072 - Extracting the secret of IMFSE from Bart Merci and Eulalia Planas

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 0:00

Welcome to the Fire Science Show. Today, we're going to talk less engineering more. Let's say organization of the. Fire community. And, uh, some advancements that have been made over the last decade. We're going to talk about education, the new generation of fire safety engineers. And, uh, we will do this on a very, very good example, where you will discuss the. Program carried four universities, Edinburgh, Lund, Ghent and Universidad Polytecnica Catalunya It's called international master's in fire safety engineering. IAMFSE. And it's a blast. There's a bunch of people who have already graduated from the 10 years of this program, they are praised or one of the best young fire engineers entering the work market. They seem to be great fire scientists there in general seems to be great development towards the, this young people. That is worth copying or worth. Admiration. And this is what I really wanted to learn today from one of the creators of the program, Professor Bart Merci of Ghent University and the newest member of consortium, professor Eulalia Planas from Universidad Polytecnica de Catalunya. We will discuss how IMFSE came to live and where it's heading nowadays. But the podcast episode is not just on the IMFSE I guess. It's interesting to learn about it, but it does not touch many of us. I think the importance of this episode. Is in understanding. What makes this group of people excelling? Why this particular group of people is so successful in fire safety engineering. And is there a way how we can copy some of the things they do there? In improving our own education curriculums in our countries, or maybe trainings in our organizations, or maybe you're just a student who would like to make a switcheroo and. Uh, B can you the destination, or maybe you would just like to remind yourself good student days. maybe this, episode will bring you some nice memory flashbacks. I hope they're nice actually. So. for me, it was an interesting journey to learn about this project. And the chance to talk to nice people. As usual. So, yeah, let's learn about IMFSE let's spin the intro and jump into the episode. Hello everybody. Welcome to the Fire Science Show. I'm joined today by Professor Bart Merci of Ghent University. Hey, Bart, Great to have you in the show.

Track 1: 2:48

Hello Wojciech

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 2:50

And Professor Eulalia Planas from Unversidad Polyutecnica de Catalunya. Hello Eulalia great to have you in the show.

Eulalia Planas: 2:56

Hello, how are you?

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 2:58

I'm very good. I'm very good about to have a great interview. So always, always great to be in this mindset. the one thing that connects to you both outside of being fire scientists, is that you are part of IMFSE Consortium, and this is what, uh, we are gonna talk about today. But not only praising of your, uh, of your magnificent Masters program as the best in the world, but also to try and understand why it is the best in the world and how, some others could in some parts at least, copy your success because, uh, oh boy, we're not in a, an excess of, of good fire safety engineers in the world. Not at all. So my first question, towards Bart. Let's, let's move in time. I don't know how many years, even 1215, how long ago the idea happened and what makes you think, like wake up in the morning and think I'm gonna go through the madness of MSC program to start the world's best fire engineering course.

Bart Merci: 3:55

Yeah. Thanks. Thanks Bo. Thanks for the kind words uh,

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 4:00

It's proven by experiments

Bart Merci: 4:03

Well, you know, indeed, I mean, you call it some madness, and it's true. When, when we started that there was a lot of work involved to get things started. A little bit of history then perhaps, is that a bit more than 15 years ago. my predecessor at Ghent University initiated the idea of, installing a postgraduate program, in fire safety engineering at Gant University. as a, a junior academic, I was the one who had the pleasure of doing all the admin and uh, but uh, but I really shared the vision that there was a need for fire safety engineering but once the admin was completed for the, the local program at Ghent University, figured it would make sense to approach the, um, universities of, of Lund and Edinburgh, who, uh, were and are leading institutes in Europe, to see if we could join forces and create this international program. And, um, both were very enthusiastic and then we just, gave it a shot and submitted the file to the European Commission. And, uh, while we were very happy to learn that from the start, they, uh, decided to support us. Um, probably because, partly because we, we were all leading, uh, institutes in the field of fire safety engine engineering, but also there was no other, international program on fire safety engineering. And so, uh, and certainly not of that size because we immediately asked for a two year masters program, so that we could cover. All the aspects and also take advantage of the specific expertise of each institute so that we could really create , what we still believe is a, a very strong program. And this is how it got started.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 5:42

And it's, it's just getting better, since then for sure, growing and, um, getting new, new, new partners, so many institutions are supporting IMFSE. We're gonna touch about that in a second, but I need to ask one more thing, to your comment. Ghent had its own FSE program, LO had its own, Edinburgh had its own. How did the introduction of I m FSC change the landscape of your own universities? like looking now we know what happened than is after. It did not cannibalize your own program. I think it's even better than, than it used to be, sir. So what, what was your experience like proposing a secondary program to, to a local one?

