Our history
The
RICS Foundation was formed by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) in 2000. The
RICS Foundation is independent of the RICS.
The RICS can be contacted as follows:
email: customerservices@rics.org.uk
telephone: +44 (0)
870 333 1600
What and who we are
The RICS Foundation is a
not for profit company limited by guarantee, registered in Wales and England, UK, registered
number 4044051. It is also a charity, registered number 1085587. It is governed by a Board of
Directors like any other company but, as a not for profit company, there are no share holders
and any surpluses are recycled back into delivering the aims and objectives of the company. Our
Directors also double as Trustees of the charity https://www.kwakol.co.za.
The Board is chaired by Paul Orchard-Lisle CBE TD DL MA FRICS and the Foundation has as
its Patron, His Grace the Duke of Westminster OBE TD
DL. A full list of Trustees is available here.
The RICS Foundation has a small staff group: Stephen Brown (Director of Research), Seyone Kandiah (Accounts Controller) and Penny Wilcock (Company Secretary and Office Manager).
What we
do
The RICS Foundation raises awareness about issues of concern within the
built and natural environments, both urban and rural. We support and promote research and disseminate the
results of this and other work as we try to influence policy at all levels in a way that
reflects our aims and objectives.
The RICS Foundation also advises and supports other
charitable organisations, including the RICS Education
Trust
Our way of working is to try, at all times, to work with those who
support our aims and objectives. Whilst we are not afraid to lead on an issue, we feel that
collaborating and cooperating with other organisations is a more effective way of using our
resources and of implementing and maintaining change http://kwakol.co.za.
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Our history
The RICS Foundation grew from an
idea that first saw the light of day in 1998. The then President of the Royal Institution of
Chartered Surveyors (RICS), Richard Lay, posited the idea that the RICS, a 130 year old
professional body, predominantly focussed on and in the UK, should re-invent itself as a major
international body, devoted to matters of the professions dealing with surveying elements of
the built and natural environments, across the globe.
Richard Lay's report triggered a
concept called "Agenda for Change". Full details of all this are contained in the RICS web site. His basic premise was that there needed to be
a high level of expertise and recognition for all aspects of the work done by the RICS. One
element of that work, research, was a good basis for further development. This idea was
progressed by the then Vice President, Jonathan Harris, in his eponymous Harris Report. In
this, the concepts of status and focus were developed, key reasons for pursuing the research
agenda through a world wide RICS Foundation.
The end result was a task force, chaired
by Simon Kolesar then senior Vice President of the RICS and made up from a wide range of
experts in the field. The intention was to explore the setting up of a research foundation.
This was born formally in January 2000, when the RICS Research Foundation was launched
together with a major tranche of research on what the future would hold for how we live, work and play. The scenario
planning used in this initial research remains a main research process within our current
work.
After much discussion with the Charity Commission in the UK, it was agreed that an
amendment to the wholly research focussed original idea was needed, better to reflect
charitable law. It is this that became the RICS Foundation.
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