Council Membership

There are two types of membership for Council and each have a predetermined number of seats.

Ex-Officio members have 35, and Representative to Council members have 16. Both these types of membership are elected too.

No student can hold more than one seat on Council.

Representatives to Council are elected to represent a faculty and level of study (i.e. Postgraduate Faculty of Medicine or Undergraduate Faculty of Engineering). One ordinary member is elected to represent students not in a faculty (such as the Business School).

Every student at Imperial will have at least one member of Council representing their views. If you’re also part of a club or society, you might have several representatives.

Any full member of the Union (i.e. all Imperial students) can turn up to Council and speak, but only the 51 members of Council can vote in meetings. The Council Chair can only vote when a tie occurs.

An elected representative cannot pass their vote on to anyone else and must be in the meeting to vote. The meeting must have a minimum of two thirds of Council voting members present to pass policy. This is known as ‘quoracy’.

Associate members can attend Council but need permission from the Council Chair to speak. All other individuals need the Council Chair’s permission to attend and speak at Council meetings.