Do different professional body designations or names signify different aims? The PARN database contains 20 different designations. When I set up PARN, like many other academics interested in professions, I presumed professional association to be the primary designation. Hence the P and A in PARN. However, only a minority are Associations (31%). In our database of 513 professional bodies, Institute is almost as frequently used (30%). Next most common is Society (16%). The next three are Colleges, Institutions and Councils, all at 5%. Together these six account for 93%. None of the others have more than 1%. Names do reveal expected distinctions between professional bodies in some respects, but surprisingly not in others.
Associations, as may be expected, have more targets aimed at members, but only slightly, 6.3% compared with 5.5% overall. The pattern of targets for Institutes is close to that of Associations; almost identical for education and the knowledge base, though Associations are higher on qualifications and CPD (13% compared with 8% for Institutes and 8% overall for professional bodies).
Unexpectedly Societies do not stand out as high on the knowledge base at 13% compared with 14% overall. However, Institutions did stand out at 30%. Institutions were also high on the profession (14%), research (10%) and member networks (4%), compared with 10%, 7% and 2% overall respectively. Their level on the knowledge base can in part be expected given their relatively high incidence of charities (52% compared with both Associations and Institutes at 40%), but their 7% targeting education was less than the 9% for Associations and Institutes, a strong feature of charities.
Councils, which are primarily regulatory bodies, particularly frequently target standards and frequently target ethics, general public/society and public confidence/trust, as expected. Together these 4 targets account for 42% of Council targets and only 21% for all professional bodies. Councils have no targets aimed at competence or expertise, qualifications and exams, member networks or the professional body. They are also very low on the knowledge base at 3% compared with 14% for all professional bodies. Interestingly, though low on qualifications and the knowledge base, they are high on CPD and training (8% compared with 6% for all).
The dictionary definitions of Institutes and Institutions are roughly synonymous, though incorrect reference to Institutions as Institutes can generate umbridge. In fact there are differences in their presence across sectors and in their distributions of objects. The latter are only found in Engineering, though institutes are also common in both Engineering and Business sectors. Institutes are relatively high on education, qualifications and CPD and low on the profession. Institutions are particularly high on the knowledge base and relatively low on education and standards, but also high on the profession. The higher proportion of Institution objects for the knowledge base may in part be due to their higher incidence of charities: 82% compared with 40% for Institutes, but this does not account for the lower incidence of the education target for Institutions.
Colleges are very high on standards and competence at 26% compared with 12% for all professional bodies, however they are only a little higher at 16% than all at 14% for the knowledge base. They are low on frequency of targets for profession and surprisingly the same as the overall frequency for education at 9%.
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