ISSMGE Bulletin – Volume 2 Issue 2 June 2008

A Message from the Vice President

By Professor Roger Frank

To write any kind of ‘comprehensive’ or ‘unified’ view about Europe is always a difficult task. At least we, geotechnical engineers members of ISSMGE, do not have the same problems as many of our politicians who spend (too) much time and effort in defining what exactly the borders of Europe are… Indeed, for ISSMGE, the situation is very clear: the European region of ISSMGE comprises 35 Member Societies (representing 36 countries, as there is one single Member Society for both the Czech Republic and Slovakia). The 35th Member Society to join ISSMGE was Georgia (in 2007). The total of individual members is now around 7900. Thus, Europe is not far from representing 45% of ISSMGE!

The activities concerning geotechnical engineering on the European continent may differ strongly when moving from one country to the other. This is not only due to the fact that the economic situations and, in particular, the construction sector can vary a lot, even inside the zone using the single currency, i.e. the Euro, but also due to the varying geological and geotechnical conditions throughout the continent. Some countries, or some of their areas, need an important geotechnical ‘input’ into the projects as, in some other countries or areas, the ‘effort’ can be more limited, due to simpler or better known ground conditions. Not even speaking of the various procedures, legal requirements, available codes or standards, etc. for geotechnical studies which are markedly different…

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