Location

Novotel Centre Tour Noir
Brussels
Belgium

Subjects

Monitoring and Assessment
Seismic Assessment and Active Control
Information on the 6th Framework Programme
The basic idea was to disseminate information about the SAMCO network, show recent research work in the field and stimulate a discussion on new projects to be submitted within the 6th framework program.

Participation

93 persons attended the workshop
20 different countries were represented
(split: Austria 5, Belgium 12, Czech Rep 2, Denmark 3, Finland 2, France 7, Germany 9, Greece 3, Hungary 1, Ireland 1, Italy 18, Norway 1, Poland 3, Portugal 2, Slovenia 1, Spain 7, Sweden 2, Switzerland 5, Turkey 1, UK 8)
44% SAMCO observers (not SAMCO participant)
There was a significant majority of the research community (~75% of the participants) only 33% were End Users

Résumé

Topical information from the European Commission: The consortium received topical information from the European Commission. A clear impression has been created how the projects for the 6th framework program can be approached.

Definition of future integrated projects has been done and the creation of partnerships was induced.

1. The European Monitoring Initiative (E-MOI) has been discussed in detail and contributions have been received from the audience. The conception has been well received and plenty of expression of interest to participate have been submitted. A plan how to follow up this proposal has been adapted and a rough schedule approved.
2. The initiatives to cover the seismic field and active control has been started. Particular the implementation of a Network of Excellence on active control has been discussed. A possible approach and follow up has been decided. The lead person of this subject will be Prof. Casciati.
3. An integrated project in the seismic field has been discussed under the leadership of Prof. Flesch (ISRECS). It will be followed under the Environment program and shall be complemented by projects under GROWTH. Further actions for using the new instruments of the 6FP have been discussed.

The forming of a bigger end user forum has been stimulated. A discussion on the end user´s needs has been launched, which shall be continued. They shall get more hearing within the network in the future.

Further Steps

All participants have been invited to submit expressions of interest to the coordinator submitting a page of their idea of participation in the projects. Each one shall particular elaborate his expertise and ideas and point out the allocation within the network.

The next step will be the forming of a consortium out of all this contributions. Further on direct contact will be looked for by the coordinator. A format will be worked out where the participants shall workout the definition of their WP, write a list of deliverables and the necessary information about the company, key personnel and references. All other information like literature, socio economic aspects and related items shall follow. Another meeting of the consortium will be necessary before the proposal is submitted. In this meeting all financial aspects and the final allocation of work shall be done. A date for this meeting can not be anticipated now. In order to coordinate the different initiatives it will be necessary to conduct a meeting of the CORE group, which contains the following persons: Wenzel, Flesch, Martelli, Peano, Renda, Casciati. This meeting will most probably be beginning of November in Ispra.

Evaluation

The full evaluation can be viewed here.
The workshop has been considered a big success and a great step forward towards the 6th framework program.
There is major optimism on the EMOI initiative and very good steps on other projects. This positive evaluation shall be reported to the scientific officer.

The workshop was "good":
An evaluation of the workshop was carried out in which 50% of the participants took part. The workshop was altogether considered as "good". The average mark for the workshop was 1.9 - which is nearly equivalent to "good" (2.0).

The workshop mainly met the research community's interests:
The interests of the researchers were much more satisfied than those of the end user community. Among the researchers the average mark was 1.6, i.e between good and excellent. The end users did not only mark the whole workshop worse (the average mark among them was 2.5, i.e between satisfactory and good). The end users were also not so satisfied with the coverage of the different areas within the workshop.

Good coverage of fields:
The fields: state-of-the-art, end user needs, methodologies & technologies and research & development were "good covered", except of the end user needs, they were "satisfactory covered".

End user needs not well represented:
Among the end users there was a considerable dissatisfaction with that coverage of the end user needs: 44% of them marked it with "not satisfactory". This is emphasized by the additional comments, where it was often expressed that the next workshop should focus more on the end user needs.

Receiving information seems to be important to the end users:
The interest to make a contribution within the next workshop is quite high among the researchers, 55% of them would like to contribute. Only 33% of the end users have the same interest. As the majority is not interested in contribution within the next workshop, one can conclude that they expect to receive and not to disseminate information.

A strong interest for structural health monitoring:
Summarizing the topics, which evaluators suggested for their contributions, it is noticed that there is a strong interest in structural health monitoring.

Very positive Comments were given concerning the organization of the workshop and the proposals for the integrated projects.

NOTE: Documents and photos from the workshop can be downloaded from or uploaded to the database.