International Congress Calendar Online

Since January 2008 the online edition of International Congress Calendar includes not only future meetings, but also details of 329731 past international events that we maintain in our database.

Initially, subscribers to the ICCO could only access the future meetings. This was so for historical reasons - the ICCO was a logical step further from the printed International Congress Calendar which, published quarterly, for practical reasons always contains exclusively future international meetings. At a later stage, we decided to allow partial access to the past data for those who were subscribing to ICCO for several years. That meant, if somebody subscribed to ICCO or was an Associate Member, since 2004, they could access meetings from January 2004 to future, but new subscribers weren't able to go back beyond the current year.

These limitations do not exist anymore and all subscribers can now access all meetings we currently have in electronic format, that means since 1851. This massive addition offers users an unprecedented richness of data and possibilities to study past meetings of any organization, their evolution in terms of size, focus and audience, frequency, you can discover trends, and much more.

Advantages

• Improve your efficiency by employing the database's user-friendly search and browsing functions
• Benefit from cutting edge information updated monthly - with new and updated entries highlighted for your convenience
• Learn more about associations organizing events via links to detailed profiles in the Yearbook of International Organizations Online database
• Increase contact with organizations via direct e-mail links
• Access dynamically generated statistics and charts

Background

Since 1960, the Union of International Associations has been providing information on scheduled future international meetings of international organizations (governmental and nongovernmental). Earlier data collection by the UIA covers meetings back to 1681. The meetings profiled are the key meetings of international associations and intergovernmental bodies, whether regional or multi-continental. The meetings database currently covers 329731 220,000 meetings back to 1851 but earlier years (and centuries) are being progressively adapted to online access. 

Availability

1) Online: the International Congress Calendar Online has been available under subscription as of November 1st, 2004.

2) Printed / PDF: The current, quarterly version that contains all recorded future meetings. (ICC Online subscribers, see above, can download each of these via the online interface.)

3) Data streaming: Live subset of the ICC delivered to - and integrated with - your database or intranet.

If you are one of the Associate Members of the Union of International Associations (UIA), you are eligible to free access to access the database of future and past international meetings (and to the PDFs).

Contents and features

• Powerful navigational facilities
  • Searching: multiple search facilities (keyword, date, city, country, responsible organization, etc), notably by phrase, and/or/not logic, etc. Multilingual capabilities: ability to make queries using (accented) keywords in languages other than English, and to specify city and country locations using non-English spellings.
  • Browsing: multiple browsing facilities (name, subject, date, country, city, organizer), ability to browse through a succession of meetings identified by a search without repeating a search.
  • Bookmarking of entries and private access to user query history across sessions (as an aid to preferred searches).
• Statistics-on-the-fly: immediate indicative statistics by country, city, etc in terms of the data held (irrespective of how it may need to be processed for the annual International Meeting Statistics report).
• Graphics / Maps: immediate indicative graph and pie-chart presentation of some statistical information (irrespective of how it may need to be processed for the annual International Meeting Statistics report), geographical maps showing event locations for any given search (notably in organization profiles).
• Link with organization profiles: from meeting profile to the profile of the organizer in the associated online version of the Yearbook of International Organizations (separate subscription required), from organization event information profile (whether online or on CD-ROM) to meeting profile.
• Special access features
  • Security: Use of a secure interaction service (https) to facilitate exchange of confidential information (login details, change of account information, online payment, member private use, etc)
  • IP access possibility (for fixed IP users, for user convenience)
  • Multi-user subscription possibility for simultaneous access
  • Industry-standard usage statistics: for evaluation of the service (sessions, entries, hits, etc)
• Frequent updating: online users will now benefit from updating of the data more frequently than the quarterly service provided through the printed mode (at least once a month)
• Direct e-mail access with the organizations (using browser facilities)
• Users of the online facility can now move freely between meeting and organization databases, if they have subscriptions to both.
• Other linked databases, many accessible without additional subscription, include profiles of the issues on which organizations focus, and the strategies they advocate, as explored at the meetings.

More information on features

The logon facility requires cookies to be enabled in your browser. Besides, in order to protect your login details and online behaviour from third parties, all communication with the database servers are SSL encrypted (https protocol). Limited JavaScript and Java applet processing capabilities are important, too.

Most standard installations should not have any problem meeting these conditions.