporteur) per lecture (e.g. an OC member), and made available with permission from the lecturers and ideally with the lecturers checking the texts. If the lecturers are willing to write longer texts themselves this could in some cases be an alternative.
*OCs should have live streams for our members of lectures during IVSA Congresses and Symposia. If this is not possible then alternatives could include podcasts or making the presentations available online.
*All MOs should be encouraged to select applicants for Congresses and Symposia, creating a shortlist from which the OC can make its selection. This process should be as open and fair as possible, with candidates selected in two groups based on these principles:
**Group A
***Length and extent of involvement in MO (committee positions, organizing exchanges, etc.)
***Dedication to IVSA on a global level (interest in positions on the governing bodies of IVSA or its Committees, or previously holding such a position)
***Interest in, commitment to and ability to contribute to the objectives of IVSA
**Group B
***Year of study (earlier preferred)
***Number of IVSA global events attended (less preferred)
*Any member not satisfied with the pre-selection can appeal the decision to the MOD.
*A majority of delegates should then be chosen from Group A with a suitable number of delegates chosen from Group B while fulfilling the constitutional requirement of indiscrimination.
*The number of delegates attending a Congress or Symposium should be increased to accommodate more international participation.
**OCs should be aiming for a minimum of 200 delegates at each Congress and 150 delegates at each Symposium.

===Regional and Local Events===
*Regional events should be held annually or biennially (once every 2 years) in at least 3 regional divisions of IVSA
*The ExCo should strive to send a representative from the ExCo, Secretariat or Trust to each regional event.
*At least 8 MOs should organize a local event each year.
*Guidelines should be developed on what must or should be included in a regional IVSA Event.

===Individual and Group Exchanges===
*Each IVSA member undertaking an individual exchange in the form of an internship or externship at a university should be partnered with a student from that university who can show them around and be their local contact if they have any questions during their stay.
*At least one group exchange should be completed by each MO in a two year period.

===Committees===

====IVSA Committees====

A major goal is to keep the three current committees of IVSA active and viable in the future.

*All committees are to have complete manuals stating how its members are elected and how the committee's work should be administered.

====Animal Welfare Committee (AWC)====

The committee should:

*partner with one or several major global organizations working with animal welfare, e.g. World Animal Protection.
*disclose at least two relevant publications on the topic of Animal Welfare from their partnering organizations to IVSA members during each term.
*create at least one member benefit activity during the next five years as e.g. an allocated spot in a trainee program or scholarship, or discounts on conferences etc. for IVSA members, within the field of Animal Welfare.
*publish at least one relevant article in the IVS journal per term.
*deliver a report to the GA by the end of their term summarizing the activities of the committee, partnership relations, as well as achieved and unachieved goals.

====Standing Committee on Modern Technologies in Education (SCoMTE)====

The committee should:

*partner with one or several global organizations offering or creating modern learning utilities for veterinary students, e.g. WikiVet and IVIS.
*disclose at least two relevant publications on the topic of modern technologies in education from their partnering organizations to IVSA members during each term.
*create at least one member benefit activity during the next five years as e.g. discounts on online learning tools, conferences using modern technology etc. for IVSA members.
*publish at least one relevant article in the IVS journal per term.
*deliver a report to the GA by the end of their term summarizing the activities of the committee, partnership relations, as well as achieved and unachieved goals.

====Standing Committee on One Health (SCOH)====

The committee should:

*partner with one or several global organizations working with One Health and veterinary public health, e.g. FAO, OiE or GARC.
*have close relations to other international student organizations and/or their committees on One Health
*strive to arrange at least one guest lecture on One Health from a veterinary perspective for (veterinary and human) medical and pharmaceutical students etc., and vice versa. This could be in the form of a webinar.
*disclose at least two relevant publications on the topic of One Health from their partnering organizations to IVSA members during each term.
*create at least one member benefit activity during the next five years as e.g. an allocated spot in a trainee program or scholarship, or discounts on conferences etc. for IVSA members, within the field of One Health.
*publish at least one relevant article in the IVS journal per term.
*deliver a report to the GA by the end of their term summarizing the activities of the committee, partnership relations, as well as achieved and unachieved goals.

====New committees====

*IVSA should have a standing committee dedicated to veterinary education within 5 years, as this is in line with the objectives in our constitution: "IVSA aims to raise the overall standard of veterinary education worldwide."

