(I have been informed that this message, sent yesterday, was cut in two pieces. I hope you receive everything together this time.) The XX IUFRO World Congress in Tampere: Some critical thoughts. From the 5th to the 12th of August I was one of ca.3000 forest researchers having the privilege to participate at the XX IUFRO World Congress in Tampere, Finland. The foundations for this giant event was almost perfectly set by the arrangeurs. I have only heard commending comments to everything concerning Tampere Hall and the other localities, the tours and social arrangements, and Tampere itself. Yet, the main issue of the IUFRO conference is to be a meeting place for forest researchers all over the world. In that respect I wonder if there is a possibillity of improving the quality of the research presented. Having the impression of IUFRO as a prestiging organization, I must ask if enough is done to enhance the quality of the invited papers at the World Congress. In some of the divisional sessions, inter-divisional sessions and sub-plenary sessions, which I assisted, there was a rather unconnected mix of presentations. Somebody did have research results to bring about, but others only told about research institutes or the multitud of problems in countries where funds to forest research did not increase. Of course, some presentations were very good, but I argue that too many seemed to be distant from the topic of the session - and even from research itself. Are the requirements for admission to give a presentation the right ones. Should the presentations at all levels, from plenary down to divisional sessions, be based on invitations from the organizers? Could there be something to learn from other scientific organizations, giving everybody the possibillity to compete for a fixed number of presentations by sending in abstracts and papers? At least, this could be suitable for the divisional sessions. I doubt that the cost associoated with the review of remitted papers would constitute a large share of a multimillion arrangement as the IUFRO World Congress. To those accepted to present their research at the World Congress, IUFRO should possibly give some pedagogical notes. Of course, we can't expect radical improvements of the presentations based on such guidance, but IUFRO could at least try to evite the use of overheads copied directly from one page of the paper (printed in, e.g., Times Roman 10 points). Have I misunderstood the role of the IUFRO World Congress? Is the reviewing and quality- assurance of papers and presentations a more relevant topic for the IUFRO-seminars (between the World Congresses) or seminars for the many branches within forest research? Being the goal of IUFRO a nobel prize or something less ambitious, I would assume that the level of the research presented at the World Congress is something of great importance. Is this level high enough? Knut Veisten Dept. of Forest Sciences BP 5044, Agricultural University of Norway N-1432 ]S knut.veisten@isf.nlh.no
Mail converted by
MHonArc 1.1.0