How the Institute of Corrosion operates – Professional Assessment Committee

How the Institute of Corrosion operates – Professional Assessment Committee

The Professional assessment Committee (PAC) is responsible for the evaluation and assessment of applications for Professional Membership of the Institute of Corrosion (TICorr, MICorr and FICorr), plus applications for Chartered Scientist and, via the cathodic protection sub-committee, Cathodic Protection Personnel Certification. PAC reports to the Council of ICorr through the Trustees. The committee consists of a Chair and at least 5 other members. The maximum number of all members should not normally exceed 10, and is currently around that size, although new assessors are always welcome. The Chair of PAC is nominated by the ICorr Council.
The members of PAC are expected to be Professional Members of the Institute and to have extensive experience in various disciplines within the corrosion industry or academia. Members of the committee may be nominated by any Professional Member or ICorr Member, and are ultimately appointed by the PAC Chair. The normal term of membership is 4 years, although any member approaching this is eligible for re-nomination. The Chair is also awarded on a 4-year basis, with the option for re-nomination by Council. The PAC’s terms of reference are to assess applications for Professional Membership in compliance with Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (ED&I) requirements, including unconscious bias. All information provided by the applicant is treated with the utmost confidentiality and is not discussed or passed on to any third party in accordance with the Data Protection Regulations. Applications are checked for compliance with the Membership Regulations for education, training, and experience, as appropriate to the grade, and must be accompanied by two references, at least one of which must be from a Professional Member of the Institute. In exceptional circumstances, appropriately certificated and qualified members of other bodies may be acceptable at the discretion of the Chair.

Applications for Professional Membership are sent to 3 members of the PAC Committee (providing they are not also acting as a referee) for assessment and recommendation of suitability for Professional Membership at the grade appropriate to their experience. Where unanimous approval is not received, the PAC Chair adjudicates (with the assistance of the President if considered necessary) and recommends whatever action or consultation is considered appropriate. This may involve the arrangement of a meeting (currently on-line or by telephone, but face-to-face whenever possible) to discuss the candidate’s application and address any concerns that may have been identified by the Professional Assessors. The PAC Chair prepares a report of approved applications for presentation and approval by Council, circulated ahead of Council Meetings, and on approval, the appropriate Certificates are signed by the President and sent to the successful applicant. Successful candidates are announced in Corrosion Management, normally in the January/February issue, unless requested otherwise. The members of PAC only meet, either in person or on-line, at the discretion of the Chair. In general, communication is carried out by email or post, with the applicant’s files only retained for record purposes at Head Office. All applicant’s information and assessments are treated as confidential and held in the Member file in Head Office, and retained for up to 5 years upon leaving the Institute.

The procedures employed by the PAC, together with the Membership Regulations, are reviewed every 12 months and updated as required, following discussions with the Professional Assessors and President and subject to their approval.

The current PAC Chair is Paul Lambert, and there is a recently introduced Vice-Chair position that is currently vacant. Anyone who is interested in joining the PAC as a Professional Assessor should contact Paul via email on pac.chair@icorr.org

IMechE Argyll Ruane strategic partnership agreement

IMechE Argyll Ruane strategic partnership agreement

On February 1st, the President of the Institute of Corrosion (ICorr), Stephen Tate, met with Chris Kirby, Advisor, and ICorr Training Manager, Dale O’Reilly, of IMechE Argyll Ruane (IAR), to officially sign a further ten-year partnership agreement between the Institute of Corrosion and IMechE Argyll Ruane, for training course delivery.

The ICorr scheme is undergoing a period of rapid expansion, with significant investment being made by both ICorr and IAR to enhance their service provision. The revised partnership agreement demonstrates a further commitment to this collaborative approach, utilising the knowledge and skills across both organisations to further develop the course content, systems, and processes, to ensure the very best training courses are provided to corrosion clients around the world.

IMechE Argyll Ruane have been delivering corrosion and coatings inspection training courses, and examinations accredited by the Institute of Corrosion for over 20 years, and have supported the expansion of the ICorr certification scheme around the globe by forming partnerships with key organisations to be able in future to provide classroom and online training in the UK, Europe, Turkey, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, North Africa, the Middle East, and Australia.


Chris Kirby and President of ICorr, Stephen Tate, signing new 10-year partnership agreement.

