Result of Articles & Schedules Referendum

Our proposed revised Articles & Schedules have been voted on by students.

graphics that say student referendum and articles and schedules

The Highlands & Islands Students’ Association (HISA) held a referendum on the following question between Monday 9th March and Thursday 12th March:

Should the Highlands & Islands Students’ Association (HISA) adopt the proposed revised Articles of Association and Schedules?

Why was this referendum being held?

On Friday 20th February HISA’s Board of Trustees passed a resolution to hold a referendum on the proposed revised Articles of Association and Schedules.

The proposed revised Articles of Association and Schedules were developed as a set of revised governing documents to fix the following four identified issues with HISA’s current Articles of Association & Schedules:

  • Missing Information​
  • Outdated Information​
  • Conflicting & Contradictory Information​
  • Complexity & Duplication

We are required to fix these issues to ensure that our democratic decision making processes are working properly for students.

For example, HISA’s current Articles of Association & Schedules don't allow the Students’ Association to run All Student Meetings (ASMs); these enable students to decide the campaigns we run to improve both the learning experience and wider student experience across the UHI Partnership.

Therefore, the existing Articles & Schedules were proposed to be replaced with the following revised documents:

What was the result?

Voting took place between 10am on Monday 9th March and 4pm Thursday 12th March 2026.

The result was as follows:

  • For 200
  • Against 1
  • Abstain 19

 

While this is a clear indication of student preference, it did not achieve HISA's referendum quorum of 400. Therefore HISA’s President will make a recommendation to our Trustee Board to hold an all student meeting in due course to ratify the Articles and Schedules.

For more information about this decision, please contact referendums.hisa@uhi.ac.uk.