Bart Merci: 6:22

Well, a, a major challenge was not to convince the academics in fire safety engineering. It was, convincing the institutes to issue a joint degree because that involves also issuing a degree where, uh, well, most students visit each institute, but not all of them. So you, you have to trust each other that you are delivering quality and, uh, that, that proved challenging, but clearly not impossible because this is what we also could offer from the start. And as you say, we didn't cannibalize our own programs. And actually that was, that was also foresee because we attract many, many international students, which has been a challenge for local programs worldwide. and thanks to the scholarships granted by European commiss. We managed to attract students that otherwise would not, have studied at Edinburgh, Lund or Ghent. So, so we did not say divert existing students from existing programs into IMFs to a very large extent, were students that would otherwise not have been in in Europe.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 7:29

And, have you observed an increased interest in just five safety engineering in Gant based on the international success of IMFSE? C?

Bart Merci: 7:36

Yes, certainly to, to some extent, yes. but one thing that we are still struggling with, at least locally in Belgium is the, the brand name of, of Fire Safety Engineering. And this, this show because we have prescriptive legislation in Belgium. Yeah. means that the term fire safety engineering is not as well known as in countries that are more performance based, uh, design. And so it shows that there is still a lot of potential, I think for, uh, for many more people potentially being interested in the field of fire safety engineering that today is still to some extent unknown, even with architects, in Belgium.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 8:13

I, I don't know if you have humanities department, but maybe you should start a code speak, department or something that's more fit for non fsc countries. Eulalia now to you, you are, um, or your university, Universidad Polytecnica de Catalunya is a new family member, Uh, new partner at IMFSE. And, tell me how, how did you find yourself in, in the project and, what was the, the main goal of, of introducing, uh, a new partner from, outside of the scope that, that others covered?

Eulalia Planas: 8:45

Well, In fact, we had, some previous relationship terms of research with, uh, Lund University, also with Edinburg have been doing several of research together. So they, knew each other, since quite long. although we were more focused, on, risk and safety at the industry, the process industry. And also we been, working since many years in the field of, , wildland fires. in fact, it was Bart who approached us, to try to, improve or to bring together those, disciplines because in fact, in industrial safety was already part of the program. uh, maybe not so deep in the knowledge, but it's already inside, but not, uh, wildland fires were, were not part, maybe sometimes as a guest lecture something, but it was not included in the program. So they see there is a, a need for the students to know about the future challenges of fire safety engineering, which include of course, the interaction of, the wild land fires with the built environment too. we have seen, uh, many problems, in the recent years in the wildland interface. So, this is, something that the new. graduates, should be able to target

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 10:05

I think Southern Europe, Has experienced far more of these issues than, than us, comfortably sitting in the middle. And then, uh, your other IMFSE partners from a little bit to the north. but, uh, unfortunately this is heading right towards us. And, it's a great, great direction to expand the program to, to, to give it this, this twist. I wonder to, I wonder how popular will it be to, follow the wild and urban interface road? And, I really also appreciate you, expanding on the risk and industrial applications route. That that is something that, uh, we also see, see growing the use of risk methods in, in fire engineering, outside even of industry. I mean, I know tunnels and applications. like, like that. but to my understanding, you don't have a fire safety engineering program at, at this moment at UPC yet?

Eulalia Planas: 11:00

No, not yet. Uh, and I would say, uh, not even in any other part of Spain, although there is a quite huge industry behind fire safety engineering in Spain. And for example, in Catalonia, there is, a cluster of companies, related to the fire safety domain. Let's. and they, they have huge problems to, find, trains people, people knowing about fire safety engineering. So we are approached many, many times because, our school is, uh, a school of engineering. So we have, also mechanical engineers, chemical

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 11:37

hmm.

