# International Federation for the Promotion of Mechanism and Machine Science

International Federation for the Promotion of Mechanism and Machine Science (IFToMM) is an organization that supports international exchange of researchers and engineers from the wide range of discipline related to Mechanical Engineering.

## Mission

To promote research and development in the field of Machines and Mechanisms by theoretical and experimental methods, along with their practical application.

## History

It was on September 29, 1969m at the Second World Congress on Theory of Mechanisms and Machines which took place in Zakopane (Poland), that two scientists, Ivan Artobolevski (USSR) and Erskine Crossley (USA), proposed to establish an International Federation of scientists and engineers to facilitate worldwide collaboration. Representatives of 13 countries signed the foundation act and the International Federation for the Theory of Machines (IFToMM) came into existence. The initial Member Organizations were represented by:
* Academician Ivan I. Artobolevski (USSR),
* Prof. Erskine F.R. Crossley (USA),
* Prof. Michael S. Konstantinov (Bulgaria),
* Dr. Werner Thomas (GFR),
* Prof. B.M. Belgaumkar (India),
* Prof. Kenneth H. Hunt (Australia),
* Prof. J. Oderfeld (Poland),
* Prof. Jack Phillips (Australia),
* Prof. George Rusanov (Bulgaria),
* Prof. Wolfgang Rössner (GDR),
* Prof. Zènò Terplàn (Hungary),
* Prof. Jammi S. Rao (India),
* Prof. Giovanni Bianchi (Italy),
* Prof. Adam Morecki (Poland),
* Nicolae I. Manolescu (Romania),
* Leonard Maunder (UK),
* Douglas Muster (USA),
* Ilic Branisky (Yugoslavia).
Given the expansion of the topics within the IFToMM umbrella,
in 1999, the Executive Council decided to recognize the changing role of the organization in international collaboration and approved a new name: "The International Federation for the Promotion of Mechanism and Machine Science". However, the Executive Council considered that the abbreviation IFToMM was already widely used, and therefore suggested to keep it (along with the logo) as a short version of the organization's name.

### Officers, Presidents, and General Secretaries

IFToMM officers are the Chairs of IFToMM Member Organizations, the Chairs of Permanent Commissions and Technical Committees, as well as the members of the Executive Council. A complete historical list of IFToMM officers was published in the Proceedings of the Second International Symposium on History of Machines and Mechanisms HMM2004.
The Presidents were:
* Ivan I. Artobolevskii (USSR),
* Leonard Maunder (United Kingdom),
* Bernard Roth (USA),
* Giovanni Bianchi (Italy),
* Adam Morecki (Poland),
* Jorge Angeles (Canada),
* Kenneth J. Waldron (USA),
* Marco Ceccarelli (Italy),
* Yoshihiko Nakamura (Japan),
* Marco Ceccarelli (Italy) (repeated), and
* Andrés Kecskeméthy (Germany).
The Secretaries General were:
* M.S. Konstantinov (Bulgaria),
* Emil Stanchev (Bulgaria),
* Adam Morecki (Poland),
* Elizabeth Filemon (Hungary),
* Ladislav Půst (Czechoslovakia),
* Tatu Leinonen (Finland),
* Marco Ceccarelli (Italy),
* Teresa Zielinska (Poland) (two terms), and
* Erwin Christian Lovasz (Romania).

## Meetings

* IFToMM General Assembly: every 4 years
* Executive Council Meeting: an annual meeting of the members of Executive Council
* IFToMM World Congress: every four years
List of all IFToMM World congresses:
| World Congress | Host Institution(s) | Host Country (City) | Dates | No. of papers | No. of countries represented |
| 1st IFToMM World Congress | | Bulgaria (Varna) | September 27–30, 1965 | 64 (4 volumes) | 14 |
| 2nd IFToMM World Congress | | Poland (Zakopane) | September 23–27, 1969 | 66 (3 volumes) | 12 |
| 3rd IFToMM World Congress | | Yugoslavia (Kupari) | September 1971 | 198 (8 volumes) | 22 |
| 4th IFToMM World Congress | | United Kingdom (Newcastle upon Tyne) | September 8–12, 1975 | 230 (5 volumes) | 28 |
| 5th IFToMM World Congress | | Canada (Montreal) | July 8–13, 1979 | 350 (2 volumes) | 34 |
| 6th IFToMM World Congress | | India (New Delhi) | December 15–20, 1983 | 338 (2 volumes) | 35 |
| 7th IFToMM World Congress | | Spain (Seville) | September 17–22, 1987 | 417 (3 volumes) | 38 |
| 8th IFToMM World Congress | | Czechoslovakia (Prague) | August 26–31, 1991 | 359 (6 volumes) | 40 |
| 9th IFToMM World Congress | | Italy (Milan) | August 29 – September 5, 1995 | 665 (3 volumes) | 51 |
| 10th IFToMM World Congress | | Finland (Oulu) | June 20–24, 1999 | 628 (7 volumes) | 50 |
| 11th IFToMM World Congress | | China (Tianjin) | April 1–4, 2004 | 491 (5 volumes) | 43 |
| 12th IFToMM World Congress | | France (Besançon) | June 17–20, 2007 | 535 (digital proceedings) | 52 |
| 13th IFToMM World Congress | Universidad de Guanajuato | Mexico (Guanajuato) | June 19–25, 2011 | 309 (digital proceedings) | 43 |
| 14th IFToMM World Congress | National Taiwan University | Taiwan (Taipei) | October 25–30, 2015 | 559 (digital proceedings) | 47 |
| 15th IFToMM World Congress | AGH University of Science and Technology | Poland (Kraków) | June 30–July 4, 2019 | 457 (digital proceedings) | 66 |
| 16th IFToMM World Congress | Japanese council of IFToMM | Tokyo (Japan) | November 5–10, 2023 | | |