IFToMM celebration for 40-th year celebration Marco Ceccarelli * LARM - Laboratory of Robotics and Mechanics, DiMSAT - Univesity of Cassino, Via Di Biasio 43, 03043 Cassino, Italy An outline and perspective of IFToMM by the IFToMM President, Prof. Marco Ceccarelli IFToMM was founded in 1969, Fig. 1, by few people who knew each other since much before, with the aim to create a well-defined scientific community beside the fragmentation of the world society with the aim to preserve, continue, and en- hance collaboration and exchanges both from technical viewpoint and human interaction. This happened in Zakopane in Poland, Figs. 2 and 3. Today we celebrate 40 years of successful activity and growth of IFToMM. The world has changed, the society has evolved, and IFToMM has still a significant role with its mission since the IFToMM community has matured his vision according to the needs of technological developments and knowledge horizons. The original characteristic of ‘‘IFToMM family” consisting of strictly friendly collaboration has been preserved still today that IFToMM has reached a worldwide size even within great differences in culture and conditions. The memory of the foundation and early days of IFToMM can be considered important not only for pure historical reasons but mainly to be aware and proud of the background and origin as guidelines towards the present and future. Thus, let’s keep memory of the founding fathers and those pioneering moments, like in the reported photos in Figs. 1–3. We deserve great memory of all of them, since even a small presence or contribution made successful the efforts of main IFToMM actors. Today we celebrate 40 years of activity for IFToMM. Historical traces of IFToMM activity can be appreciated with significance and participation, mainly from technical view- points, as far as for the considerable literature that has been produced under the name of IFToMM through proceedings, books, textbooks, and journal papers. A relevant amount of these works are even not explicitly signed as IFToMM activity since they have been developed within projects and collaborations that were not explicitly linked to IFToMM. Still today important activity of the IFToMM community is not marked explicitly as IFToMM. This is why in celebrating the IFToMM origins we must recover the proud feeling of a well-defined community that aggregate and spread knowledge to individ- uals and institutions within common frames of interest for the benefit and enhancement of technology and society. Indeed, we can say that IFToMM has contributed considerably to technological achievements and industrial developments worldwide and still today Mechanism and Machine Science (MMS) will pay a fundamental role in advancing the quality of life, since mechanical nature of human-machine interaction will always require mechanisms developments. We deserve great appreciation to all the IFToMM officers, who in the past 40 years have been leaders and have stimulated activity in many aspects of MMS and in the many forms of IFToMM activity. The list of names in Tables 1–3 is not only a mere recognition of individuals but also a demonstration of world shaped composition of IFToMM over the time. Outlines of historical developments of IFToMM have been synthesized by the Presidents, Fig. 4, during their presidency or as memory of their activity in a specific bibliography (see reference list). Those works give a wide view of the history of IFToMM by making such a documented background as part of the identity of IFToMM. But why we want celebrate the 40 anniversary of IFToMM, Fig. 5? After so many years and against the many changes in the society and technology, IFToMM is still active and provides a frame for promoting MMS and collaboration of individuals and institutions at a worldwide level with the aim to further contribute to evolution of technology and society. At the beginning of the third millennium IFToMM can be presented as a fundamental institution for the future suc- cess of MMS all around the world. This is because IFToMM offers a common framework for the many aspects of MMS as innovation, research, teaching, cooperation, etc., since it is the most important frame of reference and source of activity information in the field of MMS at large and in specific subjects. But, facing the needs and requirements of a successful doi:10.1016/j.mechmachtheory.2009.10.011 * Tel.: +39 0 776 2993 663. E-mail address: ceccarelli@unicas.it Mechanism and Machine Theory 45 (2010) 119–127 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Mechanism and Machine Theory journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/mechmt