Eulalia Planas: 11:38

engineers, different kinds of engineers, and, we teach some courses, uh, optional courses for them on introduction to the fire safety engineering. Some, some of them came to do their, final phases and, and they are fixed quickly they are not even a specialist. They just have a little bit of, of knowledge on first engineering. well, I don't know exactly why is reason of that, but, um, IMFSE will bring a, a little bit to cover this, this gap right now. I it will be really, really good.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 12:15

It's great we're having this discussion because, what you described is not only description of the situation in Spain. It would be the description of situation in many, many countries in terms of professional education, of, of fire, safety engineers. And, you now are very lucky to, to have IMFSE. However, uh, let's face it, it's, uh, it's producing, fantastic, fantastic students, but not at the great numbers. I mean, third is a great number, but nowhere close to what industry needs. So, I guess eventually you would be also interested in replicating, the model the success in, your own institution or at least your own country. And that's exactly what we are, trying to discuss today, how, how to do that. Bart now, now a question to you. when you were forming the first curriculum of the, of the course, I'm interested how did you pick What the people must learn and in, in what order. Maybe because now today we, we have the, for example, SFPE core competencies guide, which was, a big project. I talked with the podcast with Jimmy Johnson about it. It, it was quite interesting to, point out what a fire safety engineer needs to know, but I guess 15 years ago, you had to invent that wheel on your own and it's pretty round, I would say that wheel. It works. So, So, um, how did you decide what to do and, and how, how does the program look now?

Bart Merci: 13:35

Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for that question. Wojciech,. well, we didn't really have to invent the wheel. I mean, it's through what you say that a few years ago, SFPE uh, came up with a very, I think, comprehensive and, and. Overview of, what would be expected competencies. But in the middle of the nineties, uh, there was also the, the model curriculum that had developed by IAFSS um, and been published in, in 1995, which was, I would say written more, uh, as an academic, document. Whereas the S f P document takes more the, the profession, I would say, as point of view. but that model curriculum really helped us a lot to, to streamline our first curriculum. And, and so we came to think of it, putting our heads together, we all agreed quite quickly that we would attract students with diverse backgrounds. meaning as students entering the program would have a background in, in mechanical engineering or structural engineering architects, even chemical engineering. So that, so. It's quite, um, a varied group as they entered the program, which is challenging, but same time enriching. But it did lead us to, uh, define the first semester such that by the end of that first semester, everybody spoke the same language. And in terms of technical terms, I mean then, and so somebody with structural engineering background would have a relatively easy first semester when it came to, those types of courses, but they would struggle perhaps a bit more in thermodynamics. and then mechanical engineer and chemical engineer would have the opposite, uh, let's say efforts to, um, to do, this on top of course of settling in a new country for many of them, a new culture as well. But that's a, that's another part of the story. But by the end of the first semester, then everybody has, let's say, the same equipment, uh, in terms of, of skills and knowledge, to enter semester two, where they are all together at at Lund University. And then you can build on that. Teaching some more advanced fire dynamics, looking at human behavior, looking at risk assessments and, and introducing them to, the first simulation tools. And then in semester three. From that point, we can go more to our own specialties. Uh, so at the University of Edinburgh, traditionally that was then more structural fire engineering. In at Ghent University, we go more in depth, in different types of fire protection, active fire protection, passive fire protection. We teach about legislation. Uh, we also have a course on industrial fire protection, uh, with UPC board. It's clear that in semester three they will learn there more about WUI we and wildland fires. More advanced, I would say also, risk, and, uh, and industry fire protection. So in a nutshell, I mean, streamlining the curriculum was an exercise, surely. And, but if you, if you start from a model curriculum as a starting point, as a framework, and you think about the final competencies that you would like to achieve starting from different backgrounds, it was a reasonably natural exercise to do that. and overall over the years, it did not change all that much. And we, we introduced some new courses based on feedback from industry, feedback from students. And so one of them, for example, and using big data and to analyze and drive, fire hazards and so, so these things, yes, and they have been introduced into the curriculum, but the backbone over the years has not changed all that much. And, and interestingly, if you read back now the 90 95 model curriculum, You would still reasonably accept that what was written there was, was quite visionary of what the fire safety engineer even today still has to do. There's have been many modern tools and, and we have much more information and databases than 30 years ago, but the overall competencies, when you come to think of it, what you would expect from a fire safety engineer are fairly stable.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 17:37

