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LINKING PEOPLE, JOINING NATIONS
Ouden (The Netherlands), Prof. Einar Halmoy (Norway), Prof. Dr-
Eng. Yoshinori Hirata (Japan) and more recently by Prof. Dr-Eng.
Manabu Tanaka (Japan). SG-212, along with a significant number
of other Commissions and Working Units was now involved in
research and technology that would contribute significantly to the
diversity of research carried out by IIW’s Working Units.
The means of coordinating the activities of
research and innovation and disseminating this
information to the world at large is, by its very
nature, a complex and far reaching exercise.
The complexities in doing so markedly affect the
products of research and the associated considerations that have to be taken
in its application. In light of this, and as a result of organisational changes to
the technical structure of IIW, the Technical Committee had been replaced
by a Technical Management Board (TMB) some years earlier in 2002. The
TMB had the responsibility for the oversight and coordination of the work of
all IIW Commissions and Working Units including the general policies and
objectives of IIW’s scientific research and technical activities.
31
In understanding the differences between basic research and applied research, the
latter involved the practical application of accumulated theories, knowledge, methods
and techniques to, in this case, welding science and technologies – the very substance of
which IIW’s Working Units were ultimately concerned with. Little pure or basic research
was done by these groups as it was the province of research institutes and universities
like the University of Waterloo (Canada) mentioned previously and other organisations
such as the E.O. Paton Electric Welding Institute (Kiev, Ukraine), the Edison Welding
Institute (Columbus, Ohio, USA) and TWI (Abington, UK). Other organisations aligned
with IIW also sought to explore, discover and develop the outer limits of welding and
joining science. Together, this network of experts provided the perfect platform for the
furtherance of research and its diffusion to the widest cross section of industry, as well as to
the international community.
This was done in many ways, particularly through the presentation of papers at
IIW Annual Assemblies and associated conferences and other events, and publication in
IIW’s official journal,
Welding in the World
. Importantly, the work of the Commissions,
Study Groups and Select Committees and the products of their research, more often than
not, provided the technical basis for the development of international standards. In this
respect, of the 26 Commissions and Working Units in 2011, about one-third was involved in
standardisation activities.
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One should not, in any sense, decry the need to produce standards.
Their purpose was often a product of research itself and hence an endorsement of the need to
carry out research in the first place. The Commissions from 1990 became prolific producers
Yoshinori Hirata