Interfinish Congresses

The first three international conferences held in the late 1930s only involved three countries – Great Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands. While the word Interfinish may have been used informally neither it nor the word Congress was yet formal. After the end of World War 2 in 1945 Simon Wernick began to make international contacts, primarily in Europe and the USA, and the possibility of an international congress began to be encouraged and eventually it took place in 1954 in London. This was termed the fourth Congress and the word Interfinish was used formally for the first time. The countries involved included Germany, Italy, Switzerland, France and the USA and with the future expansion in air travel it was anticipated that future Congresses would have much more support. It truly became worldwide with the hugely successful 1980 Congress in Kyoto. The President of the Interfinish Congress becomes President of the IUSF, the last Presidents being H.T.Yum in 2006, P.L.Cavallotti in 2010, Ma Jie in 2014, Prof. Nagahiro SAITO in 2018 and presently Mr. Chang Nicholas is the president of IUSF.

The series has continued without a break at four year intervals the venues being as follows.

Attendances have increased from the early days but appear to have levelled out at 500-700. However, the spread of countries represented by delegates has increased markedly. The IUSF Council was anxious to recognise outstanding technical development and research and instituted awards at Interfinish congresses for best papers together with a Gold Medal or similar for world class contributions to the profession.