*This committee should:
**partner with major global and/or regional organizations working on education, such as EAEVE, AVMA COE (AVMA Council on Education).
**be represented at WCVE (World Congress on Veterinary Education) when this is held.

*The current remit of SCoMTE could be incorporated into a future standing committee on veterinary education (SCoVE) and SCoMTE could then be disbanded. In this case, one or more members of the SCoVE would be dedicated to the objectives of the current SCoMTE. Alternatively the work of these committees could be divided so that SCoVE focuses on the content of the education and SCoMTE is renamed and refocused to concentrate solely on the technology enabling the delivery, utility or application of the educational content.

*IVSA should consider forming new committees whenever it seems that one would be appropriate. For example, a new committee on Veterinary Student Welfare could be considered.

===Partnerships===
IVSA aims to be the “voice of veterinary students” on an international scale and should act accordingly when seeking out new partnerships. This means that IVSA does not just exist for the members, but also to represent its members, making their ideas heard and raising their concerns. These actions should be clearly communicated to the MOs and the latter must be given time to react and give input on matters that affect the work of the association. Since some matters require action in between GAs, the governing bodies and the MOs should stay in close contact to ensure proper representation.

*In order to assure that future partnerships meet our own ethical standards, a standard set of ethical guidelines should be created for forming future partnerships, and an ethical code should be released and signed by the new partner, to ensure a fruitful and sustainable partnership that benefits both IVSA and the new partner.
*IVSA should seek to foster new partnerships with regional partners all over the world, as well as global partners. Currently the regional partners of IVSA are European and North American organizations. IVSA should aim to form at least 3 new regional partnerships outside of these areas.

===Finances===

*The official currency of IVSA is the Euro. IVSA should have its bank accounts in a Euro zone country and only have Euro currency accounts.
*The reserve fund of IVSA should have enough capital to cover the operating costs of IVSA for at least 2 years should all outside financial aid cease.
**The reserve fund should store approximately 50 % (operating cost for 1 year) in low risk short term investment instruments e.g. short term certificates of deposit, treasury bills, low risk short term marketable securities, and approximately 50 % in liquid assets ("money in the bank", savings account, checking account). 
**Single withdrawals of more than 10 % or sequential withdrawals during a 3 month period amounting to more than 25 % of the reserve fund should be approved by the GA.
*IVSA should endeavor to secure funding from non-corporate sources, other than membership fees, e.g. alumni fees and grants
**IVSA should endeavor to maintain reasonable membership fees 
*IVSA should arrange, with the help of a partner organization or a paid advisor, for training for the Treasurer of IVSA to improve the quality of the bookkeeping and management of the budget of IVSA
*IVSA should formulate non-binding guidelines for local partnership agreements to assist MOs in obtaining reasonable agreements with partners at the local level

===Documentation===

*IVSA should maintain a set of documents with information such as past members of governing and advisory bodies, locations and dates (and ideally reports) of previous Congresses and Symposia.
*The Manuals should be publicly available online where relevant, and should be updated on a regular basis.
*Unless specifically prohibited by the terms of the agreement, any agreements or Memorandums of Understanding (MoU) with partners should be made available online.
*IVSA should seek to develop a series of position statements on veterinary issues, especially those that representatives of IVSA such as the ExCo might be called upon to give the opinion of IVSA on, for adoption by the GA. If adopted, such statements should be archived and made publicly available online. Such statements could vary from overarching general themes to support or opposition to specific international legislation, and could be composed by committees, governing or advisory bodies of IVSA, or individual IVSA members, and submitted to the GA via the Secretary General.

===Member Benefits===
*IVSA should collaborate with EVERI on their EMS projects to fulfil objective D: "Provide opportunities for veterinary students to undertake education in important areas outside traditional veterinary training."
*More member benefits should be created through the work of the Committees of IVSA (see Committees section) and through access to lecture material from Congresses and Symposia for those who cannot physically attend the events (see Congresses and Symposia section)

===IT Infrastructure===

*IVSA should own its own top level domain (TLD), ivsa.org, and arrange hosting for said domain with an English speaking hosting service provider with reasonable pricing, good customer service and all online hosting management.
*IVSA should provide streaming video (where possible) of its GAs to all Members during Congresses and Symposia. IVSA should ensure its online archive of minutes of GAs is public.
*Streaming video (using a service provider e.g. like Ustream) is a bandwidth challenge and it may not be possible to provide streaming video from all Congress and Symposium venues. In these cases IVSA should provide streaming audio, which is far less of a bandwidth problem. Streaming video is however a financial burden.

