May 2026

ICG Principle of Membership

The ICG is a professional network that  supports freelancers, consultants and micro-businesses who work within the research industry.

Our intention as a membership organisation is to support individual and very small businesses.  As a collective we share information, training, advice, and we collaborate together.  The ICG is open, generous and supportive with time, ideas and information.  To stay that way we need to be sure our members ‘give’ and ‘get’ on reasonably equal terms.

There are blurry lines around size of business and employment status, so we want to describe the ‘spirit of the ICG’ to help people decide – ‘do I qualify’?

A key question to decide on membership, is ‘who benefits’? Does it give and get support from the network of people running their own micro, freelance and consultancy businesses, or is a bigger organisation benefitting from your membership?

Some of our members also start small and scale up and we applaud this growth, but it does mean that you might have outgrown the ICG.

Our members lead varied working lives and sometimes they work for bigger companies on a temporary basis, or their own small business takes on a large piece of work and they scale up to support that work.  That means the ICG needs to be flexible about membership… but If you are part of a larger work organisation, but trade as an individual, the larger group will likely benefit from your membership of the ICG, and if it does over a longer period of time, you shouldn’t be a member.

We hope it makes sense to you that we take care of our membership criteria – every week we share contacts, opportunities, information and ideas – we want to keep this spirit of generosity alive within the ICG.

SET OF QUESTIONS TO ASCERTAIN HOW MANY PEOPLE WORK IN THE BUSINESS – IS IT A MICRO BUSINESS WITH THREE OF FEWER FULL TIME PEOPLE WORKING IN THE BUSINESS?

• How many people work full time in your business at the moment? (Regardless of how they are paid, their financial arrangement with you, and how long their contract with you is)
• How many paid employees do you have in your business (not including yourself)?
• Do you work full time?

IF 3+ FULL TIME AND NOT OFFICIALLY EMPLOYEES

• If the people working full time  in your business are not officially ‘paid employees’ please describe the nature of the agreement you have with them

SET OF QUESTIONS TO ESTABLISH IF THE BUSINESS IS ‘INDEPENDENT’

• Does your business operate as an entirely independent entity, for example do you/ are you:
  • Part of a franchise, or wider organisation that benefits from the support of another business? Please give further information
  • Is this ‘micro-business’ an off-shoot of another business – it cross-charges another business, or operates as a separate cost-centre, but in reality benefits or relies on another business for its turnover Please give further information
  • Do you work both under your own identity and within another business (and either/ both businesses benefit from this)? Please give further information
  • Do you have any other agreements or partnerships that would benefit from your membership of the ICG? Please give further information

INSIGHT BUSINESS

• Do you work in Insight, Market Research or a business that serves this industry?

MRS CODE OF CONDUCT/ SPIRT OF ICG

• Do you agree to abide by the Esomar/MRS code of conduct?
• Do you agree that you qualify as an ICG member, according to the ‘spirit of the ICG’?

Anne Rodger – ICG Membership

membership@theicg.co.uk