USI is the national representative body for the 374,000 students in third level education on the Island of Ireland.  We are a membership organisation – our members are our affiliated Students’ Unions around Ireland, North and South.

Democracy

USI is a democratic organisation. The supreme authority of the Union is the Congress, which is representative of each affiliated students’ union, apportioned according to the size of the student body in each union. Each union also sends one voting member  to the National Council – the executive body of the organisation.  Issues relating to governance are delegated by the National Council to a Governance Committee.  Day to day management and policy execution are delegated by the USI Congress to an elected committee of Sabbatical student representatives called the Executive Team.

Northern Ireland

A trilateral arrangement exists between USI, the National Union of Students in the United Kingdom and NUS-USI, the Student Movement in Northern Ireland.  NUS-USI was formed in 1972 to ensure that all students in Northern Ireland could be members of the national union movement without distinction as to personal political or religious beliefs, particularly on the Northern Ireland constitutional question.  Check out the NUS-USI Website

Our members

Our members are the students’ unions recognised by the colleges below.  Not every student body in Ireland is eligible for membership according to our constitution.  We refer to our members as ‘Member Organisations’ or MOs’.  Individual students gain their membership of USI through their membership of a local students’ union.  We refer to individual student members as ‘Ordinary Members’