At the December 2005 IFRF Joint Committee Meeting, a decision was taken to develop a formal relationship between the IFRF and a Consortium of the University of Pisa and ENEL Ricerca.  This is the culmination of the search for a new Director and a new home launched among IFRF Members in June 2005. Subject to contractual agreement, it is anticipated that:

• the IFRF will move from IJmuiden in The Netherlands to Tuscany in Italy. The Consortium of Pisa University and ENEL Ricerca will act as the new host organisation replacing Corus (formerly Hoogovens ) IJmuiden. The IFRF would like to take this opportunity to recognise the outstanding contribution made to its activities by Corus IJmuiden, which has hosted the IFRF for over 50 years.
• Professor Leonardo Tognotti of the University of Pisa will become Director of the IFRF in the spring of 2006 (Neil Fricker’s period as Interim Director will end as soon as Professor Tognotti is able to take up his position).
• the IFRF will relocate to the Livorno laboratory of ENEL, where it will have immediate access to a very wide range of semi-industrial scale experimental combustion test facilities capable of firing the full range of solid, liquid and gaseous fuels. These facilities include a replica of the IJmuiden No 1 furnace, as well as the full scale high pressure gas turbine combustion rigs at ENEL’s Sesta centre. The facilities will be available for undertaking the IFRF Members Research Programme and Members’ test work over the whole range of industrial process sectors, and on a confidential basis.

Leonardo Tognotti has an established and successful career in fundamental and applied research in combustion, environmental protection and industrial processes. He is a full professor of Chemical and Environmental Engineering and Coordinator of the Courses in Chemical Engineering in the Faculty of Engineering at University of Pisa. He is currently Director of a research centre for computational modelling at Consorzio Pisa Ricerche  in Pisa.

Professor Tognotti has already cooperated with the IFRF in two EU Consortium Projects:

• JOULE N0. JOF3-CT-95-0005, Performance prediction in advanced pulverised coal-fired utility boilers,
• ERK5-CT-1999-00004 Advanced solid fuel characterisation for pulverised fuel combustion systems (BIOFLAM).

Professor Tognotti is author and co-author of more than 150 publications in the field of combustion, multiphase flows, environmental protection in process industry and energy production. He is currently a Member of the Steering Committee of the Italian Section of the Combustion Institute.