This year marks the 110th anniversary of FIDIC. It’s a significant milestone and one that the organisation is celebrating throughout 2023.
A key part of those celebrations is the production of a celebratory publication, Engineering the Future: 110 Years of FIDIC, to mark the landmark anniversary. The commemorative 110th anniversary publication charts the history of an organisation that has left its mark on the engineering, construction and infrastructure industry through the work of its member associations and member firms.
Founded in 1913, FIDIC, the International Federation of Consulting Engineers, has represented the profession and business of consulting engineering with distinction for more than a century. The publication looks ahead as well as reflecting on FIDIC’s history and highlights how the organisation’s work, especially its construction contracts, continues to underpin global construction and infrastructure projects and leads the change needed to achieve the sustainable infrastructure of the future.
Engineering the Future: 110 Years of FIDIC documents FIDIC’s development from its early beginnings in July 1913 in Ghent, Belgium, by three national associations of independent consulting engineers from Belgium, France and Switzerland, to its position today as a leading business organisation for national associations of consulting engineers representing over one million engineering professionals and 40,000 firms in around 100 countries worldwide.
The publication outlines that the secret of FIDIC’s success over the years has been due to a large extent to the willingness of its representatives to volunteer and devote time, money and effort to serve the federation and the interests of consulting engineering. This continues today and without that spirit of self-sacrifice and dedication to the profession then it is unlikely that FIDIC would even exist, let alone flourish in the way it has over the 110 years of its existence. Thanks are due to those early pioneers and also to all of the stakeholders who continue to help FIDIC thrive today.
FIDIC has driven the profession of consulting engineering forward to keep pace with world events, their effect on the industry it represents and to further the influence of engineering on society and increasingly on the planet itself. Issues like climate change, skills and capacity and digital technology are now influencing all aspects of business life and FIDIC in turn has had to adapt to deal with these challenges.
While the challenges that FIDIC and its member associations face today are ever-changing and different from those of its founding members more than a century ago, its vision remains constant – to improve people’s quality of life through the promotion of quality, integrity and sustainability in the projects and services consulting engineers deliver of a global scale.
FIDIC’s pioneering and perceptive founders back in 1913 would have had no idea that the organisation would endure for more than a century, though as a far-sighted and perceptive group of industry professionals, they would have hoped that the organisation they gave birth to would represent the profession of consulting engineering with distinction on the world stage. In fact, FIDIC has done much more than that. It has made an indelible and positive mark on an industry sector that has done so much to benefit the lives of citizens in every continent around the world.
Click here to read and download Engineering the Future: 110 Years of FIDIC.
