Thanks to its position on a solid piece of granite rock we are lucky to be safe from earthquakes, but other risks do not bypass us, with events such as the damaging floods affecting the Czech republic in 2002. Surrounded by four other countries speaking different languages we learn and practice to collaborate. So this year’s TIEMS conference topics are close to our hearts and way of thinking.

Prague was not originally planned to host this years TIEMS annual conference, and was decided only a year ago, in Croatia. As a result we had little time prepare such an important event though. Based on our experience from our regular conference “Present and Future of Crisis Management”, which has been organized in Prague for the past 10 years, we feel we can do the event justice, as we have in previous years of this conference (www.emergency.cz) that T-SOFT have organized jointly with TIEMS and which has brought to Prague many interesting people.

I am grateful to the EU Research Framework Programme, which I attended together with other organizations within project MEDSI, that brought me together with Harald Drager and TIEMS and from which we started a fruitful collaboration. The result of which is TIEMS2008 in Prague.

To make the conference possible, we joined the agency Carolina, which has a long track of organizing various congresses and similar activities in Prague. They bore the whole burden of arranging the ‘thousands’ of things needed to make it happen and to keep the participants safe, informed and happy.

The conference would also not be possible without the preparation of the whole programme and proceedings and I would like to thank Nils Rosmuller and Alan Jones, who invested tremendous time and effort to bring everything together, communicated with all the authors and produce the comprehensive proceedings for all of us.

I believe that a very ambitious programme for this conference will contribute to the worldwide effort to better preparing us for to critical situations, and to collaborate in saving lives, properties and the environment. Next years conference will be in China, which as we all know is currently suffering following a disaster itself, and I believe too that our Chinese colleagues will be able to share their experience next year with us.

I hope that you will enjoy your time in Prague and bring home with you many new impulses for your work, new contacts and memories from this historical place. For those who want more though we would welcome you all to come again for our regular “Present and Future of Crisis Management”, which will be held in November 2009, and contribute many more excellent papers.

Jaroslav Pejcoch
TIEMS 2008 Conference host