PARTICIPATION·No Seat Is For Sale. Independent Governance. International Reach.·Open to professionals, organisations, and institutions worldwide
Membership

Structured access. Independent voice.

Participation in IGHAC is not a subscription to content and it is not a purchase of influence. It is structured involvement in an independent body advancing the evidence base and professional standards on gambling harm internationally. IGHAC does not sell board seats, governance access, or any right to shape what it publishes. Gambling operators, operator trade associations and operator-funded bodies cannot participate on any basis.

Who Participates

Six participant profiles.

Participation is relevant wherever decisions affecting gambling harm are made or implemented. These six profiles represent the types of organisations and professionals who have a direct stake in the evidence, standards, and policy work IGHAC produces.

Clinical

Healthcare and Clinical Professionals

Psychiatrists, psychologists, addiction counsellors, occupational health practitioners, and social workers who require a credible, locally validated evidence base and professional development framework for gambling disorder.

Employer

Employers and HR Practitioners

Human resources leaders, employee wellness managers, and EAP providers who need structured guidance for identifying and addressing gambling harm in the workplace and an evidence base for policy development.

Academic

Researchers and Academic Institutions

Universities, research councils, individual researchers, and postgraduate students whose work intersects with gambling harm, addiction, public health, behavioural economics, or regulatory policy.

Regulatory

Regulators and Government Bodies

National gambling regulatory authorities, parliamentary committee offices, public health departments, and justice ministry divisions working on gambling harm policy, law reform, or regulatory impact assessment.

NGO

Non-Governmental and Civil Society Organisations

Harm reduction organisations, financial counselling services, community development bodies, faith-based welfare organisations, and advocacy groups working with populations affected by gambling harm.

Lived Experience

People with Lived Experience and Affected Others

People who have experienced gambling harm directly, and family members and others affected by someone else's gambling. Lived experience is treated as constitutive of credible gambling research, not as consultation after the fact, and IGHAC is building a standing route for that contribution.

How Participation Works

Three ways in. None of them buy influence.

IGHAC has removed its tier structure. Tiers invited the wrong question, which was how much access a given payment buys. The answer is none, at any amount. What follows is what participation actually involves, what it costs, and what it explicitly does not include. Fee waivers, reduced rates and bursaries are available for qualifying researchers, students, civil society organisations and public sector bodies in low and middle income jurisdictions.

Individual

Individual Participant

Clinicians, counsellors, HR and wellbeing practitioners, students, and people with lived experience. Fees by enquiry, with waivers available.
  • IGHAC research summaries and policy briefs on publication
  • Access to the member platform as modules are released
  • Eligibility for IGHAC training and certification programmes
  • Invitation to open consultation rounds on draft standards
Enquire
Research

Research Collaboration

Universities, research units and individual researchers. Terms agreed per study, normally with no fee in either direction.
  • Joint study design, fielding and authorship on agreed terms
  • Datasets published alongside findings wherever ethics approval permits
  • Named in the resulting publications according to contribution
  • No pre-publication veto, right of review, or approval over findings, for any party
Request information

What participation does not include, at any level

Stating this positively is easy and worth little. Stating it as a list of exclusions is checkable, so IGHAC does that instead. No level of participation, and no size of donation, confers any of the following:

  • A board seat, a nomination right, or any say in who is appointed to one
  • Board observer access, or attendance at any part of a board meeting
  • A vote on any IGHAC matter
  • Pre-publication access to findings, or any right of review, comment, delay or veto over what IGHAC publishes
  • Any influence over the research agenda, study design, or the wording of a standard
  • Use of the IGHAC name or marks to imply endorsement of a product or service

Where IGHAC certifies an organisation or an instrument against its own standards, the fee schedule is published in advance and set by the independent directors, and a certification decision is never taken by a person with an interest in the outcome.

How IGHAC is funded

IGHAC is a non-profit company and has three funding channels. They are listed here because a body that asks others to be transparent should be able to say where its own money comes from.

  • Donations and grants. From individuals, foundations and philanthropic funders, with no benefit flowing back to the donor. IGHAC does not hold Public Benefit Organisation approval and does not hold section 18A approval. It intends to apply for both under the Income Tax Act 58 of 1962. Until those approvals are granted, IGHAC issues no section 18A receipts and describes no donation as tax deductible.
  • Research grants. Awarded for specific studies, on terms that leave publication rights with the researchers. IGHAC does not accept a research grant that carries a right of review over findings.
  • Fees for service. Certification, training, assessment and advisory work, charged at published rates. This is trading income and is treated as such.

No seat, office or committee position is ever offered, discounted or implied as part of any of the three. Directors receive no remuneration in the first two years.

Participation Principles

What participation means here.

Independence is non-negotiable

No participant, donor or partner has any influence over IGHAC's research agenda, findings, advisory positions, or published standards, regardless of what they contribute. Research integrity is governed by the board. Fee income does not buy access to the research process, and there is no level at which it starts to.

Gambling operators cannot participate

IGHAC does not offer participation to gambling operators on any basis, paid or unpaid, and does not accept operator funding of any kind. No operator, operator trade association or operator-funded body may hold a seat, an office or a committee position. This is fixed by founding board resolution, not by policy that can be revised. Any contact between IGHAC and a licensed operator is recorded in a transparency register carrying the date, the parties and the subject of the engagement, which IGHAC provides in full on written request. No fee, standards access or briefing entitlement attaches to that register.

Fee waivers are available

IGHAC operates a structured fee waiver and reduced-rate programme for qualifying researchers, postgraduate students, civil society organisations, and public sector bodies in low and middle income jurisdictions. A waiver carries exactly the same entitlements as a paid participation, because participation does not scale with payment. Contact us to discuss eligibility.

International Reach

International mandate. South African proving ground.

IGHAC's mandate is international and participation is open worldwide. Its operational base and its first body of work are South African, because a standard should be tested somewhere before it is offered anywhere. The jurisdictions below are stated at their true status. Where no agreement is in place, the card says so.

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South Africa

Founding jurisdiction and registered base. CIPC-registered NPC, Reg. 2026/687049/08. This is where IGHAC's first studies are fielded and where its standards are first tested in workplaces. All participation types open.

Founding Jurisdiction
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Kenya

A research interest, not an operation. Mobile-money-integrated gambling is a distinct harm environment and IGHAC intends to study it. No partnership, agreement or advisory structure is in place. Academic and civil society enquiries welcome.

Research interest
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United Kingdom

A source of published evidence and regulatory practice that IGHAC draws on and cites. No agreement or formal relationship with any UK body is in place. Open consultations are open to anyone, and responding to one is not a partnership.

Evidence source
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Ireland

A jurisdiction IGHAC follows because its regulatory framework is newly established. No contact, partnership or agreement exists with any Irish authority or body, and none should be inferred from this listing.

Watching

Ready to participate?

Every enquiry begins with a short conversation to work out what you need, whether a fee applies, and whether a waiver is appropriate. There is no application form and no tier to choose.

Start a participation enquiry