Report of the 17th President of the International Society of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnics (ISSMGE) Charles W.W. Ng for the past four years

President of the ISSMGE Charles W.W .Ng

1.0   Introduction and Vision

It was my great honour to be elected as the 17th President of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE) for a four-year term at the Council meeting convened on 17th September 2017, prior to the 19th International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ICSMGE) held between 18th and 22nd September 2017 in Seoul, Korea. The names of all the ISSMGE presidents since the establishment of the professional body in 1936 are shown in Table 1. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, my term of office has been extended to 1st May 2022 when the 18th President will be elected in Sydney, Australia.

During my presidential address at the closing ceremony of the 19th ICSMGE, I shared my vision and plan to enhance “Education, Innovation and Diversity” at ISSMGE. In implementing this vision and plan, I am delighted to have received the full support of an outstanding Board, consisting of 11 board members and 7 Board-Level Committee (BLC) chairs/co-chairs. I am very pleased to report to you that we have made significant progress.

Table 1.   ISSMGE Presidents since the Establishment of the Professional Body in 1936

Year of Service   Name (Member Society)

1    1936–1957   K. Terzaghi   (USA)
2    1957–1961   A. W. Skempton   (UK)
3    1961–1965   A. Casagrande   (USA)
4    1965–1969   L. Bjerrum   (Norway)
5    1969–1973   R. B. Peck   (USA)
6    1973–1977   J. Kerisel   (France)
7    1977–1981   M. Fukuoka   (Japan)
8    1981–1985   V. F. B. de Mello   (Brazil)
9    1985–1989   B. B. Broms   (Sweden)
10   1989–1994   N. R. Morgenstern   (Canada)
11   1994–1997   M. Jamiolkowski   (Italy)
12   1997–2001   K. Ishihara   (Japan)
13   2001–2005   W. Van Impe   (Belgium)
14   2005–2009   P.S. Sêco e Pinto   (Portugal)
15   2009–2013   J.L. Briaud   (USA)
16   2013–2017   R. Frank   (France)
17   2017–2022   C.W.W. Ng   (Hong Kong SAR, China)

Table 2.   ISSMGE Board (2017–2022)

Position   -   Name

President    -   Charles W.W. Ng (Hong Kong SAR, China)
Immediate Past President   -   Roger Frank (France)
Vice President for Africa   -   Marcelin Kana (Cameroon)
Vice President for Asia   -   Eun Chul Shin (South Korea)
Vice President for Australasia   -  Gavin Alexander*
                                                / Philip Robins (New Zealand)
Vice President for Europe   -   Mario Manassero (Italy)
Vice President for North America   -   Timothy Newson (Canada)
Vice President for South America   -   Alejo Sfriso (Argentina)
Appointed Board Member   -   Pedro Sêco E Pinto (Portugal)
Appointed Board Member   -   Kok Kwang Phoon (Singapore)
Appointed Board Member   -   Mounir Bouassida (Tunisia)
Secretary General   -   Neil Taylor (United Kingdom)
*deceased and subsequently replaced by Philip Robins

Table 3.   Board-Level Committee Chairs/Co-chairs

Board-Level Committee   -  Chair/Co-chair

Innovation and Development Committee   -   Dimitris Zekkos (USA)
Technical Oversight Committee   -   Pierre Delage (France)
Young Members’ Presidential Group   -   Lucy Wu (USA)
Corporate Associates’ Presidential Group   -   Sukumar Pathmanandavel (Australia)
                                                                  / Peter Day (South Africa)
Award Committee   -   Roberto Terzariol (Argentina)
Professional Image Committee   -   Ikuo Towhata (Japan)

2.0   Education and Innovation

2.1   ISSMGE Virtual University (VU)

To enhance “Education” and to promote soil mechanics and geotechnical engineering freely, effectively and efficiently to every corner of the globe, I outlined my plan at the opening address of the presidential term starting from September 2017 to establish the Virtual University (VU) of ISSMGE, which consists of three major components all offered for free: (i) online postgraduate (PG) courses, (ii) online library and (iii) online publisher. The VU was officially launched in March 2020.

