The Academy’s first year involved developing and organizing a Faculty Board, developing the aims and mission of the Academy, and producing a range of documents, which could be used in soliciting, examining, recommending and approving courses and allied activities. The Academy recognized the ambitious nature of this task for it was charged with development and delivery of education and training across the world across various disciplinary areas, and to address a variety of issues across the lifespan of people with intellectual disabilities and their families. The development of the Academy provided an opportunity for a central resource of information and knowledge on issues related to intellectual disabilities within an international pool of knowledgeable colleagues as educators and trainers.
Potentially the scope of the Academy is only limited by the interests and expertise of members linked with the Academy and yet the founding members recognized that the potential for growth was great. It is progressively being recognized that as the Academy grows it will increasingly become more involved and responsive to priority groups such as university programs, major NGO’s, governmental entities, and research institutes, among others. This process has already begun (e.g., involvement of representatives from Inclusion International in Mexico, funding from Government supported agencies in Malaysia and Singapore, and the Down Syndrome Associations in Asia).
The establishment of the Academy was intentionally an emergent design, rather than the implementation of any specific set of predetermined strategic goals or objectives. This course of action was intentionally selected so as to maximize the potential for growth in an organic way, influenced by the disparate interests and priorities of IASSIDD’s membership. IASSIDD is primarily a community of scientists and from early on in the development of the Academy two major questions influenced its development: (1) how might we translate the research evidence, generated by the activities of the disparate IASSIDD Special Interest Research Groups (SIRGs), into policy and practice; and (2) how might IASSIDD increase its engagement with and service to communities in developing countries which lack the research infrastructure necessary to develop evidence-based service provision.
A primary aim is to provide Academy workshops of high standard, which meet the needs for education and training in developing and low economic countries, to professional and support staff, many of whom would be unlikely to attend conferences because of the costs involved. A second aim is to provide workshops and seminars in more developed and economically wealthy countries concerned with cutting edge research and the application of that research. A third aim, which has now developed, is to provide advice and support when requested by colleagues attending these meetings who face particular challenging issue in their own countries.