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dissolve a TC, but the life of a TC is disconnected from the term
of the ISSMGE presidency."
4.4
Quality of TCs and TC work
As mentioned in the Terms of References above, the TOC's
primary mission is to maintain quality of the TC exec-utive,
work plan and the work done by the TCs. Before 2009, one
ISSMGE Board member had the responsibility to ensure the
quality of the TC work. The change brought on by the TOC
contributed to set focus on the objectives and work plans of
each TC, and the quality of the products of the TCs, as well as
increasing the visibility of the TCs. The TOC believes that this
effort should be sustained.
The TCs are one of the important ISSMGE tools to reach its
members. The TCs contribute to the technical, administrative
and outreach development of its members and to advancing the
state of knowledge in the subject area of the TC. In a sense, the
TOC was created to free the ISSMGE Board from the
responsibility of quality control of the TCs, even though the
TCs are one of the most important instruments of the ISSMGE.
The TOC perceives, although this is based on the TOC
members' opinion, that the existence of TOC has led to an
increased incentive on the TC's to produce results. The TOC
suggests that an oversight committee à la TOC is key to
continuing improvement of the technical contributions through
the ISSMGE TCs. TOC does not believe, however, that it is
necessary to have a large committee to do this. It is therefore
necessary to reflect on the number of people who would be
required to do the quality control of the TC.
4.5
Periodical evaluation of the work by TCs
During the term of the TOC mandate, evaluation of the progress
of the TOC was done in 2010 and late 2011, and lastly in
connection with the ranking of candidate for the Best TC
Award. Each TC was also asked to report its progress by June
2013 in time for the Paris Council meeting in September 2013.
All TCs were required to have a web site.
During the 4 years, one TC Chair had to be warned because
of lack of progress.
Otherwise, the very large majority of the TCs worked very
well, conducted successful conferences and produced excellent
overview papers and documents. Only a few of the TCs had
limited activities, and the role of the TOC in this respect was
limited, except in the start-up of the TCs.
4.6
System for Honours Lectures established by Technical
Committees
On initiative from several Technical Committees, the ISSMGE
established nine Honours Lectures. The following Honours
lectures exist per 2013-08-01 (eight will be presented at the 18th
ICSMGE in Paris):
TC101 - Bishop Lecture (Lab testing)
TC102 - Mitchell Lecture (In situ testing)
TC104 - Schofield Lecture (Physical modelling)
TC203 - Ishihara Lecture (Earthquake)
TC204 - Fujita Lecture (Underground construction)
TC209 - McClelland Lecture (Offshore)
TC211- Ménard Lecture (Soil improvement)
TC211 - Kerry Rowe Lecture (Geo-environmental)
TC301 - Kérisel Lecture (Historic sites)
The TOC recommended that the creation of the Honours
Lectures and the selection of the Honours Lecturer be a
transparent process. TOC established guidelines for the naming
the Honours Lectures and for the selection of the Honours
Lecturer to ensure that the ISSMGE and TCs have the same
understanding of the process and selection criteria. The
guidelines are included in the Guidelines for ISSMGE
Technical Committees (Appendix B).
4.7
System to liaise between TOC and organization/scientific
committees of ISSMGE conferences
Assigning Liaisons from the TOC to the Organising/Scientific
Committees of smaller ISSMGE Conferences proved to be less
successful than originally expected. In most cases, the
conferences managed very well without external help from the
TOC. The purpose of these Liaisons was to increase a culture
for involving ISSMGE and the TCs. The involvement of the
TCs is much more recognised in 2013 than in 2009, also thanks
to the 18th ICSMGE in Paris and the technical program
developed. The TOC does not see the need for continuing with
ISSMGE conference Liaisons. ISSMGE has already conference
manuals and guidelines, and experience shows that the
conferences are, in general, well run.
5
RECOMMENDATIONS
•
The TOC function should be used in the future as an
assistance to the ISSMGE Board to contribute to maintaining
the quality of the work of the Technical Committee. Given the
newly adopted continuity of the Technical Committees, the
amount of work required of the TOC should be lighter than it
was in the period 2009-2011.
•
The Executive of the TOC could consist of a group of
one person from each of the ISSMGE regions, so ide-ally two
persons from the Americas, one from Europe, one from Asia,
one from Africa and one from Australasia. A few additional
persons should be associated to the TOC with the specific
purpose of following-up a limited number of TCs, e.g. 4 TCs
per person. Alternatively, the follow-up of the TCs could be
assumed by the 6 carefully selected and technically able persons
on the Executive (meaning about 5 TCs per person to follow
up).
•
The TOC should continue to report to the ISSMGE
President.
•
The ISSMGE Vice-Presidents (VP) for each region
should become members ex officio of the TOC to be kept
abreast of the activities of the TCs in their region. The ISSMGE
Regional VPs would come in addition to the Executive, but
would not have the same TC follow-up responsibility as the
other Executive members.
•
The reporting function from the TCs to TOC and the
ISSMGE Board should be taken over by the ISSMGE
Secretariat. TOC would provide an input to the contents of the
progress report. Reporting to ISSMGE should be kept biennial.
The TOC Executive members should do their liaison and
progress monitoring work with the TCs at approximately every
4 to 6 months.
•
The TOC Chair was one of the members evaluating the
candidates for the ISSMGE Best TC Award. The se-lection of
the best TC Award should be based on nominations from the
TOC, the ISSMGE Board or persons having close knowledge of
the achievements of a TC. The nomination process, as done
today, initiated by the TC Chair and sent off by the hosting
Member Society, is bureaucratic and requires much time from
the TC Chairs who are already giving much free time to the
ISSMGE. The process has also an inward aspect that proved
unappealing to many Chairs, including the Chairs of some of
the best TCs.
•
An archiving system for the work by the TCs (technical
and administrative) should be included in its web site and linked
to the ISSMGE web site. This is not done sufficiently today and
should be a priority for the next period. Dissemination of
information on the TCs and technical achievements should be
included in the Geo World platform.
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