Actes du colloque

Proceedings of the 18

International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Paris 2013

detailed application form, and a subcommittee had been

established to review and rank the applications. The President

commented that grants were typically USD1500, and he

suggested that the limit should be now USD2000. There was no

restriction on age of applicants, though there was the

expectation of cost sharing which needed to be made clear on

the application form.

The Secretary General reported that the ISSMGE

Foundation was gaining momentum, and that the Board had

decided that it should be formalised. In the UK, this required

setting up the ISSMGE Foundation as a registered charity. This

process had been initiated and it was anticipated that the

application to the UK Charities Commission would be approved

in the coming days.

CONFERENCE MANUAL

The Secretary General reported that the Conference Manual had

been updated and the new version uploaded to the ISSMGE

website (Appendix 13). The key changes made were as

follows:

•

Limiting the conferences making a financial

contribution to the ISSMGE to only the main

international and regional conferences;

•

Clear description of how and when to use the

ISSMGE logo;

Chris Menkiti (UK) asked when the organisers of a regional

conference would be obliged to pay their percentage

contribution. The Secretary General replied that this could be

after the conference had finished and the organisers were

finalising their accounts.

TASK FORCE – COPYRIGHT

The President reported that Rainer Massarsch in conjunction

with the SGF had developed guidelines concerning copyright of

published material (Appendix 14). This was in response to

concerns raised on the ability of authors to make use in more

than one publication of figures they had produced. The

Guidelines recommended that authors should retain copyright

while giving publishers permission to use their material. Roger

Frank commented that for papers submitted to the 18ICSMGE

authors had indeed retained copyright but had given permission

for their work to be published in the proceedings and later on

the website. Chris Menkiti (UK) enquired if this policy had any

repercussions from the publishers in charging more for

producing conference proceedings. Roger Frank replied that

there had been no such repercussions for the 18ICSMGE.

Samuel Ampadu (Ghana) enquired if there was a list of

publishers subscribing to the ISSMGE policy. The President

replied that there was no such list, but he hoped that the

guidelines would help authors when dealing with publishers.

INTERNATIONAL SEMINARS

Pedro Seco e Pinto presented his reported included here as

Appendix 15. The Seminars were designed to disseminate the

current state-of-the art or practice amongst geotechnical

engineers especially from developing countries. In the last 3

years, 17 International Seminars had been given in Africa, Asia

and Central and South America. These had been very successful

and it was pleasing that probably over 1000 geotechnical

engineers had benefitted from the Seminars during this

Presidential period.

ISSMGE BULLETIN

Ikuo Towhata gave a verbal report on the Bulletin. There were

now 6 issues published annually. The Bulletins had become

quite lengthy and included sections on messages from the

ISSMGE Board and Committees, conference reports, case

histories, reminiscences, corporate associates, etc. He

expressed his deep appreciation for his team of editors. He

went on to ask member societies to ensure they distributed the

Bulletin, and also to submit suitable articles. A 75th

Anniversary of ISSMGE issue was in preparation and would be

published soon. This would contain some very interesting

articles relating to the history and development of ISSMGE.

XVIII ICSMGE, PARIS

Jacques Robert gave a presentation on behalf of the organising

committee. There were 1800+ delegates, and 170

accompanying persons registered for the conference, from

approximately 100 countries. The proceedings contained 800

papers, 240 of which would be presented as posters. The

organisers appreciated the financial support they had received

from partners and other sponsoring organisations. The total

conference budget was approximately 1.4 M Euros. The first

two days of the conference would comprise plenary sessions,

and in the second two days 28 discussion sessions had been

arranged with a 168 verbal presentations. Nineteen technical

committees were actively involved in these parallel sessions.

RELATIONSHIPS WITH SISTER SOCIETIES

The President expressed his strong support for cooperation with

the Sister Societies and the Federation of International

Geoengineering Societies. He noted that as geotechnical

engineers all ISSMGE members are involved with ground

engineering and that it was necessary to recognise the

importance of engineering geology in our work. Frederic Pellet

(ISRM VP for Europe) agreed that FedIGS was an important

association which facilitated the cooperation and collaboration

of the Sister Societies. Jorge Zornberg (IGS President) was

pleased that his organisation had been able to join and he

welcomed the opportunity of being able to work with FedIGS.

The President went on to acknowledge the very valuable

contribution of William Van Impe in establishing FedIGS,

which had evolved to being an association with a light

administrative structure and good cooperation. He noted that

there would be a FedIGS session during the ICSMGE and a

formal meeting of the members on the 6th September.

PRESENTATION OF AUDITED ACCOUNTS 2011, 2012

The Secretary General drew the Council’s attention to the

accounts that had been circulated in advance of the meeting

(Appendix 16). He noted that the Budget presented at the

Council meeting in Toronto had been modified slightly by

Michael Davies, Chairman of the Finance and Budget

Committee, which would include the additional income from

member societies received in 2011 (a Council Meeting year)

and costs of Board Meetings especially in 2012.

The Appendix includes a comparison of the revised budgets

and actual income and expenditure for the years 2011, and

2012. In 2011, Member Society subscriptions were higher than

forecast largely because of some arrears payments which often

occurs in a run-up to a Council Meeting. Also, the income from

the Regional Conferences was greater than anticipated. The

total cost of running the Secretariat was close to the budgeted

figures. In 2011, the decision was taken to improve and

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