IIW History 1990-2015

research funding to assist innovative processes and undertaking technology transfer through collaboration with foreign research institutes. 40 ThankstomembershipoftheEuropeanUnion,fundingfor scientific research in welding was to increase significantly in Poland in 2006, with expectations that this would rise further in subsequent years. The opportunities offered through participation in SG-RES by developing countries such as Poland, such as technology diffusion and access to latest research projects, was a powerful incentive for those countries to join and contribute to the activities of IIW. At this stage, in 2006, it was estimated that the volume of the market for welded products was EUR 30 billion throughout the world and that continuous investment inwelding research and innovative fields of technology, with increased productivity, were success factors in achieving this phenomenal level of growth in the welding of manufactured products. 41 SG-RES’s role in fostering the collation and dissemination of scientific knowledge of welding assumed greater importance from this point on. At the Istanbul meeting in 2010 Prof. Américo Scotti (Brazil) proposed, under the broad umbrella of SG-RES, support for an event titled the European-South American School of Welding and Correlated Processes. In essence this was an event that had, as its objective, the provision of opportunities for exchange and cooperation between researchers on both continents with a longer term view to extend this to other regions of the world. 42 This was embraced with great fervour by SG-RES and the first event was organised in Ouro Preto, Brazil on 18-20 May 2011, attracting 70 participants from Europe and South America. In looking at current trends in research, one of the most important initiatives taken was the possibility of exchanging young researchers between different countries. Cranfield Américo Scotti

Participants in the first IIW European-South American School of Welding and Correlated Processes held in Ouro Preto, Brazil in 2011

RESEARCH & INNOVATION