Your representative sets the agenda
A senior appointee of the University brings institutional challenges to the chapter. The University owns the agenda; the Society provides the structure.
Universities
Activate your greatest untapped resource.
Your honorary doctors are among the most accomplished people your institution knows. A chapter gives them a purposeful way to keep contributing, and connects your University to a global network of remarkable people.
Ways to work together
Bring a challenge. A hive mind goes to work on it.
A board of your own honorary doctors
Chair, deputy and officers drawn from the people your institution already recognised. They lead the work.
Reach beyond your own network
A challenge your chapter wants to widen goes to the global Society. Honorary doctors anywhere in the world can offer insight, a connection, their time or a resource.
The opportunity
You have already chosen them. A chapter is how you engage them to achieve greater things.
Your honorary doctors were chosen with care, and they were honoured because their achievement reflects what your institution stands for. Most of them would give more if there were an easy and purposeful way to ask.
Without a standing platform to contribute through, engagement naturally fades over time, and a great deal of goodwill goes quietly unused. That is true of every University in the world. It is a question of structure, and structure is a solvable thing.
A chapter supplies that structure: a board drawn from your own honorary doctors, a regular cycle with your leadership, and a platform where challenges are raised, worked and closed with the outcome recorded. Behind it sits a global Society, so when a challenge reaches beyond your own honorary doctors, it reaches Fellows across the whole Society.
What a chapter does
Your chapter is a standing board of your own honorary doctors, with the whole global Fellowship behind it.
Challenges, worked and closed
Each challenge is captured, worked on, and closed with a recorded outcome. You can see at any point what the chapter has delivered.
Invite your honorary doctors directly
Send an invitation from the platform. They accept, their award is confirmed, and they appear in your chapter.
Masterclasses, lectures and an annual gathering
Contribution that enriches teaching, staff development and institutional life.
Challenges
Value from those you have honoured
Universities hold extraordinary potential within their honorary communities, yet much of it remains untapped. With the right framework, this potential can be directed towards advancing institutional goals and creating lasting value.
Every University will have its strategic goals and its challenges to overcome. Collectively your honorary doctorate network can act as a powerful component to deliver progress and solutions.
Define your goals and the challenges that stand in your way. You decide who sees them. You decide what happens to the suggestions, solutions and answers.
A challenge can stay inside your own chapter, or you can tap into a global ‘hive mind’ reaching the whole Society. Choose to publish anonymously or select to publish your institution's name alongside it.
| Setting | Who sees it | On the public website |
|---|---|---|
| Chapter only | Your chapter, with your institution named | No |
| Network anonymised | Every Society member. Your institution and country are removed | No |
| Network public | Every Society member, with your institution named | Only if you switch that on as well |
Fellows respond in their own words. Responses come back to the chapter that asked, and a Fellow can amend or withdraw their own response at any time.
The ‘Challenges’ feature opens as chapters are established.
Getting started
Four steps, and the administrative load is light by design.
01
Secure senior leadership endorsement to establish your chapter
02
Appoint a representative to coordinate setup and activity
03
Announce involvement and invite your existing honorary doctors
04
Form the chapter board and bring your first challenge
Where we are today
If you are interested, the conversation is worth having early.
The Society is being established. We are onboarding and verifying honorary doctors now, and building the first chapters with institutions who want a hand in shaping the model.
We are offering a limited number of pilot places to founding Universities who want a hand in shaping the model.
Frequent questions
For Universities
Which Universities can take part?
Any University that awards honorary doctorates, anywhere in the world.
What does it cost?
A one-off set-up fee and an annual fee, set out in the participation agreement we issue when you get in touch. The set-up fee includes a first year of Fellowship for every honorary doctor you have already awarded.
Do we hand over our honorary doctors' details?
No lists change hands. Your representative invites honorary doctors individually from the platform, and each one decides whether to join.
What does it ask of our staff?
A representative sets up the chapter, invites your honorary doctors and brings challenges to the board. The Society handles verification, onboarding and the platform.
What does the University get?
A standing board of its own honorary doctors, a platform where challenges are raised, worked and closed with the outcome recorded, and access to the global Fellowship when a challenge reaches beyond your chapter.
Explore a chapter for your University.
If you are interested in onboarding your honorary doctors and establishing a local chapter, get in touch.