Welcome
Dear SFPE Europe members,
This is my last contribution to the SFPE Europe Magazine. Looking back on the last 5 years of joining the ECCG - European Chapters Coordination Group as President of the Swiss Chapter, the "voice" of SFPE in Europe has grown significantly. At a historic meeting of the 11 European chapter leaders on 6 December 2019, we realised that we need to be more than a chapter coordination group if we want to become stronger in Europe. We found a common goal, initiated by Kees Both: to move from a chapter coordination body to a relevant stakeholder in the fire safety discussion in Europe, specifically in the European Commission and subsequent bodies. It was decided to create a formal presence in Europe. Thankfully, this decision was supported by the Board of SFPE Global and a working group was set up to formally establish such a legal entity, leading to the creation of SFPE Europe.
It has been an honour to serve as the first Chairman of SFPE Europe for more than three years. During this time, SFPE Europe was established as an international non-profit organisation in Europe and registered by Royal Decree in Belgium. Today, the board of SFPE Europe consists of 6 very committed professionals who are well positioned to take SFPE Europe to the next level. Since 2019, SFPE in Europe has grown from 11 to 20 chapters with around 1300 chapter members of fire safety professionals in Europe. In the same period, the number SFPE Global members in Europe has doubled to around 600 members.
The biennial SFPE Europe conference has also become a cornerstone of the European fire safety community and is growing in strength from conference to conference with over 300 participants in 2023.
We have registered SFPE Europe as a liaison organisation with CEN and are officially represented in three technical committees (TC127 / TC191 / TC250). SFPE Europe is now also regularly invited to participate in various conferences and panel discussions and is consulted on studies by various EU Directorates General.
As decided at the General Assembly in Berlin, we are currently conducting a survey identical to that of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC), which has published the results of the survey on "The status and needs for implementation of Fire Safety Engineering ap-proach in Europe". It is important that each European chapter makes its contribution and submits its results of the survey by mid-January 2024. With 20 countries we will have covered a significant part of Europe.
A big thank you to everyone who has contributed to the development of SFPE in one way or another, be it at SFPE Global level, for SFPE Europe, at chapter level or in any committee or for any contribution to "Engineering a fire-safe world".
I am very pleased that Robert McNamee will be taking over the leadership of SFPE Europe. He will start by contacting each chapter to understand their needs. He will then prepare a workshop to develop a new strategy for SFPE Europe together with all European chapter leaders at a special meeting at the end of February 2024. I wish him every success in his new role.
Thank you for putting the trust in SFPE.
David Grossmann
SFPE Europe Chair