Announcements
INAUGURAL LECTURE OF THE SOCIETY OF FIRE SAFETY ENGINEERS Over 40 fire safety professionals gathered at the Institute of Structural Engineers in London on 16 November, 1989 to hear Professor Jelle Witteveen of the TNO Institute of Building Materials and Structures at Delft, Netherlands, give the Inaugural Lecture of the newly-formed Society of Fire Safety Engineers. After describing the background of fire safety science and engineering, Professor Witteveen outlined what he saw as the future of the fire safety engineering profession. For example, new building regulations which allowed flexibility of approach in achieving fire safety goals meant that professionals were needed to translate academic fire safety knowledge into tailor-made alternative and cost-reducing designs. There was also work to be done in producing European, as opposed to national, fire safety codes and standards. But all the new development and opportunities were, in his mind, selfprophecying. If the profession believed in them, they would occur; if not, they would certainly not occur.
Introducing Professor Witteveen's lecture, Graham Fuller, Assistant Secretary at the Department of the Environment, said that he welcomed the new Society as it was important that professional bodies existed to whom an individual could turn for independent thinking and advice, particularly in an unusual case. But a help would be a concensus among the profession about what he described as 'the common core of fire knowledge', in other words, a common language and common expertise.
This need for fire safety education and training to produce the expert professionals required was taken up by several contributors from the floor. As one speaker put it, lack of training produced mediocre advice which led to, for example, architects considering the subject of fire safety engineering as shallow. It was generally felt that the formation of the SFSE had been an important step in solving this problem, but as another contributor put it, a large amount of 'rational crusading' was 488