I have this paper in my, in front of my eyes, as you mentioned that I quickly googled it and I'm simply mind blown by the names on the front page. It's Mangussen Drysdale Fitzgerald, Motevalli Mowrer Quintiere Williamsons, that's a fairly good group of, of quite competent people. it speaks visionary from, from just the authors list. So, so indeed, I, I must say I have not known that, that, that paper I will link, it in the show notes. I'm very interested in dwelling into that after the, the podcast episode to see how the future of fire safety engineering has been seen in, in 25 years ago, especially that, uh, outcomes are, are so promising. Eulalia and for you, if you want to teach people, wild, an Ruben interface that is, uh, Quite a different skill set, uh, than, than most of fire engineering. also in terms of like how the threats are communicated, how risk is communicated to people, there is probably a little more biology involved, I don't, I dunno about you Bart by a very rarely care about moisture of my stuff unless it's concrete and it's about 3%. Other than that moisture, I don't care about that. So, So how does the mindset of, structural engineer or mechanical chemical engineer work with, with transferring after all of this into WUI

Eulalia Planas: 18:56

Well there are some parts of the knowledge you need to acquire new, but it's not that much because mostly related to the, the vegetation, which is instead of a debt material, let's say we have in, in buildings. So of course there is, that part of, having a live material that, has, moisture content and It affects the way the process of combustion behaves. uh, so you need to know different kind of, vegetations and the models, how we model vegetation, how fire behaves when burning life and death and so on.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 19:38

sorry to interrupt you, And they learned this, I guess, through laboratories and experiments, not through handbooks. Is, is that correct?

Eulalia Planas: 19:46

yeah, well we have, a cause on, on wildfire behavior in general.

wojciech_wegrzynski: 19:51

Mm.

Eulalia Planas: 19:52

let's learn what are the main differences between fires in the build environment and fires in the forest and, what are the different models to. represent five behavior. What are the main components of, will that affect five behavior, etcetera. And of course we can work in the lab this works. So first we learn, of course the basis of, what is already known on wildfire behavior. And, and then we go to the lab and we can see, directly, vegetation burns and

eulalia_planas: 20:28

works.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 20:28

At what point the student must decide which path they go.

Bart Merci: 20:32

Yeah, the students, they, um, make that decision, well, actually they make a proposal. It's the management board in the end that, that decides. but most of all, mostly we can, uh, simply follow the, the student's proposal. They do that, uh, when they are in loon. So in, in spring, second semester of the first year. So spring of the calendar year, they, um, they ask. Which university they, or they suggested university where they want to go, uh, in semesters three and four. And so also for the master dissertation topic, they decided at that stage because that is the point where they have learned enough, let's say, of the basics to find out where their main interest is. Some of them have some professional background before entering the program. And then these people often already have a very clear idea at the moment. they set foot in Ghent or Edinburgh where they already know what they want to do in the second year. But for the ones who are new to the field, then they need to know a bit about everything before they can make up their minds what is their field of interest. And that's why they, uh, they choose.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 21:37

And, for example, if Eulalia is having a, course on, vegetation and someone is doing stuff in, I dunno, Edin bro, is it possible to hop in, hop off or, or these are like a whole semester long courses and it's not.

Bart Merci: 21:50

Yeah, indeed. It's, it's semester long courses. And so that's also to try and keep things manageable in terms of mobility. this is the way we work. Yes.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 21:59

we, we just went through a pandemic, I guess everyone noticed. Ha. Has that changed your, way of operations at all?

Bart Merci: 22:06

During the pandemic for sure. Yeah. So then obviously we, as everyone, I assume that we went to online mode. Um, but now since, the, everything got started again, the normal mode is opera around, is on campus teaching and, and obviously. We still have now more people missing classes, uh, because, Covid has not disappeared the planet and also lecturers and can be struck by the virus. And then we, we move, to online teaching and we still, also now have the, the reflex of recording classes and making those available. But it's, it's only a backup solution. And so our main mode of teaching is really on campus. And I must say that even during the pandemic, I mean given that the, the groups were not excessively large and that at each institute we have large auditoria, we often managed to still do on campus teaching by large, spreading in large auditorium. And, and students appreciated that very much. Uh, everybody felt very isolated. I know that I felt very isolated during the pandemic. And, and so it was always a pleasure to meet people again in person. And again, also, I really want to stress that then the community building is also very, very strong in, IMFSE and I'm not going to say it's the major asset, but it definitely adds to the, let's say, the theory in teaching and the exercises and whatever principles we are teaching. I mean, knowing people, as we all know, is sometimes equally important as having knowledge on a topic.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 23:39

I I also feel that there is this very strong bond between the students. And what, what's fascinating is that it's not only the bond between the students of the same year, which you would probably expect because they live together and work together, but even, you know, between generations of I M Fs E students, there is, uh, feeling of association that I am part of this larger community. Uh, you just had this, 10 year anniversary even then that, that gathered. Like how many, like more than a hundred people was there, right?

