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By-laws for the International Commission for Acoustics

Adopted at the General Assembly, June 25 , 1998.

Revised at the General Assembly, September 5 2007.

These By-laws include relevant excerpts of the Statutes (in Italics).

Article 4

The work of the International Commission on Acoustics is directed by:

a) A General Assembly of the official delegates appointed by the Members.

b) A Board of fifteen members, elected by the General Assembly. The Board is formed by a President, a Past-President, a Vice-President, a Secretary-General, a Treasurer, and eleven other members. In addition, also at the General Assembly, every International Affiliated Member appoints a member up to a limit of 6; if there are more than 6 International Affiliated Members, 6 members are elected at the General Assembly by the International Affiliated Members.

In addition the Executive Council of IUPAP and IUTAM may have a representative in the Board ex officio.

The number of official delegates in the General Assembly and votes assigned to the Member is determined according to the following IUPAP scale:

CategoryIIIIIIIVVVI
Number of units12 or 34 to 67 to 910 to 15>15
Number of official delegates and votes123456

The number of shares of an International Affiliated Member is determined by agreement with ICA during the Membership admission procedure; it may be changed following the same procedures as for membership admission. The International Affiliated Members are represented by one voting representative carrying a number of votes proportional to the number of shares of the Member.

The General Assembly

General Assembly consists of official delegates appointed by the Members (Member Societies and International Affiliated Members).

Depending upon the number of shares the different member societies have different number of votes.

Article 8.

The General Assembly of the ICA will usually meet in connection with the International Congresses on Acoustics. The following business will be carried out at these General Assemblies: a) election of the Board every third year; b) examination of a Financial Statement presented by the Board; c) agreement on a provisional budget for future years; d) discussion of questions submitted by the Members, the Board or the Executive Council of IUPAP, IUTAM and ICSU.

The voting powers of the delegations shall be in accord with those fixed by the Statutes of IUPAP (Articles 14 and 16. See also Article 4 above).

Members of Member societies who are not official delegates, as well as members of subcommittees appointed by the ICA, may attend meetings of the General Assembly in a consultative capacity.

The President of the ICA may invite scientists who are not delegates to attend meetings of the General Assembly as consultants.

The Draft Agenda for the General Assembly is circulated by the Secretary-General to the Members at least three months before the opening of the General Assembly. Subjects not on the Draft Agenda may be added at the Assembly with the consent of a simple majority of the votes of Members represented at the Assembly.

A Member whose delegation will not attend a given General Assembly but wishes to vote on appropriate matters appearing on the agenda may send its vote in writing to the President. To be valid, it must be received prior to the voting.

A member society does not need to send the number of delegates to General Assembly that corresponds to its number of votes. All votes, the right to vote, may be transferred by authorization without a specific limitation, so that one delegate to the General Assembly can carry all the votes for its society or organization and also votes for other societies or organizations not represented at the General Assembly.

Items for the General Assembly are prescribed in the statutes. The complete Agenda for the General Assembly to be distributed to the Member Societies at least 2 months ahead should include the following points:

  1. Opening of the meeting
  2. Approval of the Agenda
  3. Election of chairperson for the meeting
  4. Ratification of membership in the Commission
  5. Adoption of By-laws (according to article 12)
  6. Election of the board
  7. Examination of financial statement
  8. Agreement on a provisional budget for future years, due per share and contribution from the congress fees.
  9. Discussion of questions submitted by the members, the Board or the Executive Council of IUPAP, IUTAM, and ICSU
    1. questions submitted ahead (2 months prior) in writing
    2. other questions submitted later than 2 months prior to the GA.

Questions under Item 9.i. will be "responded" to but not necessarily with a resolution.

Questions under Item 9.ii. will be discussed but a resolution can not be taken.

Issues on the By-laws demand a 2/3 majority vote according to the number of shares. Other issues demand simple majority.

The Board

Article 5

The Board is responsible for the conduct of the Commission's business between the meetings of the General Assembly.

The Board shall normally have one regular meeting each year. The Draft Agenda for the regular board meeting is circulated by the Secretary-General at least three months before the meeting. Subjects not on the Draft Agenda may be added at the meeting with the consent of a simple majority of the Board Members present. Quorum requires that at least a majority of the Board Members is present.

