What is Model UN? What MUN means and how it works

MUN stands for Model United Nations: students take the seats of the UN's member states, one country each.

Model UN copies the real UN, where all 193 member states sit in the General Assembly and 15 sit on the Security Council. Your committee might be the World Health Organization, with two topics and a few days to agree on what to do.

Nobody marks you on being right. Chairs watch how faithfully you represent your country, even where you disagree with it, and how much you help the room agree on a text.

You get a country, prepare its position, then spend two to four days speaking, negotiating, writing and voting.

Almost every conference follows the same eight steps, from the day you apply to the closing ceremony.

1. 1Apply on your own or with your school, and say which committees and countries you would like.
2. 2Get your country and committee, often a few weeks before the conference.
3. 3Prepare. Read your committee's background guide (some conferences call it a study guide), find your country's position and often write a position paper.
4. 4Roll call. The chair reads out the countries, and you raise your placard and answer “present”.
5. 5Speeches. Delegates join the speakers' list and speak for about a minute each.
6. 6Negotiation. The committee pauses formal debate so you can find allies and write together, in caucuses or lobbying sessions.
7. 7The resolution. Groups write a draft resolution, a text that sets out what should happen, and others propose changes, called amendments.
8. 8The vote and awards. The committee votes on each draft, and many conferences give awards at the closing ceremony.

Most of your time is not spent at the microphone. You listen, pass notes and write with a few other delegates around one laptop, and that is where the resolution takes shape.

The details depend on the conference. North American-style conferences break into caucuses, while THIMUN-style conferences, named after The Hague International Model United Nations, draft in lobbying sessions instead. Compare the two traditions before your first session.

Students run it: chairs lead each committee, a student secretariat organizes the event, and delegates speak for countries.

The chairs lead each committee from the dais, the table at the front: they call speakers, rule on motions and watch the clock. They are students too: at high school conferences on mymun the typical chair is 17, and at university conferences 21.

• Delegates represent a country, or a person in some committees. Almost everyone starts as a delegate.
• The secretariat is the student team that organizes the conference, led by a secretary-general. It sets the topics and assigns the countries.
• Faculty advisors and head delegates come with school groups. A faculty advisor is the teacher in charge, and a head delegate is a student who leads the group and also debates.

Most chairs were delegates first, so after a few conferences you can apply to chair a committee yourself.

A committee is one room of delegates with its own topics, from a large General Assembly committee to the 15-seat Security Council.

A conference runs several committees side by side, each with its own topics. General Assembly committees are large, with one vote per country. The Security Council has 15 seats, five of them with a veto.

Specialised bodies such as UNICEF each cover one field, and crisis committees are small cabinets that react to events, often with you playing a person. Compare every format, then see which suits a first conference.

Students from about 14 to their mid-twenties can do Model UN, with a school club, on their own or online.

High school conferences take students of about 14 to 18, and university conferences students from 18 to their mid-twenties. You do not need a club, because about nine in ten conferences on mymun accept students who apply on their own.

A school club practises every week or two and takes its members to conferences together. Online conferences run over video calls, with the same rules and a much lower fee.

Browse high school and university conferences, or open the map to see what is near you.

A typical in-person fee is about €60 and an online one under €10, but the fee is rarely the whole cost.

The delegate fee is the cost you see first, and about a quarter of conferences charge none. Where there is one, it pays for the rooms, the materials and sometimes meals.

• Travel often costs more than the fee once the conference is in another city.
• Accommodation: some conferences arrange hotels or host families, and others leave it to you.
• Clothes: most conferences expect business attire, so check what counts before you buy anything.

To pay less, start near you or online, ask your school whether it pays for delegations, and ask the organizers about a reduced fee. A far-away conference teaches a first-timer nothing a nearby one does not. The UN gives no financial help, so support comes from your school, a sponsor or the conference.

No: you need no experience, and the two parts that feel hard at first, speaking and the formal rules, get easier after one session.

You will not be the only beginner, and the first session is the hardest one. Once you have answered roll call and given one short speech, the rest of the conference feels much easier.

For speaking, write your speech out, time it and say it aloud a few times. For procedure, the chair corrects mistakes kindly, and every point and motion fits on one page.

You do not need to know much about politics either. You need your country's position on your topics and the countries that side with it, and a few evenings of research give you both.

For most students, yes: it trains skills you use everywhere, and each conference adds something new.

Model UN trains four skills you use everywhere: public speaking, research, negotiation and writing. You practise them under real pressure, because a room of strangers decides whether your idea makes it into the text.

It also gives you something concrete to talk about. In a university interview you can explain one global problem, where the main countries stand and how your committee settled it. You argued it for three days, so you know it from the inside.

Delegates also come back for the people. A typical in-person university conference on mymun brings together 24 nationalities, and a high school one 11.

Find a conference, apply, then learn how the day runs.

1. 1Find a conference that is taking applications, near you or online, ideally with a committee marked Beginner.
2. 2Apply and rank your committees and countries, then see what happens after you apply.
3. 3Learn the day with your first MUN conference, and research your country once you know it.

If your school has no club, a teacher can start one with you. Teachers can also run a class unit that ends with a practice session in your own classroom.