===Promotion of IVSA===

* There should be promotional material in at least English, and preferably also Spanish and French, to be distributed to potential and new MOs as well as students of current MOs of IVSA.
* These promotional materials should include but not be limited to: standard PowerPoint/Keynote/other templates for MO presentations, videos or links to videos of previous IVSA exchanges and Congresses/Symposia.

===NGO Status===
*In order to fulfill the IVSA Mission Objectives A) Encourage veterinary students to use their knowledge and abilities for the benefit of both animals and humans, C) Actively support measures to improve the standard of animal welfare worldwide and E) Encourage cooperation between members, veterinary student associations and international organizations, IVSA should apply for a recognized NGO status with the NGO Branch of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. 

UN DESA describes the integrated Civil Society System as follows:
"The integrated Civil Society Organizations (iCSO) System, developed by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), facilitates interactions between civil society organizations and DESA.

The system provides online registration of general profiles for civil society organizations, including address, contacts, activities and meeting participation, facilitates the application procedure for consultative status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), and assists accredited NGOs in submitting quadrennial reports and in designating representatives to the United Nations.

DESA has also developed CSO Net - the Civil Society Network, a web portal devoted to non-governmental organizations in association with the United Nations, and to members of United Nations agencies, funds and programmes, to promote best practices in the field of economic and social development. The portal gives users the opportunity to publish news and to engage and moderate discussion forums. It facilitates online pre-registration to UN conferences open for civil society participation and allows for submission of NGO statements to the Economic and Social Council."

As a fully recognized NGO, IVSA can be invited and consulted by the UN and UN agencies in matters that concern the core fields of interest of IVSA, as mentioned above. Additionally, IVSA can request and be granted access to UN facilities in order to carry out this duty.

===Development Fund===

*The Development Fund (DF) should seek to fund and complete at least one project per year.
*At least 3 MOs should hold a fundraising event for the DF each year (excluding the auctions at IVSA Congress, IVSA Symposium and SAVMA Symposium).

===Scholarship Fund===

*The Scholarship Fund (SF), together with other similar sponsorship agreements, should be consistently funding at least 50 individual exchanges per year.
*IVSA should consider a partnership with an international veterinary charity, e.g. Veterinarians without borders (Vétérinaires Sans Frontières, VSF, the veterinary equivalent of the well-known MSF for doctors), to provide opportunities and encouragement for students to do charitable veterinary work around the world.

===IVSA Alumni Section===

At the time of writing of this text, the IVSA Trust has launched the first step towards an IVSA Alumni section, which aims to be a section for former IVSA members and professionals who are interested in and want to support the work of IVSA. This new section can foster the exchange between students and professionals as well as serve as a place for old IVSA members to meet old friends and receive Continuing Education (CE) at the same time.

After the first alumni meeting in conjunction with the 63rd IVSA Congress in Indonesia in August 2014, the next steps on how to proceed with the alumni shall be decided.

*A new internal section should be formed, which will support the work of IVSA. Meetings should be held in conjunction with the IVSA Congress and independently.
*To ensure alignment with IVSA, an IVSA ExCo member should be an <i>ex officio</i> board member of the IVSA Alumni.
*The conversion from non-student Individual Members to IVSA Alumni members should commence. No more non-student Individual Members should be accepted into IVSA after the establishment of the IVSA Alumni section.

===World Veterinary Association (WVA) as a "Parent" Organization===

A lot of student associations around the world maintain a close relationship with their professional counterpart to exchange ideas, seek advice and share resources. In the veterinary world, a long lasting example for this sort of cooperation is the team up of the Student American Veterinary Medical Association (SAVMA) and the American Veterinary Medicine Association (AVMA).

*IVSA should seek a close relationship with WVA as the professional equivalent to the student association that is IVSA. Since IVSA is working on an international level and does not focus on one of the many disciplines within the field of veterinary medicine, the World Veterinary Association (WVA) would be the logical choice as a “parent” organization.

