Abstract
2025 looks like it will be a busy year. This year sees the 70th anniversary of the Institute of Wood Science (IWSc), which now operates as the Wood Technology Group (WTG) within the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3). The aim of IWSc and now WTG was to promote and encourage a better understanding of timber, wood-based materials and associated timber processes and products in the UK and beyond, as demonstrated by the establishment of a group in Australia. It represented people employed within the timber importing, merchanting, manufacturing and user industries, together with those in education and research. Founded in 1958, the Journal of the IWSc was the forerunner of this journal. The WTG will hold the Timber 2025 conference in London on 11 June – it offers a good chance to interact with the UK timber network and build new contacts.
This year (at almost the same time as Timber 2025), the International Research Group on Wood Protection (IRG-WP) will hold its 56th Annual conference in Yokohama, Japan on 22–26 June. IWPJ aims to run a special issue with selected presentations from this conference, offering a chance to learn more about research on the global level. My attendance at IRG56 will allow me to once again meet up with Harry Greaves, one of the founders of the Australian branch of the IWSc mentioned above – he’s still as active and inquisitive as ever! Of course, there will be many more conferences and events, including the International Panel Products Symposium (Llandudno, UK) and the Northern European Network on Wood Science and Engineering (Växjö, Sweden) in October and the 14th International Conference ‘Wood Science and Engineering In The Third Millennium’ (Brasov, Romania) in November. Conferences are the best way to increase your professional network, so take the opportunity to go and present your work.
Having taken over as editor of this journal, it is really interesting dealing with the wide range of subjects covered by the manuscripts submitted (though sometimes it is very difficult in trying to find available reviewers). Please keep these manuscripts coming in! The successful publication of these papers depends on the unsung heroes – the people who review and edit the papers. Without you, we and all other journals would grind to a halt. Your help is essential to our existence and we thank you for your time.
Once again, this issue covers a wide range of different topics. I hope you find them as interesting as I did.