The partnership enables both organisations to push forward with their strategic objectives of achieving:

• A greater provision to offer online and blended approaches for courses – enabling greater flexibility in course offering, and supporting an industry desire to keep the face-to-face element of the course compact, effectively utilising contact time with the trainer whilst maintaining the high quality of the course content. For example, candidates will soon be able to complete online elements for courses such as Level 2 Insulation Inspector and Passive Fire Protection (PFP) Inspector, prior to attending the course.

• A commitment to standardising course requirements/syllabi – implementing new protocols and continual improvement processes for the development of new, and the reviewing of current, course syllabi, ensuring clients receive the highest standard of training courses to meet the changing requirements of industry.

• An ability to partner with a greater number of organisations – aligning with the Institute of Corrosion’s vision of expanding the global influence of the ICorr certification scheme.


Chris Kirby Advisor, President of ICorr Stephen Tate, and IMechE Argyll Ruane ICorr Manager Dale O’Reilly.

For more information about ICorr training courses delivered by IMechE Argyll Ruane and their training partners, please visit: argyllruane.imeche.org/coatings-corrosion

For further information about the ICorr schemes in general, please visit https://www.icorr.org/training-qualifications/

From the Editor

Welcome to the Spring edition of the magazine. As you will see from the above President’s column, the magazine now has a new editor, who I am sure will continue to meet the needs of the members with topical columns and technical articles.

This issue contains a very extensive report on what your Institute has been doing over the last couple of months, as well as the usual columns and technical articles. These articles cover the problems associated with galvanic corrosion of wells in the Middle East, and a very instructive look at the problems of scale formation and associated corrosion.

As I said previously in my column, I have enjoyed editing this magazine, although difficult at times, and I am now going to enjoy relaxing in the “sun” in south London. I wish you all success in your careers in this fascinating industry.

Brian Goldie
Consulting Editor

The President Writes

The President Writes

Welcome to the 2nd issue of our Magazine for 2023. A new editor has now been appointed, Dr Shagufta Khan FICorr, and to give her time to settle into the role, Brian Goldie, the outgoing editor, has very kindly agreed to stay in position for this issue. The May/June issue will be Shagufta’s first as editor, and Brian will assist her for the first two issues. Thank you to Brian for so much hard work and many congratulations to Shagufta, who may be contacted at: editor@icorr.org, if you have any news or technical articles to submit.

It has been a busy year so far, with a number of events having taken place already amongst our various Branches and Divisions.
After extensive discussions between Bill Hedges, John Fletcher, myself, and representatives of IMechE, l am delighted to say the new 10yr ICorr/IAR Training agreement was signed on 6th January 2023 by both parties, see later in this issue.

The Birmingham 1-Day conference on February 9th brought together many of our ICorr award winners, several of our sustaining companies and training providers, for some truly excellent presentations in the splendid setting of the City Chambers. A report on this can be found in the local branch news section.
Another development, now approved by Council, is the new Yong ICorr 8-week summer internship, established in honour of Professor Anne Neville, who sadly passed away in 2022. This new scheme commencing in 2024, will provide the opportunity for undergraduate students to experience corrosion research, initially in the Institute of Functional Surfaces, University of Leeds, under the supervision of Dr Joshua Owen and Prof Richard Barker, thereafter rotating to other Universities. The internship aims to inspire high achieving undergraduate students into careers in the field of corrosion.

Finally, but not least, we are looking to investigate, and fully research in Q2, whether a direct ICorr CEng offering can be progressed over the short to medium term. It is believed that (resources/volunteers permitting) ICorr CEng Direct would form a key element of ICorr membership growth going forwards, and would give greater prestige to the Institute, and help retain our existing members. It is proposed that a sub-committee of PAC be established under Vice President Yunnan Gao, working alongside David Harvey and Anthony Setiadi. Also aligned to our goals has been the recent work of our ICorr Awards Committee, with preparation of nominations of ICorr members for CSD, EFC and IOM3 awards currently ongoing.

Nick Smart, after several years of service has now stepped down from the committee. The new CED chair, Danny Burkle, has kindly volunteered to take up these duties, and we welcome him on board. We offer our thanks to Nick whose past support is highly appreciated.