Through a collaboration this close, IVSA could make its voice heard not just to the student world, but the whole veterinary community and could benefit from counsel on professional matters through WVA representatives. At the same time, IVSA could be the voice of the students in this over 150 years old association, which would help to achieve our goal to improve veterinary education throughout the world.

===Becoming a Federation===

A federation is an association of associations. Unlike IVSA at the time of this writing, which can have individual members, a federation could only have other associations as members. The only exceptions would be that the federation may also have non-student individual members and honorary life members.

*The advantages of becoming a federation are:
** Clear organizational structure from the bottom to the top, meaning that it is easier to spread information and coordinate actions in each direction with an established body at both ends.
** Easy formation of delegations for the GAs and the committees through the MOs, thus reducing the administrative efforts of OCs.
** Representation and voting at the GAs will be easier and clearer.
** Membership numbers and fees can be calculated more easily than with the model at the time of this writing.
** More activity at both national and local levels due to the presence of a more formal body.

*The disadvantages of becoming a federation are:
** Problems in establishing an official association on a local or national level.
** May require change in legal status depending on the place of registration of IVSA.
** Distancing the decision making in the GAs from the members of the MOs.
** The transition period might be confusing for some members and partners, especially since the established name would change. Although, IVSA changed its name from IVSU to IVSA in the past without causing a major confusion.

*IVSA should strive to be a federation (International Veterinary Student Federation, IVSF), with each MO being a legal entity within their country. Each MO should be an association, the membership of which should include the majority of veterinary students within the faculty or group of faculties (e.g. country) they represent.
**This goal may be achieved within 5 years, but IVSA should retain "associate members" of some description, who may retain voting rights, for at least 3 years after becoming a federation. The aim of this would be to give MOs who would not initially fulfill the criteria for membership in the federation sufficient time to establish themselves as a proper legal entity within their country.
*The ExCo should pursue measures to encourage and assist MOs with this transition. When over half of the MOs of IVSA meet the criteria for inclusion within a federation, IVSA should make the switch from an association to a federation.
*It is suggested that it could be possible to have more than one association per country, and associations could be subnational, national or supernational, but these decisions would be left to future ExCos and GAs. The ideal might be one association per country, but this might not be applicable in every case, so defining exact rules regarding this may be inadvisable.
*Within the new structure, Honorary Life Members should be retained. Student Individual Supportive Members may be retained (they may be reclassified as "Individual Observers").

===Relocation of IVSA===

*IVSA should consider relocation of its main offices to a site with proximity to graduate and non-graduate organizations which IVSA wishes to interact closely with. Proximity could be taken as far as colocation with a suitable organization. 

An example of this could be that if e.g. the WVA were to be considered a suitable organization, relocating to Brussels where the WVA have their headquarters would provide the opportunity for closer cooperation as well as possibly colocation with shared resources in office space and even potentially part time labor.

===Permanent Items===

*IVSA should have a permanent office. This poses a significant financial burden on IVSA and may require colocation to be plausible.

*IVSA should have permanent staff. This poses a very significant financial burden on IVSA even if the staff consist of only one part-time employee and will most likely require colocation and sharing of staff to be plausible.

The main benefit of a permanent office and especially of permanent staff is being able to have true multi-year projects with good continuity and efficiency making it possible to take on larger tasks and still finish them. A permanent office colocated with a suitable organization may also increase the reputability of IVSA in the eyes of large corporate partners and may help facilitate larger financial partnership deals. Permanent staff may also reduce time required for training of annually changing governing personnel (ExCo, Secretariat, Trust) as well as provide continuity in governing principals year after year.

*In order to preserve IVSA’s rich history and to help future governing bodies with research of previous decisions, IVSA should start an archive where all documents, print and digital can be stored and accessed by IVSA members on request. A potential place could be the University Museum of Utrecht, which already signaled interest in hosting the IVSA archive for free. IVSA must confirm that it would still hold all property rights on the items stored at the museum.

===The Future of Strategic Planning===

* Another ad hoc committee on strategic planning should be set up at Congress in 2018, to both assess what has been achieved over the previous 4 years, and come up with new plans to come into effect mid-2019 when the current 5 year plan expires. This next ad hoc committee may at its discretion incorporate any of the material of the previous 10 year plan into its future 5 year plan.

