WCEC - World Chemical Engineering Council

History

The world of chemical engineering was formerly represented by three regional (con-)federations of national learned societies:

APCChE - Asian Pacific Confederation of Chemical Engineers
EFCE - European Federation of Chemical Engineering
IACCE - InterAmerican Confederation of Chemical Engineering.

This system did not cover all countries or regions and did not allow to deal efficiently with chemical engineering issues of a global nature. The only joint activity was the World Congress of Chemical Engineering which takes place alternatively in one of the three regions, every five years. This is why, in...

December 1991	Jim Oldshue, former president of IACCE and AIChE, suggests the formation of a kind of "World Office of Chemical Engineering".
December 1998	DECHEMA takes up the idea and proposes, at the APCChE Congress in Puerto Rico, the formation of the WCEC.
12 August 1999	Presidents and general secretaries of AIChE, DECHEMA and IChemE meet in Frankfurt and found a WCEC Formation Committee.
23 May 2000	WCEC Formation Committee meets in Frankfurt and drafts a Vision/Mission/Goals memorandum.
14 November 2000	WCEC Formation Committee members meet in Los Angeles to adopt the memorandum and agree on nomination procedures.
10 May 2001	WCEC Formation Committee meets in Beijing and proposes the first World Council members.
26 September 2001	WCEC Formation Committee members meet for the last time, in Melbourne.
27 September 2001	The World Chemical Engineering Council, WCEC, is formally launched at the closing ceremony of the Sixth World Congress of Chemical Engineering in Melbourne.