2021 Concluding remarks

A few words From the RILEM PRESIDENTS and the Secretariat General TEAM

Another remarkable year has passed by. What happened in the last 12 months?

RILEM celebrated the 2021 Strategy Workshop “in” Paris, France, in April this year, in conjunction with the 4^th RILEM Spring Convention. The last workshop was organised back in 2014. Thanks to the participation and suggestions of our members, we planted the seeds for the way forward of our Association.

The 75^th RILEM Annual week was a hybrid event in Merida, Mexico, successfully organised and conducted by our LatRILEM friends.

The initiatives launched in 2020 have flourished through 2021 and proved to be very rewarding. The ROC&TOK webinar series, organised by EAC, have broadcasted 10 high-quality webinars given by internationally recognised experts. The recordings of the webinars have been viewed by thousands of people on our YouTube Channel. The RILEM Youth Council has been very busy in promoting the activities of RILEM amongst the community of young researchers around the world, encouraging many of these bright minds to become active members in our Technical Committees. GLOBE has attracted hundreds of supporters. You can see the recent press release in December 2021 here.

Our two journals, Materials and Structures and RILEM Technical Letters, have continued to publish outstanding papers authored by our members and the wider scientific community. Despite the pandemic, many other publications have been produced in the last 12 months, like conference proceedings and State-of-the-Art reports.

The 75^th RILEM Anniversary booklet edited by our former president Mark Alexander  was officially presented in April at the Convention in Paris this year and it is available here.

We thanked Johan Vyncke that completed his 9 years in the RILEM Presidency this year, and we welcomed Nele De Belie as new RILEM Vice-President.

The next RILEM appointment is the 5^th RILEM Spring Convention, “in” France from 14^th to 19^th March 2022. In addition to the usual standing committee’s meetings, an online event will celebrate 75 years of research, publications, and advancement in the knowledge of construction materials, but also 75 years of collaboration and friendship. Keynote presentations will be organized in 3 sessions: Construction materials & research; Sustainability & future of construction; Strategy & perspective of RILEM.

The event will take place together with the International Conference on Earthen Construction: Fundamentals and Applications for a Circular Economy.

Save the date and join us online on the 17^th of March 2022!

We will continue to pursue the mission of the Association also in 2022, with more technical activities, more publications, and events. We look forward to seeing you and working with you!