TU0904 - Integrated Fire Engineering and Response (IFER)

The main objective of this Action is to break down the barrier preventing the exchange of information and experience between researchers from different disciplines on the one hand and between academia and practitioners (including fire-fighters) on the other hand. Thanks to the exchange of international experience, ideas and state-of-the-art on fire risk concepts and assessment methods, the Action aims at providing concrete applications of the performance-based fire safety design methods to practitioners and at introducing the latest research into standards for fire design.

Fire engineering researchers are specialists working in specific areas, such as fire dynamics, structural fire engineering, active/passive fire protection, environmental protection and human response. Since the background sciences of these disciplines are different at present there is little interaction between researchers. Practitioners, including fire engineers and building/fire control authorities, tend to consider fire safety as a whole, but lack in-depth awareness of recent advances in research. Through encouraging integration of different aspects of fire engineering and response, the Action will enable researchers with different fields of expertise and coming from different countries to understand better the recent advances in research in parallel fields, as well as their limitations, so that they see their own research in context, and identify opportunities in involvement of early-stage researchers and application of the results in national standards. Practitioners, fire fighting authorities and building control authorities will benefit from exposure to advanced research findings, discussion with the research community, and the sharing of best practice and others’ experiences. On the other side their input will make researchers aware of real-world constraints, as well as current requirements for new research and for the development of European standards.