IIR committees meetings in Cambridge

The Management Committee of the IIR met in Cambridge (UK) on March 19, 2005. It was invited by the UK Institute of Refrigeration and Cambridge Refrigeration Technology (CRT), thanks to Robert Heap. The main points discussed during were: - the findings of the Task Force on Young People and decisions concerning prices, the status of young people and the creation of junior commission members were taken; - the conclusions of the audit of the Information Resources Department. The Management Committee agreed with the proposals of the Director of the IIR: the creation of a new Scientific and Technical Information Department (STID) headed by Jean-Luc Dupont, merging the former Information Resources Department and Jean-Luc Dupont's former activities (Web site, Newsletter, publications, links with commission members…), in order to end the isolation of the former department and to better use the potential of it for all the publications of the IIR; the recruitment of a refrigeration engineer familiar with information technology in the STID; the review of the periodicals currently received in order to develop strategy with respect to them, to add more economic data on refrigeration and "grey literature"; to consult a lawyer specialized in information resources; to move to an electronic Bulletin at the end of the year; to renew the computer system. On March 18, two other meetings took place: the Publications Sub-Committee (PSC) meeting and the m eeting of the representatives of the Science and Technology Council to the Management Committee (STC-MC) Main decisions taken by the PSC were: - writing of an IIR guide on energy savings in refrigeration, revision of the book entitled Ammonia as a refrigerant (with the objective of preparing such guides for each natural refrigerant) and revision of the IIR Guide to Refrigerated Transport; - writing of an Informatory Notes on "Magnetic and other alternative refrigerating concepts" and one on "Air-conditioning design for sustainable development". The members of the STC and PSC will be surveyed on possible authors for these publications. During the STC-MC meeting, several issues were discussed, notably the role of commission members, the list of research priorities, the directory of research laboratories (see "IIR members benefit from new services") and the preparation of the 4-year rolling plans of the IIR commissions.