The International Union of Students was founded on the 27th August 1946 in Prague, by student organisations of 43 countries present at the World Student Congress (WSC). The International Preparatory Committee convened the 1st WSC sessioned in Prague and London. London was the temporary headquaters of the anti-Nazi students' coalition under the name of the International Student Council.

The creation of the IUS was a continuation of this war-time anti-Nazi student coalition. The act that inspired the creation of the International Student Council was the November 17, 1939 student resistance in the streets of Prague, Czechoslovakia, to the Nazi occupiers. Since 1941, and by a declaration of the International Student Council (endorsed by the war-time coalition leaders), "November 17" became International Students Day.
These lofty traditions laid the basis of the foundation of the IUS.

The IUS is organising 152 national unions of students of 114 countries. The International Union of Students (IUS) is therefore the biggest international student organisation. Besides faculty or regional orientated student organisations, the IUS is the only general, broad-based world wide student organisation.

This is recognised by the United Nation granting the IUS a consultative status in UNESCO.

Today, more than 50 years later the IUS goes through it's deepest crisis in history. Financially and organisationally the IUS nearly ceases to exists.

A consultation process started in November 1996 around the meeting of ESIB (National Unions of Students in Europe) in Brussels/Belgium. The report which tried to set an agenda for overcoming this period, was send out to all member and friendly organisations.

It became clear through communications the Executive Secretariat and other unions recieved that an IUS, as an independent, self-organised student organisation on the global scale is a necessity in times where the globalisation process increase the pressure on the living conditions and liberties of students and people as such.

Finally we found our way into the World Wide Web to enhance the revitalisation process.
Through the support of the UnixAG of Hannover University in Germany, we try to use the facilities offered by the Internet to create this Site as a platform on and for the IUS. The main ideas behind are:

• to get in touch with each other,
• to get in touch with the ones working for IUS Executive Secretariat in Prague, Hannover and Ottawa
• to share information about the current situation and activities of your organisation.

We also would like to provide you with some background materials, i.e.. the Materials of the 16th Congress, the Constitution, to give visitors of this site the possibility to get an overview about the recent history, aims and activities of the International Union of Students.

If you like information from other source of the IUS history, please visit the IUS Collection at the International Institute of Social History