(i)   ISSMGE Postgraduate (PG) Courses

With the team work by Professor Mounir Bouassida, and Professors Dimitris Zekkos and Kok Kwang Phoon, who are the chair and co-chair of the Innovation and Development Committee, my proposed ISSMGE Virtual University has been taking shape. As of today, a total of 13 courses have been developed as follows:

• Course 1: Risk Mitigation, Monitoring & Observational Methods

• Course 2: In Situ Testing

• Course 3: Earthquake Engineering

• Course 4: Foundations

• Course 5: Soil Characterization

• Course 6: Geo-Engineering Education

• Course 7: Unsaturated Soil Mechanics

• Course 8: Geosynthetics 1

• Course 9: Landslides and Mitigations

• Course 10: Soil Behaviour

• Course 11: Probability Analysis in Civil Engineering

• Course 12: Numerical Modelling in Geomechanics

• Course 13: Risk Analysis and Machine Learning

Each PG course is comprised of three or more webinars giving students and engineers a total of no less than five hours of viewing. I would like to thank all the lecturers, who delivered the courses, for their significant contributions to the VU and ISSMGE. More courses are being developed. Please visit http://virtualuniver-sity.issmge.org/ for more details.

Due to the serious and continuous threat of COVID-19, many universities and training centres worldwide have remained closed, disrupting the necessary training and education of a large number of students and engineers. The VU offers a timely and free alternative for those staying at home or undergoing quarantine. Looking ahead, I would recommend that we should further explore and develop the VU to include some, if not all, of the following features to cater to the training needs under the new normal:

• Homework functionality

• Examination functionality

• Credit functionality

• Degree functionality

(ii)   ISSMGE Online Library

The open access policy initiated by the immediate past President, Professor Roger Frank, has been continued and expanded rapidly in terms of contents and capabilities. Naturally, the open access materials form the ISSMGE online library of the VU. Various conference proceedings are now available in the online library, such as the 19th ICSMGE, the 7th International Conference on Unsaturated Soils and the 13th International Symposium on Landslides (JCT1). Moreover, many ISSMGE reports, honour lectures and videos have been uploaded to the online library. At the end of 2021, the VU held a collection of 143 videos with a total of 114,000+ views since the launch of the VU in March 2020.

About 80% of the papers in the online library has now been classified. A digital object identifier (DOI) can now be allocated to reports (e.g. from TCs, CAs, etc.) published in the online library, giving them permanent publication status. For more information about the online library, please visit https://www.issmge.org/pub-lications/online-library.

(iii)   ISSMGE Online Publisher

Under the leadership of Professors Dimitrios Zekkos and Kok Kwang Phoon, the Innovation and Development Committee (IDC) has been developing the VU’s own publisher—the ISSMGE online publisher—with the intention of providing any organiser of a conference or symposium with a publishing platform. To date, the platform has been implemented and successfully adopted by three conferences and symposia such as the 13th International Symposium on Landslides held in 2021. This publishing platform enables accepted papers to be uploaded to our online library smoothly. Using the conference paper review platform and the online library, and by taking advantage of the ability to create DOIs, we are now in a position to push towards ISSMGE publications.

