The 12th International Zurich Symposium and Technical Exhibition on Electromagnetic Compatibility was held from February 18 to 20, 1997 at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland. The meeting was attended by 1029 participants from 38 countries. The exhibition included 70 exhibitor booths.
Despite the growing number of international EMC conferences giving rise to a certain saturation, these numbers confirm once again the worldwide importance and the high standing of the biennial EMC Zurich Symposium. Concluding from the country of origin of the authors, participants and exhibitors, it is the most internationally oriented conference on that topic (see table 1 and figure 1 ).
As in the preceding years, the Symposium has been organized by the Communication Technology Laboratory of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ) under the auspices of Mr. F. Rosenberg, Director-General of the Swiss Telecom PTT. Prof. Dr. P. Leuthold (Zurich) and Dr. G. Meyer (Zurich) acted again as symposium president and symposium chairman, respectively. The technical program committee was chaired by Prof. Dr. C. Paul (Lexington). A briefe history of the EMC Zurich Symposia may be found in [1].
A number of international and national professional organizations were cooperating, e.g. ITU, IEEE and URSI, the latter also sponsoring the participation of young scientists. The Zurich meeting of the IEEE EMC Society Board of Directors was for the first time scheduled outside of North America with the aim to increase and enhance the Board's globalization efforts.
A total of 126 carefully selected technical papers were presented in 18 sessions devoted to: standards, component and subcircuit EMC, lightning and its effects (part I and II), electrostatic discharge, system EMC and radio communications, EMC instrumentation and measurement, shielding, numerical modeling for EMC, test facilities, EMC education, coupling and transmission lines, emission and immunity testing, low frequencies and power systems, circuit oriented techniques in EMC, surges and transients, EM field standards and sensors, modeling.
The sessions covered virtually all EMC "hot" topics and reviewed the current status as well as future trends of EMC technology. The full text of the presentations has been made available in the symposium proceedings comprising 672 pages [2]. An insight into the work of URSI Commission E was offered by open meetings discussing the progress in the different working groups and identifying outstanding topics and new lines of future research.
As in previous symposia the program did not exclusively address experts. An introduction to EMC technology for newcomers was offered by three tutorial lectures and workshops. The full text of these joint events has been made available in the 412-page supplement to the symposium proceedings [3].
strong response by the audience earned the presentations on lightning electromagnetic effects; on EMC standards (especially regarding the first year of experience with the European EMC-Directive); on test methods and theoretical EMC models and on EMC-adequate design of systems and components. It is difficult to point out general trends in the field of EMC but with the growing interest in theoretical models and numerical methods, the role of computers is becoming more and more important.
As usual, the Technical Exhibition has significantly contributed to the success of EMC Zurich'97 by demonstrating the fast conversion of theoretical knowledge into state-of-the-art hard- and software.
A representative inquiry showed that about 50% of the participants also attended EMC Zurich'95. 60% of the attendees visited at least one EMC conference in the past year, and 20% were present at more than one per year. Moreover, one third of the participants seems to prefer a two year rhythm, for another third there is a need for more than one symposium per year. The rest are ``newcomers''. 25% of the attendees rated the presented papers as "excellent", about 70% with the mark "good". Once again the inquiry clearly showed that the real value of a symposium is its role as a platform for personal contact and direct information exchange. More than 80% of the participants stated that they found solutions to current problems during the symposium and as much as 90% could at least establish valuable contacts.
The inquiry also returned some very interesting suggestions for the next EMC Zurich Symposium which is planned for February 16 to 18, 1999. The call for papers of the 13th International Zurich Symposium and Technical Exhibition on EMC is scheduled for November 1997.