Bart Merci: 24:10

Yes, that is correct. And that was very rewarding, I must say. And it shows how indeed, I mean, alumni have some pride in having the, the title, but also they clearly look back, to their I MFS e period as a very pleasant and positive period during their lives. which I guess to some is also maybe a little bit of a surprise because many of them are very stressed, uh, when they arrive, which I fully understand. I mean, it's very difficult to, um, adjust in a country that you don't know, you don't know the habits in, in case of Ghent you don't speak the language, uh, Dutch.

wojciech_wegrzynski: 24:44

It's very

Eulalia Planas: 24:45

it's quite stress. But it also, uh, stimulates the bonding within the group because everybody helps each other. there is indeed intergenerational relationships cause we have bodies also, and we always ask second years if they want to be the body of, of incoming students. There are links through nationalities and you can imagine someone from a certain country asking, Oh, do you have any alumni from my country? Then we bring them into contact with each other and they can, they talk to each other and, and indeed, I mean this is, this is I think a very important point in our program,

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 25:19

do you have, statistics of how many countries were represented in I M F C?

Bart Merci: 25:25

yes, by now we are, uh, more than 80 nationalities. so that's quite impressive. Um,

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 25:30

And I really wonder, is there a secret list of, uh, pubs ranked by popularity passed from generation of I M F C students to the next generations? I'm,

Bart Merci: 25:40

I'm sure there

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 25:40

I'm pretty sure such a resource exists and now you need to do to make one for Barcelona as well. , though, I'm pretty sure also that the amount of pubs in Barcelona will top the rest of the consortium altogether. So, the, the possibilities are endless. Um, when the students split after learned. I guess it, it's some sort of even numbers. So you work with, with quite a small groups of students. How, how do you manage that as an academic? Is it just normal, like lectures, laboratory experiments and then some calculation going, going how do you manage such a small group, because it's interesting.

Eulalia Planas: 26:17

yeah. Uh, well, I think it's a mix of different kinds of, knowledge tools, let's say. Also in, in some cases, for example, in Barcelona, some of the, of the courses are also courses that are being attended for other students

wojciech_wegrzynski: 26:33

Ah, okay.

Eulalia Planas: 26:34

master's degree, for chemical engineering Master's degree, uh, they will share the risk and safety, at the chemical industry course, for example. So they will not be alone the 15, or let's say around 15 students, maybe they will come to, they will share this course with other masters of students at UPC. And, of course, for example, the wildland fire behavior will course mostly for the IMF C students. And that will allow us to apply more lab sessions probably. . So it's a mixed of, uh, theory lectures with, uh, lab courses with, specialist or, people, from the companies that can bring, and do a lecture. I think it's like the same in Gant. In Edro.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 27:25

Mm. it sounds like, again, seeking the, things that distinguish this program from my own, fire safety engineering course. It seems very individual, like in a such small group, you must really know every person in that group. And so it's almost like one to one tutoring, with, uh, world best scientists. I mean, that's clearly a big strength. Was, was that something, uh, that you intended Bart or just, just happened like that's.

Bart Merci: 27:47

Well indeed, this, this is something that happened, I would say, but also it's, it's partly the result of having dedicated administration people as well. Yeah. So we, this is something that I also would like to stress. I mean, when people think about an educational program, they often think about the academics and the students, but we also have a very strong, admin team, uh, taking care of many practical things. Uh, housing is a, is a difficult one. Uh, visa issues have not become easier over the years. So, and so we, what is really intended is that we keep a very low threshold between ourselves and the students. and that's very much appreciated. of course, I mean, if we had 10 times as many students, then we wouldn't be able to remember all the names and, and, and we would. know everybody personally. So in that sense, you could say it's not intended because there is a big need for fire safety engineers. I'm, I'm sure that if 10 times more, people would graduate, then still everybody would easily find a job somewhere in, the field. So in that sense, it's not intended. But, given the circumstances, certainly it is intended. We, we want to, to have an as personal contact as possible and as, as desired, of course.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 28:54