A reminder that April 27th will take us to the Annual CED Working Day event at NPL Teddington, entitled ‘Corrosion Prevention in the 21st Century: Learning from the Past to protect the Future’, and June 22nd and 23rd will feature our main 2-day Sustainability and Renewables conference for NE Branch. August 29th will again see Aberdeen host its well-respected annual 1-day Corrosion Awareness event. For all events, please check regularly:

https://www.icorr.org/events/month/2023-04/
Please contact me on any aspect of the Institute’s work at: president@icorr.org

For anyone who has not yet renewed their membership, do please liaise with Institute of Corrosion HQ, at admin@icorr.org, who will be happy to help you, especially if your contact details have recently changed.

With my very best wishes to you all.
Stephen Tate
President: Institute of Corrosion

Corrosion Prevention in the 21st Century: Learning From the Past to Protect the Future

Corrosion Prevention in the 21st Century: Learning From the Past to Protect the Future

​6 Talks, 5 Working Groups, and the Presentation of a Prestigious Award

This year’s Corrosion Engineering Division’s (CED) Working Day and Symposium will feature six talks covering corrosion prevention in the 21st century, with an emphasis on how we can learn from the past to protect the future.

To be held on Thursday 27th April 2023 at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Teddington, it’s the perfect event for those in the field of corrosion engineering. You’ll hear from leading lights in industry and academia, have the chance to tour the facilities and laboratories at the NPL, and the opportunity to network with other corrosion professionals.

After the welcome and introduction by Danny Burkle, Chair of the CED, Gareth Hinds (President of the Institute of Corrosion 2018 to 2020) will introduce delegates to the NPL and the activities that take place there.

Then, from 10:30, we’ll be straight into the technical talks, before breaking for lunch and the Working Group Discussion between 11:30 and 12:30, when the Paul McIntyre Award will be presented by current ICorr President Stephen Tate. This award is among ICorr’s premier awards, and is presented to a senior corrosion engineer, who, as well as being a leading practitioner in his field, has advanced European collaboration and international standards development.

After the presentation, four more speakers will give talks with a 45-minute break for refreshments and a tour of the NPL laboratory. Danny Burkle will return to the podium to close the day at around 15:30.

An Illustrious Lineup of Speakers

Discussing corrosion prevention in the 21st century, our speakers have around two centuries of direct experience in the corrosion field between them!

First to speak is Alison Davenport, Professor of Corrosion Science at the University of Birmingham. A Chartered Engineer and past Chair of ICorr’s Corrosion Science Division, Alison was awarded a PhD from Cambridge in 1987. Alison’s talk is titled ‘Understanding localised corrosion and how this can improve corrosion prevention methods’.

Next up, and talking about the corrosion of canisters during interim storage and deep geological disposal of radioactive waste, is Cristiano Padovani and James Hesketh of Jacobs. A Chartered Engineer, Cristiano is a past Chair of Young ICorr, and Visiting Professor at the University of Bristol. James is the Principal Corrosion Science Consultant at Jacobs, and spent more than seven years as a Senior Research Scientist at NPL.

Steve Paterson will present a talk discussing applying materials experience from oil and gas production to carbon capture and storage – a hot topic right now. Currently a Materials and Corrosion Adviser with Arbeadie Consultants, Steve gained a bachelor’s Degree in Mettalurgy in 1977, and a PhD in 1981. His experience spans Materials, Corrosion, Welding, and Inspection.

We then turn to Nuclear Structural Engineer Jonathan Mann, who will be presenting on ‘How to make trends and influence people’ before breaking for refreshments and the tour of NPL’s laboratory.

Our penultimate talk is titled ‘The limits of use of copper alloy and stainless-steel heat exchanger tubes’, and who better to present on this subject than Roger Francis, who has been in the business of corrosion since the mid-1970s.

Our final speaker is Anthony Setiadi, a PhD in Materials Engineering, and with experience in project engineering, coatings engineering, materials engineering, and nuclear waste consultancy. Antoni will be presenting on the benefits of using corrosion protection for offshore wind.

A Wealth of Working Groups

On the day, delegates will be able to participate in one of five working groups ─ though, depending upon demand, some groups may merge:

  • Nuclear
  • Coatings
  • All Energy
  • Cathodic Protection
  • Corrosion in Concrete

Registration Details

Registration for this incredible single-day event couldn’t be easier. The cost ranges from £25 for students to £95 for non-members, and includes refreshments and lunch.

It’s essential to book your place in advance. The easiest way to do so is to book online.

For details about membership of the Institute of Corrosion, visit our membership page.