Welcome

Dear SFPE Europe members,

As I write these lines, the SFPE Annual Conference is taking place in Washington DC/Bethesda. It is a conference that is going from strength to strength with a record number of 500 participants. This year Robert McNamee and Kees Both are representing SFPE Europe at the conference and will be invited to the SFPE Board meeting to report on SFPE Europe.

And there will be some celebrations at the SFPE Annual Conference 2023: On behalf of SFPE Europe, congratulations to Kees Both, who was one of eight members to be named an SFPE Fellow this year! SFPE Fellows are a group of members who have distinguished themselves through special achievements in engineering. Fellows have been members of the Society for at least 10 years and have been nominated by their peers for outstanding contributions to the advancement of fire safety and for valuable service to SFPE. In addition, Kees Both will be awarded the SFPE Lund Award for promoting professional recognition of fire protection engineering. 

Bart Merci, professor at Ghent University, will be awarded the prestigious Arthur B. Guise Medal, donated by R. Keith Guise. Bart Merci will deliver the Guise Keynote Address on the ever-growing importance of competence in fire safety engineering during the SFPE Annual Conference.

Congratulations to both of them from all of us. We are proud that two Europeans have been honoured by the Society with the highest recognitions.

As you heard at the General Assembly in Berlin, the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission has published the results of the survey on “The status and needs for implementation of Fire Safety Engineering approach in Europe”. According to SFPE Europe members, the results of this survey showed some inconsistencies and ambiguities. SFPE Europe has now formed a working group to look into the findings of the recent JRC report and wants to contribute to a further understanding of the situation in Europe.

SFPE Europe has started to conduct an identical survey through the SFPE Europe Chapters with the aim of presenting the results as a panel discussion during the SFPE Fire Safety Conference on Performance-Based Design 2024 in Copenhagen. This is a unique opportunity for SFPE Europe with chapters in 20 countries to contribute to this research. I would like to ask all chapters to contribute with their views!

Finally, I would like to toast all the new Fellows, the "5 under 35" Leaders and the Award Recipients!

Enjoy the wonderful autumn weather before it turns colder.

David Grossmann

SFPE Europe Chair