The European Microwave Association (EuMA) is an international non-profit organisation founded in 1998 in Belgium. Its stated aim is to promote European microwaves, networking and uniting microwave scientists and engineers in Europe, provide a single voice for European microwave scientists and engineers in Europe, attain full recognition of microwaves by the European Union, and circulate information among European microwave scientists and engineers.


EuMW – a Key Initiative

Undoubtedly, the Association’s most important initiative is European Microwave Week (EuMW), Europe's premier microwave, RF, wireless and radar event. Created in 1998 (Amsterdam) around the European Microwave Conference (EuMC) — the prestigious European conference on microwave technology dating back to 1969 — with the inclusion of three additional conferences on related subjects: the European Microwave Integrated Circuit Conference (EuMIC), the European Conference on Wireless Technologies (the present acronym ECWT will become EuWIT next year) and the European Radar Conference (EuRAD), in addition to the European Microwave Exhibition, which is the largest trade show dedicated to RF and microwaves in Europe, EuMW has been the most successful initiative undertaken by the EuMA. The event also involves the cooperation of the IEEE MTT Society (co-sponsor of ECWT) and of the GAAS® Association (co-sponsor of EuMIC).

Impressive Statistics

The importance of this event for academics, students and industrialists is clearly evidenced by EuMW 2007 figures: 1,017 papers submitted from 51 countries, 464 oral presentations, 155 posters, 306 exhibiting companies, taking up 7,000 m2 of gross exhibition space and an expected attendance of around 4,000 attendees (comprising delegates, exhibitors and visitors). Such statistics are the product of active promotion.

Participation at EuMW conferences has been promoted by reduced fees for students and senior persons, student grants and grants (valued at €500) for delegates from the Newly Independent States (NIS) of the ex-Soviet Republic and Russia, up to a total of about €45,000, and Best Paper Prizes (including student papers), some sponsored by industry (companies including as Raytheon, Sony, EADS) are also awarded. The total value of the Best Paper Prizes amounts to €22,000. In addition, EuMA awards Best Paper Prizes at national European Conferences in Eastern Europe, such as Mikon, Comité, Microcoll, MSMW, etc.

Emergence of Asia-Pacific

European countries are major contributors to the EuMW conferences but are not as dominant as might first be thought. For instance, this year Korea is the third largest contributor of submitted papers after Germany and France, and Japan has only slightly less papers than the UK. Overall, more than 25 percent of the paper submissions to EuMW 2007 came from the Asia-Pacific region. This gives a clear indication of the increased interest that such countries are showing in EuMW and generally towards the EuMA. In fact, it is expected that Asia-Pacific contributions will increase even further in future years and this will certainly have some impact on EuMW as well as on the European microwave industry and its market.

In order to promote cooperation with the Asia-Pacific region an exchange program of invited speakers has been set up between the EuMC and the Asia-Pacific Microwave Conference (APMC). Each conference program contains a special session devoted to the partner conference. This year at EuMC the session devoted to APMC includes invited papers by H. Wang, R.B. Wu and C.H. Chen from the National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan; Y.K. Cho from Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Korea; W. Hong from Southeast University, Nanjing, China; and S. Chen, H. Lee and C. Luo from National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.

Importantly, EuMA has a considerable number of members from the Asia-Pacific region. This is another significant indication that we need to further increase our efforts for improving and enlarging our cooperation with the APMC.

EuMA’s Evolution

The EuMA is evolving towards being an open association. Since 2004 it has been open to all qualified microwave experts, including students, not only from Europe but also from all over the world. There are EuMA members in the US, Canada, Japan, Korea, China, etc. Parallel to such an evolution, the General Assembly, the highest governing body of the EuMA, has been enlarged to 35 members in order to include more representatives of European countries or groups of countries. So far, only European countries are represented in the GA. I expect, however, that a change will be implemented in the near future to include representatives from North America and form Asia-Pacific, to reflect the increasing importance of those regions in the life and activities of the Association.

The Board of Directors, originally consisting of six members, has been enlarged to eight members, one position being reserved for a representative from the microwave industry, who is normally also the Chairman of the Industrial Liaison Committee (see below).

EuMA members benefit from 20 percent reduced fees to all EuMA conferences, including EuMA sponsored events. They also receive the EuMC Proceedings Archive, a DVD containing all EuMC papers since its inception in 1969 and may subscribe at a very low price for the Proceedings of the European Microwave Association (in short: the EuMA Proceedings). The journal provides information on scientific and technical innovation in areas of interest to the EuMA, namely in microwave technology, including antenna and device technologies for microwave and millimetre-waves up to optical frequency applications. You may find the abstracts of the papers through the association’s web site: www.eumwa.org. Full electronic publication is being investigated and may be implemented in the near future.

Industrial Liaison From the very beginning it has been recognized that the EuMA must represent the interests of both academia and industry (the founder members constituted four from academia and two from industry). Nevertheless the majority of people involved in the management of EuMA activities are from universities. The transfer of academic results into commercial products is of vital interest for the economical benefit of the region and the feedback of emerging problems of industry into research is of vital importance too.

In order to enhance this mutual interaction and promote the involvement of industrial partners into EuMA activities, an Industrial Liaison Committee (ILC) has become established as an individual body of EuMW. Headed up by distinguished and experienced individuals from industry, representatives of all different sectors of high-frequency-related industry offer suggestions and opinions on new subjects and organisational format to the program committee and to the organizers of the conferences and the exhibition. As a result recent initiatives have seen the stronger involvement of the defence and homeland security industry and the encouragement of small and medium enterprises to participate through low rate exhibition space such as shared pavilions. This greater inclusivity and involvement is encouraging but affords room for further engagement.

Future Challenges

In the few years since its creation, the EuMA has become a well established reality in Europe as well as having considerable visibility and the capability of entertaining relations and negotiating with the most important professional societies in our field. Nevertheless, in a constantly and rapidly changing world, EuMA needs to evolve too. Here is my personal view of the challenges the EuMA has to face in its evolution.

Besides consolidating its role in Europe, particularly in Eastern Europe, through the numerous initiatives already undertaken, the EuMA needs to establish tighter links within the Mediterranean area, including North African as well as with Middle East countries. There is a considerable microwave culture and tradition in such regions that should be put in contact with the European community. An important opportunity to address this will come when EuMW is held in Rome in 2009. The road towards establishing cooperation with the Asia Pacific region has already been taken and we need to continue to look for new ways of cooperation.

Finally, at the higher and more general level of information and communication technologies, I perceive that the European community itself needs to create its own identity and self-awareness in much the same way as we have done in the area of microwaves. Indeed, following the EuMA example other scientific communities, for instance the Antenna and Propagation community, have started the process of creating their own association. Through the initiative of the EuMA, contacts with recognized European Associations in areas other than microwaves will soon be established with the view of setting up a European Association of Electrical Engineering. To this end, given its position, EuMA can play an important role by establishing cooperative links with companion associations in related areas or by stimulating the creation of such associations.