European Council for High Ability

The European Council of High Ability (ECHA) was established in 1988 as a European non-governmental organization.[1] The major aim of ECHA is to promote the information exchange of people interested in high ability – teachers, researchers, psychologists, parents, politicians and the highly able themselves. ECHA has the charity number: 40146782. ECHA has both personal and organizational membership.

The services of the European Council for High Ability are the following:

• The newspaper, ECHA News, for its members published twice a year.
• The scientific journal High Ability Studies, published by Taylor & Francis twice a year given to full members free.
• ECHA training: courses for teachers and experts dealing with the highly able leading to the ECHA diploma "ECHA specialist in Gifted Education".[2]
• ECHA conferences: ECHA organizes biannual conferences.
• European Talent Support Network: the 2014 General Assembly of ECHA decided to support the formation of a European Talent Support Network having European Talent Centres as hubs and European Talent Points as nodes.[3] The first European Talent Centres were accredited in 2015. In 2018 the organization had more than 300 cooperating Talent Points in 39 countries of many continents.

ECHA is directed by a general assembly convening annually. The general assembly elects the general committee responsible for ECHA's life in between two general assemblies. Members in different countries are helped by national correspondents. Past-presidents, past-secretaries and past-editor-in-chiefs of High Ability Studies are honorary members of ECHA.