Actes du colloque

Proceedings of the 18

International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Paris 2013

Report from the Vice-President of ISSMGE for Europe

I.Vaníček

Czech Technical University in Prague, Faculty of Civil Eng.

INTRODUCTION.

This report contains a summary of the highlights of the

activities in Europe for the period since the Council Meeting in

Alexandria, in October 2009, after the election of new ISSMGE

Board for the tenure 2009 – 2013.

My advantage during this tenure was the fact that two last

vice-presidents for Europe Prof. P.Seco E. Pinto and Prof.

Roger Frank were also members of ISSMGE Board so I had

chance to discuss some problems directly with them.

EUROPEAN SOCIETIES – CONTACTS AND

FEEDBACKS

During my tenure I had chance to speak nearly with all

representatives of individual countries to be informed about

their activities, about manners how they are leading society on

the national level. I collected from them many different

comments and recommendations with respect to the society

activities and improvements. Some of these meetings can be

mentioned, as:

- Meeting of the European societies during XV European

Conference in Athens 2011;

- Meeting with representatives of societies from the Danube

river-basin – during Danube-Geotechnical Conference in

Bratislava, 2010;

- Meeting with representatives of societies around Baltic Sea

–during Baltic-Sea Geotechnical Conference in Rostock, 2012;

- Meeting with representatives of Nordic societies – during

Nordic Geotechnical Meeting in Copenhagen, 2012;

- Meeting with individual members during activities of the

European regional technical committees, ELGIP platform,

National Conferences, etc.

Very useful feedback I obtained from the replies to the

questionnaire which I distributed to the European societies at

the end of the last year.

From all these contacts I obtained very good overview what

is going on in individual countries and what are their opinions

about the ISSMGE activities and what they are proposing for

the improvement in the future.

2.1

National European Societies

At the moment 37 ISSMGE National Societies are in

Europe, it means 3 more than at the beginning in 2009. During

last period Israel Society asked to be part of the European

region and this application was approved during the last Council

Meeting in Toronto. Two new members are Belorussian

Geotechnical Society and Bosnia and Herzegovina –first one

from new independent states of the former Soviet Union and the

second one from the former Yugoslavia. Small increase can be

expected also in the future as not all new independent states are

our members (e.g. Moldavia, Armenia). Situation is stable;

many activities are spread between nearly all national societies.

The exception is Georgia, where is practically zero contact.

Some societies were not so active at the beginning of tenure

however their activities are increasing with time, as e.g. in

Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Serbia and Iceland. Very positive is

fact that many new countries after political separation are still

strongly cooperating on technical and scientific levels. Typical

example is Czech and Slovak national society. First contacts

started also with Cyprus but the situation there is very

complicated right now. Also first contact started with

Azerbaijan, the interest is there very strong; however the

problems are given by distance, language and visa barriers.

2.2

Individual members

Total number of individual members from Europe is little bit

higher than 8000, what is between 40 and 50 % of all ISSMGE

members. Even when we are in a period of some financial,

economical problems, still there is a tendency for small steady

increase. Very good examples are here from Norway (having

continuous increase of individual members: 2008 - 411; 2009 –

415; 2010 – 442; 2011 – 454) and Turkey. For Turkey there is

not only increase of the individual members, but also with

corporate members.

2.3

Corporate members

With respect to the above mentioned economical problems in

Europe the number of corporate members is going up slowly

with higher potential in countries where this impact is not so

great, as e.g. in Russia (with 3 new corporate members) or with

above mentioned Turkey (2 members). According to the

questionnaire there is now relatively low potential for CM

increase in Europe. Some potential corporate members are

strongly connected with production, e.g. with special machines

for foundation engineering or for tunnelling, and in this case

they prefer to be connected with international societies

orientated more practically as EFFC or ITA/ITES.

2.4

Most sensitive problems in Europe

Between most sensitive problems it is possible to incorporate

the following ones:

Prestige of our profession;

Risk connected with our profession;

European codes - namely EC 7 - Geotechnical design;

Geotechnical engineering education.

The first two points have general validity and are sensitive

for all of our community. Therefore both items were discussed

very widely not only during European conference in Athens, but

also during European Young Geotechnical Engineering

Conferences and as well during ISSMGE Board Meetings and

also in the ISSMGE Bulletin, e.g. 2010 (Vol. 4), issue 3.

Nevertheless with respect to Europe

our profession has a

specific position among structural Eurocodes as Eurocode 7 –

“Geotechnical design” is not only a material code as codes for

concrete, steel, timber, masonry structures, but also a general

code, as ground is in the interaction with all other structures and

also with the help of EC 7 the action applied from the ground on

the other structures can be determined. However some other

arguments in favour of our profession can be mentioned as well:

- Our profession can help to improve the quality and safety

of old structures

as the interaction with ground is the most

sensitive place.

Volume 6 - Page 271