LETTER FROM PRESIDENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF NOISE CONTROL ENGINEERING

Welcome from International INCE

Dear Delegates and Accompanying Persons,

It is my great honour and pleasure to welcome you on behalf of I-INCE, the International Institute of Noise Control Engineering, to Melbourne for the 43rd International Congress and Exposition on Noise Control Engineering, Inter-Noise 2014. For four days, from November 16 to 19, the attractive capital of the Australian state of Victoria – “the place to be” - will host our international scientific community and our important discipline, noise and noise control engineering. The place to be – let us take over this self-assured slogan on many Victorian vehicle number plates to express our expectation that again many of us will come to exchange experiences, discuss new ideas and encourage each other for further developments and applications.

This is what has happened every year since 1972, when the series of Inter-Noise conferences was launched in Washington, D.C. and which soon proved to be useful and enlivened the addressed community of noise control engineers. These - at that time – felt spurred by the spirit of the 1970s (often identified as the environmental decade) to organize themselves to be more responsive to the needs of their profession and of the public.

Started in the US as the Institute of Noise Control Engineering of the United States of America, INCE/USA, international ambitions and the success of Inter-Noise conferences in 1972 and 1973 encouraged the formation of a truly international organization, I-INCE. As an umbrella institute for institutional members like national associations and societies, I-INCE together with its member societies was to sponsor, to coordinate and to further develop the Inter-Noise conferences, to disseminate information on the field of noise control engineering and thus to promote progress in both, technological approaches and problem awareness.

Being drafted and planned in spring and summer 1974, I-INCE was formally established on October 01, 1974 as a non-profit association according to Swiss civil law and announced on September 30, 1974 at the 3rd Inter-Noise conference in Washington, D.C. This was exactly 40 years ago, four decades in which 47 member societies and 17 sustaining/institutional members from 40 countries together with hundreds of volunteering experts and thousands of professional delegates continuously contributed to meet the expectations and to extend the scope of the Institute. I would like to express my deepest gratitude for the many successful efforts made by many to bring I-INCE and Inter-Noise to where it is at present.

Today both, the Institute and its conference series have become an indispensable element of international noise control activities. This is continuously substantiated by regular I-INCE symposia on particular topics, the quarterly magazine Noise/News International jointly published with INCE/USA and a program to undertake technical initiatives on critically important issues of international concern, resulting in reports from Technical Study groups (see http://www.i-ince.org/). Also, I-INCE is assuming a leadership role in formulating global noise policies, including an ongoing collaboration with CAETS (International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technological Sciences).

However, in spite of the many successful noise reducing activities in the past, unwanted sounds are far from being or getting under control within acceptable limits. This is because all success in noise control tends to be compensated by ongoing mechanization and industrialization which in turn needs more and new control efforts. From here it is clear that our task is a permanent challenge: noise control engineering must provide and progressively maintain insight and appropriate means to ensure acoustic environmental compatibility of technical devices and systems.

Thus 40 years aren’t enough! Our birthday, while looking back with pride on the many achievements so far, demands our future commitment as well. This is exactly why we are going to meet in Melbourne again – to review latest achievements and to face new efforts, new approaches for the future. However, this business-as-usual-attitude should not prevent us from taking the opportunity: anniversaries are to be celebrated! So let’s do so. Let us dedicate ourselves to the satisfactory certainty of having achieved a lot. But let us not forget to turn this satisfaction into the new far- seeing energy we really need to cope with our subject – to increase and preserve the acoustic quality of life, to make life, to make this world acoustically worth living!

Melbourne, Australia is the ideal place for celebrating in this way. Australia’s pioneering spirit, it’s uncomplicated hands-on optimism for future tasks and challenges together with the ease said to be found in Melbourne by liveability rankings present an ideal platform for celebrating in consciousness of both, proud review and energetic continuation.

After Sydney in 1991 we look forward to be hosted again by the Australian Acoustical Society which I am sure has prepared an optimal platform for our conference. I therefore would like to thank the hosting team, the Organising and the Scientific Committees and the many supporting people and institutions for their enormous efforts to make Inter-Noise 2014 a successful, unforgettable event.

So welcome to this Inter-Noise 2014 in Melbourne. I really look forward to meet you there and to raise glasses at the welcome reception to our birthday, to what has been achieved so far, to most pleasant and fruitful days in Melbourne and, finally, to a successful future of I-INCE and Inter-Noise!

Joachim Scheuren
President of I-INCE