I'm not a lecturer, but I had an episode a year ago. I was giving a course on, on, compartment fires in, in the Main Schooling, Fire Service in here. And I had the completely opposite experience. because in Poland, every fire officer goes through fire safety engineering course, you know, so, there would be 200. Attending a lecture on Microsoft teams. None of them would have a camera on five at least would be their dinner, which I heard . So, so it's a completely diff I I I'm not saying it's, it's bad. It's, it's more like mass production and you are crafting more

Bart Merci: 29:29

mm-hmm. . Yeah. Yeah. Well, indeed it's not, not necessarily a matter of good or bad indeed, because I'm also teaching courses at G University for more than a hundred students, and, and the only time you really see them in person is during the exam. Yeah. I mean,

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 29:43

And then you realize how many there are.

Bart Merci: 29:45

Yeah. And otherwise there's always at least 10, 15 meters of distance in between and they wouldn't always come to class. But, so, so indeed. I mean, this is, this is just a different situation. And, this is quite specific for the I M F S E program. I would say that also students entering the program are all very, very interested in all courses.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 30:06

Mm-hmm.

Bart Merci: 30:07

you have, I mean, I, I have a background in mechanical engineering and, and with all due respect to my former professors, I did not enjoy every course equally because it's a wide field.

wojciech_wegrzynski: 30:17

yeah. Yeah.

Bart Merci: 30:18

Fire safety engineering is quite well defined. I mean, it's still, I mean, more than enough to spend two years studying the different aspects. But still, every course is quite closely connected to fire safety science or fire safety engineering. And, and that is also a big advantage that you have very few students who become uninterested in a certain class and that stimulates also the personal relationship. And otherwise people would hide if they're not interested in your course, they would prefer to be in a large group

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 30:48

what qualities do you seek when recruiting for I M F S C? Like What makes, a candidate a perfect match for, for the program?

Bart Merci: 30:56

we, we have an online application for, and that's the first step. and I personally do the screening of all the application files coming in. And aspects that are important are, of course, the background studies. And so what have they studied before and the grades. I mean, we also look at the grades, as say one of the, let's say signs of, not necessarily intelligence, but also perseverance. And so looking at grades, we look at maybe professional experience that they already have or not. That's not a bottleneck per se, and, but it helps If you had already some professional experience, successful, um, motivation letter is important, to see what they mentioned there. Uh, we also ask for recommendation letters at two. And language is also, that's a criterion. Uh, it's imposed by university. They need to have a certain minimum requirement, but it's also just essential to be able to follow the, the classes. If, if the language is already a barrier, then it's very difficult to, uh, to transfer technical, uh, knowledge as well. so

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 31:58

we're talking English, right?

Bart Merci: 31:59

yes, yes. English here, but that's step one because, and, and then, the, let's say the, the top 50 to 60 are interviewed by one person of the, of the management board. And so each, each management board member interviews about 15 applicants, and then we come to the short list for the scholarships. And so, I mean, what's, what's the ideal match? There is no such thing as, as the ideal match, I would say. But in general, uh, a student or an applicant that scores well at all aspects, including the interview, those would be the ones that we would offer a, a scholarship. But another outcome would be, yes, you are admitted into the program. We think you're qualified, but unfortunately, and due to the heavy competition, we cannot offer you a scholarship. And, and then such students can still come on a sales sponsored basis. Um, of course,

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 32:52

are the, criteria for the prospective wildfire scientists the same? Uh, Eulalia are you looking the same in people?

Eulalia Planas: 33:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. all the students are mostly selected because they are highly motivated in, in the field of, fire science. Let's say I'm fire safety engineering. And, I wouldn't say there is, um, another aspect you should ask, for them to qualify to, to study one I mean, All of them, will be qualified.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 33:22

So it's the same things that make someone a great build environment for engineer and wildfire urban interface. I wonder how your students come into I M F S C? If I'm honest about, uh, my past, I've came to fire by accident. There was like one in third chance I will be chemical engineer, a, a pharmacist, or a fire I, the f broke me down in here, so I, I can talk with, uh, magnificent people like you. Maybe I would be very good at making drugs if I picked another path, So I'm not sure. But, uh, but I'm, I'm here. Honestly was by, by accident. And many people I know in fire industry, they had a relative in, in fire or, so a posture with, with the flames on someone's wall and just say, Oh, that's, that's a career path. I didn't know that. How is it for Im f c students? Do they come and say, I want to be a fire engineer. This is my course.

