July 21 – Through COST (the European Cooperation in Science and Technology, an intergovernmental European framework for international cooperation in science and technology), the European Union has recently funded a new Action on the Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), coordinated by the Department of Engineering at the University of Roma Tre. The COST Action TU1208 is titled “Civil Engineering Applications of Ground Penetrating Radar” and will run for four years. It currently involves 66 universities, research institutes, government agencies, and small and medium-sized enterprises of eighteen European countries (Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, United Kingdom, Czech Republic, Spain, Switzerland, and Turkey). It also involved 11 universities and transport agencies from Armenia, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong and the United States. The GPR is now one of the most advanced electronic tools available for applications in various fields, including structural engineering and infrastructural construction, water resources management and environmental monitoring, object search or hidden and buried bodies in the event of natural disasters. The main objective of this ambitious international project is to further improve the knowledge available, through sharing and the development of innovation, research, scientific and technological knowledge and experiences.
