Last week (1st and 2nd October 2015) I had the opportunity to welcome a lot of my research colleagues in Pamplona, in the framework of COST Action FP 1402 “Basis of Structural Timber Design” – from research to standards.
You may ask: what’s a COST Action? It is an intergovernmental framework for the coordination of nationally funded research at a European level, based on a flexible institutional structure supporting trans-national cooperation among researchers, engineers and scholars across Europe. Easy told it’s a way for us researchers to meet and to further collaborate together. That said, we don’t meet for partying, but to share our research and thoughts.
In our case, COST Action FP 1402 is devoted to standardization of timber structures and products. Our main aim is to discuss how should recent research be incorporated into future versions of Eurocode 5 (the European structural standard on timber structures).
I love meeting with other researcher and professors in such a friendly and collaborative atmosphere. It is always a wonderful and fruitful experience. Being part of such a wonderful and collaborative community makes you realize that actually this is what science is, this is what University is, in their highest form. They are not only about publishing papers. A really important part is about getting together and collaborating to obtain better results.
In case you’re more interested, here you have a video about our meeting (I talk in Spanish, but there are English captions)
Jose M. Cabrero 