The Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining
The Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3) is a UK professional society with 24 000 members, 6 000 of them acting outside of the UK, mainly in the Commonwealth countries. The Institute has merged and is still merging with other materials-oriented societies and its activities have been commercialized to a considerable extent. The membership is individual. A president elected for two years represents the Institute.
Expert activities are carried out in 12 technical divisions, namely 6 materials divisions, 3 divisions for applications and 3 for materials sciences and technologies. Some divisions are subdivided into technical committees. More detailed information is available on the web page www.materials.org.uk.
Members in the UK and the Republic of Ireland can be admitted to one of the 7 regional organizations, which have their own activities.
The technical and regional divisions influence the activities of the Executive Board, which has over 70 employees. The activities of the Board are wide-ranging. Every year, IOM3 holds numerous conferences, seminars, workshops, etc. It publishes its journal, the Materials World, for the members free of charge, and other 12 technical journals. For this activity, IOM has established a publishing subsidiary, the IOM3 Communications, which is also engaged in electronic publishing. Every year a number of books and proceedings are published.
IOM3 focuses on providing services to enterprises. In the first place it is the IAS (Industrial Affiliate Scheme) service, which is some form of collective membership. The IAS comprises over 250 firms, which are offered a number of specific services and information (see the web site). The services are paid for. The CSNMT Centre for the Research into Materials and Technologies is also a member of this Scheme.
Other services are: Materials Information Service, Materials Processing Initiative (holding technologically oriented seminars for companies), IOM Library Service, IOM Academy (offering, among others, distance education in the field of materials and technologies) and the activity of the Materials Consultants (IOM has in its directory some 100 materials consultants and expert witnesses from countries all over the world - experts and consultancy firms must pay a fee for being included in the directory).
Yet another activity of IOM3 is oriented towards education, counselling in careers development, seeking job opportunities, and problems of women engaged in research. IOM3 participates in the materials panel of the Foresight programme.
The Institute has extensive international contacts. It provides secretariat services for 5 supranational societies and is a member of the FEMS, European Ceramic Society, European Powder Metallurgy Association, IOMMMS, International Iron and Steel Institute, etc.
For CSNMT the cooperation with IOM is very inspiring and beneficial; for example the publications of the Foresight materials panel and other documentation.
