Proceedings e report - Firenze University Press

INTRODUCTION
These proceedings of a Workshop held in Braga (Portugal) on 5-7 November 2008 are the second
public record of the scientific activity developed within COST Action IE0601 “Wood Science for
Conservation of Cultural Heritage (WoodCultHer)”.
COST Action IE0601 started formally with a kick-off Management Committee (MC) meeting of held
in Brussels on 17-18 April 2007, devoted to administrative and organizational issues. It was closely
followed by a second MC meeting of the Action in Tervuren (Belgium) on 8-9 June 2007, together
with a Workshop which allowed for an initial approach to the many themes potentially covered by the
Action. Every following MC meeting of COST Action IE0601 has been organised together with an
international conference:
- 3 rd MC meeting and 1 st conference in Florence (Italy), 8-10 November 2007
- 4 th MC meeting and 2 nd conference in Braga (Portugal) on 5-7 November 2008
- 5 th MC meeting and 3 rd conference in Hamburg (Germany) on 5-7 November 2009
- 6 th MC meeting and 4 th conference in Izmir (Turkey) on 20-23 October 2010
A final MC meeting and conference is planned around the end of the Action, that was granted a 6months
extension until xxx.
In addition to these annual conferences, a number of “focused meetings” (FM) or “training schools”
(TS) have been organised by MC delegates, and many participants have already benefited from “short
term scientific missions” (STSM). Following the example of Tervuren workshop, for all these and
other types of formal and informal contacts, information is made available on the web site of COST
Action IE0601 (www.woodculther.org), including, reports, minutes of meetings, draft and final papers
by the authors or oral presentations and posters.
COST Actions aim at promoting a field of research through the stimulation of networking activities.
They are mostly managed by volunteering scientists and have a limited life span, usually 4 to 4.5
years. The continuation of the related activities after the completion of the period relies of the will of
the scientists involved. This motivated in 2001, the creation of the European Society for Wood
Mechanics (ESWM) by Pierre Morlier, who led two successive COST Action on wood mechanics
between 1990 ad 2000. The aim of ESWM was to ensure the continuation of networking activities in
the field of wood mechanics, especially the regular organisation of European conferences addressing
the topics of interest to this community. After three ESWM conferences were organized in Lausanne
(CH) 19-21/4/2001, Stockholm (SE) 25-28/5/2003 and Vila Real (PT) 5-8/9/2004 it was decided that
the coming events would be, whenever possible, held jointly with meetings of running COST Actions,
in order to benefit from the financial support of the COST system while creating new opportunities of
scientific interaction, as well as avoid the risk of dispersion arising from the increasing number of
meeting opportunities in the field. This principle had already been tried in Villa Real, with the
organisation of a working group (WG) meeting of COST Action E35 “Fracture mechanics and
micromechanics of wood and wood composites with regard to wood machining” in the continuity of
the ESWM meeting. Going one step further, the International conference on integrated approach to
wood structure, behaviour and application, Florence (IT) 15-17/5/2006 was explicitely a joint meeting
of ESWM and COST Action E35. This was made easy by the fact that two WGs of E35 clearly
addressed ESWM issues.
This meeting in Braga was the occasion to try a new idea, the use of a joint meeting to stimulate the
interest of wood mechanicians to a field of application which had never been explicitely adressed
during preceding ESWM meetings. Regarding conservation issues, wood mechanics is a part of wood
science that has much to contribute. From the three aspects mentionned in the call for porposal
(dimensional response to environment and ageing; strength of aged load-bearing structures;
biodeterioration), the first two addressed explicitely wood mechanics issues. As a matter of fact, the
challenge of attracting newcomers was not that clearly fullfilled within the meeting itself, however the
meeting format was certainly useful to highlight and advertize important research needs within ESWM
community.
Joseph Gril (edited by), Wood Science for Conservation of Cultural Heritage –Braga 2008: Proceedings of the International
Conference held by COST Action IE0601 (Braga - Portugal, 5-7 November 2008, ISBN 978-88-6453-157-1 (print)
ISBN 978-88-6453-165-6 (online) © 2010 Firenze University Press