ISRM Newsletter No. 32 - December 2015

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No. 32 - December 2015

Contents

President's 2016 New Year Address

Dear ISRM friends and colleagues,

2015 is near the end! As the new President of ISRM I would like to share with you some of the news since May 2015 when the ISRM Presidency has passed to myself from Prof. Xia-Ting Feng of China, during the 13th ISRM International Congress in Montreal, Canada. The new term started on that occasion with new Board Members and a desire for continuation of the success of our Society in the years to come.

First of all, we should always emphasize that thanks to the impressive work of our former Presidents, their respective Boards and the involvement and contribution of our ISRM National Groups and their respective members, our Society has expanded now to nearly 8.000 members and to 60 national groups, with the inclusion of Iceland in 2015.

We have had an interesting and successful 2015 Conference year:

The 13rd ISRM International Congress on Rock Mechanics was successfully held in Montreal, Canada, from 10-13 May, 2015. It was organized by the Canadian ISRM National Group - CARMA with the participation of 49 of the 59 ISRM National Groups;
The ISRM Regional Symposium EUROCK 2015 "Future Development of Rock Mechanics", held from 7-10 October 2015, in conjunction with the 64th Geomechanics Colloquium in Salzburg, the city where the International Society for Rock Mechanics was founded in 1962;
The ISRM Regional Symposium SCRM "VIIIth South American Congress on Rock Mechanics", held from 15-18 November 2015 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. This was organized by the Argentinian Society of Geotechnical Engineering;
We also have had some important Specialized Conferences, such as the "China Shale Gas – CSG 2015", held from 6-8 September in the city of Wuhan, China, and the 4th International Workshop on Volcanic Rocks and Soils, held from 24-25 September, 2015 on the Isle of Ischia, Italy.

I was able to attend all of these except the second one, and can report that all of these events were most relevant and rewarding, thanks to the strong efforts of both the respective organisers and the participants.

During the 7 months of the new Board tenure some of our main objectives are already being pursued. We have also worked on the implementation of the proposals made by the last Board that were still on-going.

To go ahead with our wish to enhance the participation of National Groups: in this respect and together with the Croatian Geotechnical Society we are organizing the ISRM Workshop "Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering - theoretical advances, investigation techniques, design" to take place on 3rd March 2016 in Zagreb, profiting from the fact that the ISRM Board will meet on the previous day there. This Workshop counts with a strong participation of experts from Eastern Europe, which is a region with a strong tradition of rock mechanics research and practice, and with a large potential for cooperation and participation in the ISRM activities.
We continue to focus on the increase of corporate members; compared to the total number of members we have only few corporate members, the majority being from Asia and Europe.
Our Technical Oversight Committee (TOC) did an impressive job to evaluate the work of our seventeen Technical Commissions giving good suggestions to the Commission Presidents. We are continuing to give much encouragement to the Commissions following our belief that they are the heart of our technical and scientific development. • The new Education Fund Committee has started its work;
Our Commission of Young Members Activities is going well and some events are already planned to attract the attention of young members to our Society. The Board encourages activities such as the Rock Bowl and the Students Night, which proved to be very successful to bring together young members;
The on-line lectures have been very successful to disseminate technical knowledge among our members catching the attention of many young members. In these last 7 months since the beginning of our tenure three on-line lectures were given by Prof. Jean Sulem, Dr. Nick Barton and Prof. Ove Stephansson. They can be watched on our website. We will continue to encourage those lectures and to invite prominent rock mechanics professionals.
Concerning interaction with Sister Societies, we have been participating in the activities of the Board of the Federation of International Geo-Engineering Societies (FedIGS) and exchanging communication with them.

Those are some of our activities in these last 7 months, trying to continue and to foster the ISRM development.

Before I finish I would like to emphasize that without the strong commitment of all of our Vice Presidents and the invaluable support of the Secretariat in Lisbon for which I am extremely grateful, little of that could have been done. It is also necessary to thank the participation and contribution of the National Groups and their members. We really appreciate that.

I wish all a HAPPY AND SUCCESSFUL 2016!

Eda F. Quadros
President, ISRM