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Mike Owen, CIArb Director of Marketing, Membership & Training, 8th April 2008

For our April meeting, we were pleased to welcome Mike Owen, CIArb's Director of Marketing Membership and Training, to the Branch. Mike prepared a detailed presentation setting out recent developments, and gave us a highly informative insight into the Institute's plans for the future.

Mike started out by suggesting that, although CIArb had a very good international reputation, and was well established and globally renowned, there were also weaknesses that had been recognised and needed to be addressed. He suggested that it was perhaps perceived as rather 'insular', was not as profitable as it perhaps needed to be and had become torn between the needs of its members in the UK versus the needs of its global members.

Part of starting to address these weaknesses had been the extensive review and re-launch of the Pathways to Fellowship programme. The modular Pathways programme had been partially launched in 2006, but it had had various shortcomings; it had initially contained inconsistencies, had been 'Anglo-centric, was purely arbitration focussed, and it was expensive and time consuming. A great deal of work had been done to correct and re-establish the programme since then, and, as a result, jurisdiction-neutral modules had been developed, the assessment process had been made clearer and more consistent, Pathways had been introduced for adjudication and international arbitration, a mediation Pathway had been introduced to membership level (and since Mike's talk a fellowship route has now been launched), and the accelerated programmes had been properly reviewed and introduced to reflect the new modular Pathways route. An accelerated route to membership, formerly known as Special Member Assessment, will be aimed at those legally qualified individuals who possess ADR knowledge but whose ADR knowledge has not been assessed. It is proposed that the accelerated route to Membership will involve a 1½ day assessment workshop, including group work and individual written questions, advance coursework and a 3 hour exam, dealing with legal principles and the arbitration process. The accelerated route is clearly intended to be suitably rapid as the name suggests, but no less thorough for that. Similarly rigorous processes were outlined for the accelerated route to Fellowship, which will be intended for individuals who have substantial existing - but unassessed - knowledge of ADR.

Mike then took us through the Pathways routes in some detail, but rather than restate them here we recommend members should investigate the various options at their leisure by visiting www.ciarb.org/pathways where full information in available for perusal and download.

So what else is CIArb building on for 2008 onwards? Focus is to be given to building CIArb's profile as a 'learned society', with increased resources and a higher profile role in promoting and commenting on ADR matters in the media. More information is to be available for the benefit of members, in particular through CIArb's new - and much improved - website, which is due to be launched later this year. CIArb is to build on its existing educational expertise and its relationships with universities, and is to better its links with those studying ADR. It is intended that more vocational training will be offered through CIArb, in addition to the current qualification based courses.

Looking forward, CIArb has many plans for the coming years. With enhanced services, both for members and users, better communication and more efficient operation and promotion, perhaps we can all catch a little of Mike's enthusiasm for the future of our Institute.

Report by Helena Brown

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