IIW Annual Report 2025

Dear Friends and Colleagues in the Science and the Art of Welding and Allied Processes,

Beginning my annual message, it is with the greatest honor and genuine pleasure to extend my heartfelt thanks to each and every one of you: For your unwavering dedication, your remarkable enthusiasm, and your ever-growing engagement in our IIW community. With special delight we can witness this among our new members, a very warm welcome to you whose presence further enriches and strengthens our network. With deep appreciation and humility, let methank all of you, may you be volunteer or be professional, who contribute so generously to our field, whether in science, technology, administration, education, or certification. Your commitment and passion are truly inspiring. It is an absolute privilege to serve our worldwide community as your President, with profound gratitude for your continued trust and support. As we bring this year to a close, let me proudly and energized reflect on the many outstanding achievements we realized throughout 2025, a truly pivotal year in which we did far more than just live our strategy: we brought it vividly to our community. By decisively advancing the majority of initiatives aligned with our five key objectives 1. Improve IIW visibility through communication and marketing. 2. Expand the industrial relevance of IIW through research, best practices sharing, development and standardization activities. 3. Enrich the value of IIW to all stakeholders out of volunteers, member societies and industry. 4. Improve and expand our ETQ&C system to meet the needs of industry and IIW members. 5. Improve the organizational and management structure to ensure it meets IIW stakeholders expanding needs. Beginning with Key Objective 1, we decided in the winter meetings to further amplify our visibility across new and economically emerging regions worldwide, with a special emphasis on the African continent. The entire IIW community thus takes great pride in welcoming a further new member from Africa: the Toolkit Foundation of Kenya, which was approved as a new Responsible Member Society during the General Assembly in June 2025. In addition, our young African Member Societies, WeldNAM from Namibia, joining IIW in 2024 already achieved the pre-authorization by the IAB as an ANB in September 2025. Thanks to the tireless efforts of the newly composed Working Group Strategy and International Relations (WG-SIR) of the BoD, the visibility of IIW is now rapidly increasing on the African continent, currently experiencing a rapid industrialization. In parallel, and thanks to the tireless efforts of our Secretariat, we significantly strengthened IIW’s global presence through increased engagement with external organizations. Our flagship annual event also powerfully showcased our growing global visibility. The Annual Assembly held >at home< in Genoa, Italy, in June 2025 brought together more than 2,000 participants from 49 countries, including delegates from our newest member societies. This remarkable gathering was a true testament to the strength and reach of our worldwide community, evidenced also by a deeper involvement and exchange with our member societies during a newly created forum directly following the General Assembly. Dedicated initiatives were also undertaken to enhance the IIW image and outreach on our LinkedIn and Instagram platforms, resulting in a more dynamic and impactful digital presence Turning to Key Objective 2, the outstanding success and, in particular, the exceptional scientific and technical depth, of the year-out contributions in the various TMB Working Units once again demonstrated that our organization stands firmly at the forefront of international research, development, and practical application in welding and allied processes. The steadily growing participation from industry powerfully again reflects the strong interest in, and attraction to, the work carried out within IIW. Access to cutting-edge research results produced within our community has been further strengthened through our flagship journal Welding in the World , which published more than 200 high-quality papers. The journal’s expanding influence is clearly reflected in its rising metrics, with the Impact Factor increasing to 2.5 and the CiteScore reaching 4.6 in 2024 (the latest available data). Building on the remarkable success of the current year, this positive trajectory is expected to continue, with an anticipated Impact Factor of 2.8 for the outgoing year 2025. Riding this wave of progress, the TMB has enthusiastically embraced my vision to champion emerging and breakthrough technologies in welding and allied processes in a list that will be shaped into a strategic technical and scientific roadmap with full endorsement of the Board of Directors. Similarly exciting, the innovative best practices developed by our TMB commissions are now regularly shared with the IAB, allowing them to be seamlessly woven into our education and training programs, bringing real impact to our worldwide community. Let me take this progress to extend my deepest gratitude to you, our phenomenal network of volunteers, your energy, dedication, and exceptional achievements will continue to propel IIW to new heights. We transformed our vision into action and our mission into meaningful impact.