2.2   ISSMGE Time Capsule Project (TCP)

Under the initiative and outstanding leadership of Mr Sukumar Pathmanandavel, a co-chair of the Corporate Associates Presidential Group (CAPG) (https://www.issmge.org/corporate-associates/listing), the ISSMGE Time Capsule Project (TCP) is taking shape. The ISSMGE TCP has been developed with the central aim of creating and sustaining a strong level of conversation about the past, present and future of geotechnical engineering amongst, and for the benefit of, our 20,000 individual members. There is also the additional benefit of a legacy that could be added to and modified in the coming years and even decades. Some 90 Member Societies, 36 Technical Committees, the Young Members Presidential Group (YMPG) and ISSMGE Corporate Associates have been invited to contribute to the TCP. The leadership of the Member Societies and Technical Committees has been extensively briefed by the TCP Design Team between May and August 2021. A simple contents listing has been created with links to the following pages:

• Past Presidents’ contributions

• Regional contributions—Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe, North America & South America

• Technical Committees’ contributions

• YMPG contributions

• Corporate Associates’ contributions

• IDC contributions

A variety of new and existing materials from the contributors will be held and promoted on an online plat-form named ISSMGE Time Capsule 2022, which will be formally launched at the 20th ICSMGE. Information about the TCP and how to contact the TCP Design Team is available on the ISSMGE website: https://www.issmge.org/the-society/time-capsule.

2.3   Technical Committees (TCs)

I am grateful to the chair of the Technical Oversight Committee, Professor Pierre Delage, and his committee for reviewing new TCs and monitoring the performance of all existing TCs. Pierre has given regular reports to the Board for comments and approval. I am very pleased to inform you that five new and state-of-the-art TCs have been established since September 2017 as follows:

• TC219: System Performance of Geotechnical Structures

• TC220: Field Monitoring in Geomechanics

• TC221: Tailing and Mine Wastes

• TC222: Geotechnical BIM and Digital Twins

• TC309: Machine Learning and Big Data

On the contrary, TC207: Soil Structure Interaction and Retaining Structures was suspended due to its unsat-isfactory performance. To learn more about all the TCs, please visit https://www.issmge.org/commit-tees/technical-committees.

3.0   Diversity (under-represented including ago, geography and ethnicity)

3.1   Creation of the Bright Spark Lecture Series

As our young members (less than 36 years of age) have been under-represented at major international keynote lectures for many years, I created the ISSMGE Bright Spark Lecture series to enable young members to take the main stage at plenary sessions at major conferences and symposia. I would like to thank the YMPG under the leadership of Lucy Wu for coming up with this wonderful title of the young members’ lecture series. Guidelines on organising these lectures can be found at https://www.issmge.org/the-society/issmge-awards.

The first Bright Spark Lecture was delivered by Dr Lin Dong at the 7th Technical Conference in Eastern Asia on Geo-Natural Disasters held in Chengdu, China. The conference was organised by Asian Technical Committee 3. I was very pleased to attend that lecture and to present a certificate to the lecturer. Since then, other Bright Spark Lectures have been organized and presented at various conferences and symposia.

To date, over 28 young members have been given a chance to deliver 20-minute keynote lectures each at plenary sessions at conferences and symposia. Dr Ashani Ranathunga from Sri Lanka and Dr Brendon Bradley from New Zealand will deliver their Bright Spark Lectures at the 20th ICSMGE, Sydney, to be held between 2nd and 5th May 2022. More details are available on the ISSMGE website: https://www.issmge.org/the-soci-ety/issmge-awards.

3.2   Organization of workshops and forums to narrow the gap between academics and practitioners

Under the excellent leadership of Messrs Sukumar Pathmanandavel and Peter Day, co-chairs of the CAPG, many workshops and forums have been organized at major regional conferences. The goal is to narrow the gap between academics and practitioners so that they may find a common understanding and take collective action. The major regional conferences included the 17th African Regional Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (SMGE) held in Cape Town, the 16th Pan-American Conference on SMGE held in Cancun, the 16th Asian Regional Conference on SMGE held in Taipei and the 17th European Conference on SMGE held in Reykjavik. Another forum will be organized at the 20th ICSMGE to be held in Sydney between 2nd and 5th May 2022.

