ICCR is a global network established in 1973 as a response by the coal industry to the first oil crisis. Member countries include the U.S.A., Australia, China, Japan, Germany, the UK, Indonesia, Russia, South Africa and Vietnam.

ICCR aims to raise the mutual understanding of researchers, R&D funders and policy advisors of the status of coal research and technology development.

The 13th conference was held in conjunction with China National Coal Association and attracted about 600 delegates to the Chinese city of Shanghai in late October.

The conference theme was Safe Mining and Clean Coal Technology, and covered: coal-bed methane and carbon management, mining safety, fire-fighting technologies, coal production, coal preparation and clean coal technology. Leading researchers from member countries gave a total of 126 papers on these themes. (See related article overviewing China’s safety statistics.)

ICCR provides members with a high level understanding of the issues that drive coal’s R&D global efforts and the regional differences as well as an annual global appraisal of the status of coal research, development and demonstration via annual country reports.

The committee stimulates innovative thinking in coal R&D, gaining insights from the various disciplines that research coal from coal production, safety, coal preparation and through combustions and utilization. Finally it provides a network for collaboration and sharing of resources where appropriate, such as the use of test equipment or test rigs.

The breadth of topics covered by the ICCR agenda now extends from mining right through to coal utilization. As such, addressing all these broad themes at one conference is seen as too complex. Though, as ICCR chairman Phil McCarthy pointed out, these kinds of events often resulted in fruitful collaborations when researchers from different disciplines were able to interact.

“In future ICCR will partner with selected major international coal conferences and hold its technology workshops for researchers as part of the conference event,” McCarthy said.