SPEECH OF THE EAEE PRESIDENT PHILIPPE BISCH DURING THE OPENING CEREMONY

It is with a great pleasure that I thank you for attending this twelfth conference of the European association for earthquake engineering. I would like to give particular thanks to those who come from countries which are not members of the European association and trust that there presence is due to the vitality of our association and of the national associations which are its members and also to the quality of the research in the field of earthquake engineering which is held in many places of Europe.

The success of our conferences and the activity of our associations are also due to the interest in earthquake engineering of the international public opinion and of the political and economical deciders. Unfortunately, this interest is periodically waken up by the seismic events which shake our continent, which plunge into grief Its population and induce considerable economical losses. In the last period, the most cruel earthquakes in Europe occurred in turkey and in Greece and made a large number of victims. But the other continents were also very hardly hit, for instance in Colombia, in Taiwan, in India, in Venezuela, etc….

The scientific knowledge in all specialities in connection with earthquake engineering has made considerable progress during the last century and we have the methods to build safe constructions and to assess and upgrade existing ones with a very good degree of reliability. However the earthquakes continue to kill people and to devastate human constructions and these awful events highlight once again all the efforts we, engineers and scientists, have to make to mitigate the seismic risk. The political issues play also a very important role in this mitigation, as it is obvious that the technical efforts have no values if regulation and legal control on construction do not support them. This legal control is absolutely necessary, but is not sufficient. Indeed, we can only but ascertain that poorer is the country which is stricken, more devastating are the losses and the consequences. Then, the scientific and technical imagination concerning structural performance is not sufficient either, when it is not balanced by economical considerations. We have to enlarge our thoughts to the entire world. Less rich countries can consecrate less money to earthquake protection than rich countries: low cost aseismic construction should be one of the major issues to be settled in the mitigation of seismic risk in more or less poor countries. But the economical considerations should be also a subject of concern for rich countries where the amount of money is not unlimited and where people want to consecrate it to other purposes. In conclusion, the lower the extra-cost of aseismic protection is, the more efficient the protection against earthquake will be. This should be constantly in the mind of code-makers and designers.

In the future, the assessment of the seismic performance of existing structures and their reinforcement will be a major subject of concern in the seismic areas. Here again, it will be of utmost importance to find inexpensive ways to improve the situation, mainly in poor countries, otherwise the goals will not be achieved in practical terms or in a reasonable time. Technical documents and standards dealing with this subject are now available, but work should continue to adapt the procedures to the actual social and economical possibilities.

Many members of our national associations are involved in the work of conversion of the Eurocode 8 ENV into a European norm (EN). This is a very important task which will provide to a great number of our European countries a common basis of safety against earthquakes. Major progress has been done during the last period for enhancing the norm; they have taken into account recent research and experimental results obtained in Europe and elsewhere. Eurocode 8 is a very important issue which I think will be a major topic during this conference. Finally, this shall be a good tool for aseismic construction in Europe. It shall also be a framework for a complete field of research in earthquake engineering, as its future evolution shall require a lot of new results and scientific developments.

The European conference on earthquake engineering is traditionally the cardinal point of our European association life and it is time for the President to sum up the situation of the association. We, the European association, have a role to play. This proves very difficult, as we have little money to finance our activities, mainly the working groups and task groups, which should be able to work on the subjects that I mentioned previously. However, our work can help, as many of us are also involved in research programs, code making and other activities. Our executive committee has worked on solutions to improve the functioning of the association, and in that of the working groups and task groups and to develop the activities. Our general secretary will discuss more in detail the work done by these groups and the efforts he has developed to change the status of our bulletin so as to achieve  a higher standard.

As regards education, we are rather disappointed by the fact that only the Swiss association volunteered to undertake the organisation of a regional seminar during this four year period. However, this seminar was very successful, both as concerns the proposed activities and in the technical content, to the benefit of the young attendees. This is one point where our association can improve its functioning, as regional seminars are very useful for young researchers and engineers and their number should be increased.

There has been a lot of developments in the political and economical issues since the creation of our European association. Its manner of functioning was elaborated at a time when the environment was quite different. Over the last decade, many changes have taken place, as can be seen for instance in eastern Europe. The European community has also made great progress. We are now at a stage where we have to change our ways in order to fit into the present reality and therefore to benefit from the future progress of our continent. At the same time, we have to consider that our association is not limited to European countries, but is more a Euro-Mediterranean association. We also have to consider that it is more and more difficult to obtain financing for our activities, even for meetings taking place at longer intervals. So the improvements that could be imagined to the functioning of our association can be done only with the volunteer work of the participants in our executive committee and to the working and task groups. Therefore, the rules for the designation of the members of our committee have to be improved to take into account their motivation.

In fact, we had the choice between doing nothing, which was probably not the best for the future of our association, doing slight modifications or thirdly making a full renovation of our statutes and way of functioning. But we also had to take into account our history and the existing activities of our national associations members which may contribute more to the development of their common association. The executive committee has worked during all this period on these subjects and it was an important task which has been fulfilled. It was not certain at the beginning that the actual executive committee would be able to propose guidelines to the next general assembly in London. It did so and new statutes were proposed to the members for voting at the beginning of May this year and were adopted prior to this conference.

What are the main points in the modifications of the statutes?

§    The opening of the membership to collective members and individual members. These new categories of members will be represented at the general assembly. However, the national associations will remain the kernel of the European association and they will keep the majority of votes at the general assembly. This opening is very important in our mind, because it is a way to involve more directly people who may volunteer to handle different tasks.

§     From now, there will be a membership fee. Indeed it is impossible to develop activities without sources of financing (either from the members or from external sources). Money is necessary for a more established association’s life. Therefore, the general assembly will decide the amount of a minimal fee for all the categories of members. As a consequence, a position of treasurer has been created and the treasurer will be elected among the new executive committee members. One of his duty will be to find external support, particularly to enhance the functioning of the tasks groups.

§    Third, the election of the executive committee. Its members should be volunteers to participate in the Executive Committee, and therefore have some motivation to propose and handle projects for the development of the Association. Then we have moved from a sort of automatic nomination where people could be elected although not candidates, to a more democratic election where the members of the executive committee will have to show their motivation. The president, the first vice-president, the general secretary and of course the executive committee will be elected by the general assembly. The secretary and the treasurer will be elected by the executive committee among its members.

I trust that these major changes will be a booster for the life of our European association which is now in the hands of all its members, whatever their origin, and, as I am leaving the position of president, I wish a pleasant and successful future to our association and its members.

I hope that this week will be a very good opportunity to enhance our good relationships, which are so important for the sound development of our sciences.  I wish you a very good conference, and a nice stay in London.