==10 Year Plan==

Unless otherwise specified, these statements relate to the position that IVSA aims to be in by mid-2024 (if the transition to federation has been made, read IVSF for IVSA).

Overall, IVSA should continue to strive to be the voice of veterinary students all over the world and to fulfill our objectives as outlined in its Constitution.

===Relocation of IVSA===

*This process should have been completed, including the completion of all necessary documents and the retaining of adequate records.

===Expansion of IVSA===

*IVSA should seek to be represented in the majority of veterinary faculties and countries on each continent (excluding Antarctica).
*IVSA should seek to represent at least 70% of the veterinary student population in the world.
*IVSA should seek to be composed of MOs from at least 90 countries with 60 MOs having been active for at least 3 consecutive years.
*IVSA should seek to have a total membership of at least 100,000 members.

===Compartmentalization===

*IVSA should be composed of regional groups of MOs, with each MO belonging to at least one potentially overlapping regional group, and each regional group reporting to one regional representative, who is elected annually by the GA.
** One regional representative could be the representative for more than one regional group

===Committees===

*IVSA should have at least four active, fully functioning committees, each with at least one appropriate partnership.

===Congresses and Symposia===

*Organizing committees should attempt to obtain presentation materials and lecture notes from all Congress and Symposium lectures to be archived and provided to all Members before, during and after each Congress and Symposium.

===Regional/Local Events===

At least 4 regional IVSA events should be held annually.

===Finances===

*The reserve fund of IVSA should have enough capital to cover the operating costs of IVSA for at least 3 years should all outside financial aid cease.
**The reserve fund should store approximately 2/3 (operating cost for 2 years) in low risk short term investment instruments e.g. short term certificates of deposit, treasury bills, low risk short term marketable securities, and approximately 1/3 in liquid assets ("money in the bank", savings account, checking account). 
*IVSA should avoid multi-year exclusive agreements with any partner

===Member Benefits===

*IVSA should strive to have IVSA Congresses' and Symposia's scientific programs certified to count for elective hours of veterinary degrees. This should be done through collaboration with organizations like EAEVE and AVMA COE, rather than negotiations with individual vet schools.

===NGO Status===

*IVSA should have acquired NGO status by the end of the 10 year period.

===Development Fund===

*IVSA should have a collaboration set up with another organization which involves fieldwork, which students would apply for through IVSA rather than through a separate organization.

===IVSA Alumni Section===

*The IVSA Alumni Section should hold at least two meetings each year, with an alternating continent different to the one of the IVSA Congress for the alumni-only meeting. Local, regional or national events should take place as well. These events should not only contain a scientific but also a cultural part, like their student counterparts.
*All former IVSA ISMs should have been moved to the IVSA Alumni Section, which supports IVSA projects not just with counsel and advice but also financially. Therefore it should acquire its own funds.

===Becoming a Federation===

*IVSA should be a federation, IVSF, composed of MOs which are legal entities in their own countries, non-student individual members and Honorary Life Members.
*The governing entity of each MO of IVSF should pre-select candidates to attend IVSF global events. For example, each MO could provide the OC of an IVSF global event with a ranked list of candidates to attend the event. The OC can then select from the combined lists, in order, one candidate from each MO until the total number of available places for delegates for the event have been reached.

==Appendix==
===NGO status===
*In order to facilitate such an application, the SPC already established an association profile with the United Nations, which can be found on the following homepage: http://esango.un.org/civilsociety/login.do . The login data has been handed over to the President and Member Organization Director.
*The exact application process is explained once the profile is accessed and involves a multi-year process. All documents, among them a detailed financial statement, an activity report and the registration of the association, must be handed in before June 1st of each year.
*After the approval of the General Assembly of such an undertaking, all documents should be handed in within one year after the GA's decision and the application process should be followed up by the President and the MOD. 
*Once the application has been granted, IVSA may advertise its status on the homepage and inform our members about the opportunities the status entails.
*Once NGO the status has been granted, IVSA should seek out which events to attend in order to fulfill its objectives and serve as the voice of veterinary students. A complete list of events each year is available under http://csonet.org/index.php?page=view&type=12&nr=180&menu=14
*IVSA should maintain the consultative status by sending in the requested reports every 4 years.