3.3   Engagement with the Forgotten societies and Exploration of New Ones

Promoting soil mechanics and geotechnical engineering to different parts of the world, engaging with our existing members and reaching out to new ones are central to my presidential plan. One way to achieve these goals is through ISSMGE international seminars. Under the outstanding leadership of Professor Pedro Seco e Pinto (Portugal), one ISSMGE International Seminar was held in Brest in Belarus, and another four in Asunción in Paraguay, Buenos Aires in Argentina, Mexico City in Mexico and León in Mexico in 2018. I would like to thank Pedro Seco e Pinto, Roger Frank (France), Liudas Furmanovich (Lithuania), Nikitenko Mikhail (Belarus), Sernov Vyacheslav (Belarus), Roberto Terzariol (Argentina), Alejo Sfrisio (Argentina), Tim Newson (Canada), Sukumar Pathmanandavel (Australia), Eun C. Shin (South Korea) and Gabriel Auvinet (Mexico) for their outstanding contributions to these seminars. However, the international seminars were interrupted due to the outbreak of the pandemic since December 2019.

4.0   Duty Visits

During the first half of my presidential term (i.e., from September 2017 to February 2020) before the severe outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in December 2019, I travelled to over 40 cities on six continents (Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe, North and South America) to attend and chair Board meetings and a Council meeting. I also made it a priority to visit Member Societies and attend their national, specialty TC conferences and regional conferences such as the 17th African Regional Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (SMGE) held in Cape Town of South Africa, the 16th Pan-American Conference on SMGE held in Cancun of Mexico, the 16th Asian Regional Conference on SMGE held in Taipei and the 17th European Conference on SMGE held in Reykjavik, Iceland.

Since March 2020, I have not been able to travel due to pandemic control. I could only attend meetings and conferences online.

As of today, I have delivered over 30 keynote/special invited lectures and more than 40 opening addresses on behalf of the ISSMGE either face to face or online.

5.0   Public and Professional Image of ISSMGE

5.1   Congratulations to Professor Heinz Brandl

I would like to congratulate Professor Heinz Brandl for receiving the Medal of Merit for Macedonia and for promoting the public and professional image of ISSMGE to the highest state level. The Board was invited by the then President of the former Republic of Macedonia, Dr Gjorge Ivanov, to join the award ceremony held at his Presidential Palace. The Board was also invited by Professor Milorad Jovanovski, the President of Macedonian Association for Geotechnics, to attend the XVI Danube-European Conference on Geotechnical Engineering held between 6th and 8th June 2018 in Skopje and to convene our Board meeting there. To promote our professional body, I presented an ISSMGE tie to Dr Gjorge Ivanov at the opening ceremony of the XVI Danube-European Conference.

5.2   Congratulations to Dr Suzanne Lacasse

I would like to congratulate Dr Suzanne Lacasse for receiving the Knight of the First Class, Order of the Falcon, Iceland, from Mr Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, Iceland’s President from 1996 to 2016, at the 17th European Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering held on 2nd September 2019 in Reykjavik, Iceland. Previously on 27th December 2018, Dr Lacasse was awarded the Officer of the Order of Queen Elizabeth II. The award is Canada’s highest civilian honour.

6.0   Concluding Remarks

It has been my tremendous honour and pleasure to have served you for more than four years. As of today, I am the 2nd longest serving president since our professional body was established in 1936. I believe I have delivered on my promise of improving education, innovation and diversity at ISSMGE. Obviously, I alone could not have achieved this. As Helen Keller, who was an American author, political activist and lecturer, once said: “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” I would like to thank all Board members, Board-Level Committees, Member Societies and member individuals for their immense contributions to ISSMGE.

Looking ahead, we should develop an ISSMGE app to facilitate more effective and reliable communication with individual members in different corners of the world. Also, we should continue to modernize our Society and start thinking about how to integrate ISSMGE into the Metaverse in the future.

Finally, I would like to end my report with a quote from Albert Einstein: “The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive”. I believe we should all give as much as we can both at work and in life.

 

 

 Charles W.W. Ng
February 2022