All Board Members, with the exception of the Past-President, are elected by the General Assembly, and as a rule their term of office is for three years from October 1 in the year of the election.

The President will be elected for one term of three years, normally after having served three years as a Board Member. In the event the President is unable to continue his duties for the elected term, the Past-President ( or if he is unable, the Vice-President) will act as interim President, or, with the concurrence of the majority of the Board, will appoint one of the Board Members as interim President.

The Vice-President will be elected for one term of three years, normally after having served three years as a Board Member. In the event the Vice-President is unable to continue his duties for the elected term, the President will, with the concurrence of the majority of the Board, appoint a substitute from among the Board Members.

The Secretary-General and Treasurer will be elected for a term of three years and will be eligible for a second and usually final term of three more years. If either is unable to continue his duty for the elected term, the President will, with the concurrence of the majority of the Board, appoint a substitute from among the Board Members.

Other Board Members will be elected for three years and will be eligible for not more than one additional term of three years, except as described in the above two paragraphs.

In exceptional circumstances and with the agreement of the Board the officers may be re-elected for one additional term.

The Board may fill vacancies occurring in its membership during the interval period between General Assembly meetings.

The Board may approve International Affiliated Members nominated by membership organizations. International Affiliated Members are entitled to vote at the Board Meeting.

The Board may also elect Associate Board Members for liason with scientific Unions and other organisations concerned with the purpose of article 1 and 2 above. Such liason elections should be done in consultation with the organisation concerned.

Associate Board Members are not entitled to vote at the Board meetings nor will they be eligible for IUPAP grants towards travel and living expenses.

  1. The Board shall decide on time and venue for the International Congress.
  2. The Board shall decide on the sponsorship of symposia and conferences with or without ICA financial support.
  3. The Board shall make recommendations to IUPAP regarding IUPAP sponsorship of symposia and conferences.
  4. The Board has to treat all questions which the General Assembly delegates to it.

The Secretariat

The Secretary-General holds the secretariat and keeps the archives, which are then forwarded to the successor. The Secretary-General is responsible for the service to the member societies. The Commission gives a financial support for covering running costs.

The Secretary-General is to be elected under the provision that he/she has adequate infrastructure support. The Nominating Committee must insure this.

Election procedures.

  1. Member societies are invited to make nominations of Board members. Nominations should include not only the nominee's name but also the nominee's qualifications in terms of acoustic field, experience from organising major international congresses, positions held in other national or international organisations, industrial experience and other relevant qualifications. The deadline for the nominations is five months before the General Assembly meeting.
  2. The nominations shall be sent to the Secretary-General, who collects them and forwards them to the Nominating committee.
    • There shall be permanent seats for societies for the countries/regions according to the following, with the provision that the remaining 6 open seats excludes them. (North America 2 members, and 1 each for China, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, Russia and UK.) No country may have more than one person at the Board. (No more than 2 from North America.)
    • Observe that, according to article 4 in the Statutes, the immediate Past President stays on the Board.
  3. The Nominating committee consists of the current President, the immediate Past President, and the previous Past President.
  4. The Nominating committee prepares a slate (proposed candidate list) to be presented to the General Assembly trying to get a good balance between geographical regions, fields in acoustics, academia - industry. The slate shall be prepared according to the following:
    1. the President shall be elected from a slate of two names. the candidates with the most votes will be the President and the other candidate will be the Vice-President.
    2. the Secretary-General shall be elected from a slate of one name
    3. the Treasurer shall be elected from a slate of one name
    4. there shall be a vote for the permanent seats followed by a vote for the remaining open positions. Each Member Society shall be invited to submit more than one name from differing fields of acoustics for the permanent seats, but if only one name is submitted, then the nominee becomes the Board Member for that seat.
    5. if there are more than 6 International Affiliated Members, there shall be a vote for 6 seats by the International Affiliated Members.

The slate is to be sent out to the Member Societies three months prior to the General Assembly.

The International Congress organisation

See separate guidelines.

Commission finances

The Member Societies pay a fee per share. This fee is decided by the General Assembly. (For 2008 the fee has been set to 25 Euros per share, the total number of shares at present (December 2006) being approx. 200).

As additional income the Commission has the percentage from the International Congress fees. This percentage is 5% until the General Assembly decides otherwise.

The main expense is the economic support of symposia and ICA awards and grants.