Bart Merci: 34:17

Yeah. Well it's interesting that you, you mentioned yourself of the liberty of doing that as well. Now talking about myself, I also ended up in fire almost by accident and because I'm a mechanical engineer in background and my, was on turbulent combustion with flames and, and it's actually, flames were the link to fire at some point. And in my. Uh, but now I must say, when we look at the applicants, uh, trying to enter our program, most of them are indeed really focused on fire safety engineering. So in their motivation letter, they explain why, you know, very often it's because they've, uh, witnessed an incident in their country, and, and realized that there is lack of. let's say well thought, standardized legislation sometimes. and that's often what motivates them or, or they are already professionally active and are responsible for fire safety projects in their, uh, in their company. And they would like to learn more, of the background. So I would say that yes, most of them are really dedicated of fire to the field safety

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 35:21

doesn't

Bart Merci: 35:21

Not, not by.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 35:22

program, Well now it has, but it didn't have a fire safety engineering program. would you say the same like, well fault motivation or I really wonder what's the mindset?

Eulalia Planas: 35:32

Yeah, well in that case, mostly. Probably most of the students, came to the field by

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 35:39

Mm-hmm.

Eulalia Planas: 35:41

except those, already related to the field. Like firefighters, sometimes firefighters to learn more, and, and then they enroll in, they are already motivated and, they know very well what they are searching for. but right now in our country, very few people field fire safety really? Because, or they go to work in a company and then they need

wojciech_wegrzynski: 36:09

Fire

Eulalia Planas: 36:09

projects to fire safety engineering. Then, then they realize that. Well, that's something they, they like and they, they want to learn more and, they take, uh, farther studies on, on, this.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 36:21

Yeah. that's a shame because if students knew you can like set fire to things and get paid for that. Like who would not take that? Like seriously. and, outside of jokes, I, I think a pathway where someone is a firefighter has experienced this first hand, as we like to say, they felt the heat, you know, it gives you a completely different, not even understanding. It gives you completely different To what we're doing because in the end, it's a curriculum that is meant to save lives and, uh, is also an important thing. And, and again, we, we go back to the mindset you have mentioned about. answer it honestly. Would you rather pick someone with extremely good, uh, notes and, bland personality or someone overly and enthusiastic and, let's say not the greatest of the great.

Bart Merci: 37:08

I mean, in, in this procedure you should not underestimate the importance of the interview. And obviously, I mean, an interview is still, I mean, it's, it's, it's still one moment in somebody's life. You can have a good day, you can have a bad day. we appreciate that. But still, you know, after 15, 20 minutes of talking, You get some sense of, of who you are dealing with and, you know, what I find very difficult to deal with is, is very arrogant people, arrogance you op you often notice within the minutes and, and if not that within the first 10 minutes, that's a, to me is really like a negative sign. So even if it's somebody with very high grades and, and the perfect background, if already during the interview, there is very difficult behavior, yeah, that would be a no go. vice versa happens less often. I would say. I mean, if, somebody, did not really have a very strong file, they would not make it to the interview but then maybe I should explain it a bit better. And so we first make a short list of people to be interviewed, but another outcome could be look based on your file and we think you might qualify. For, for the program. So if you're interested to come on a self sponsored basis and please let us know. And then still also those people are interviewed and because we really think the group dynamics is, is very important and, and it's easy to kill group dynamics by one or two difficult people. So we try to filter that out as much as can.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 38:32

I've claimed that on the show in here and, even had a full episode about it. I think communication skills, are the. Most important skills of fire scientists, like the one that is drawn into the industry and has to work out, you know, talking with so many stakeholders, each of them with different background, different understanding, having to communicate the same thoughts in five different levels of complication and achieve. So on all of these five levels. So, so it's, uh, certainly, you know, the soft skills, maybe more important than ability to understand the differential equation at some point. I, I'm, I, I'm pretty convinced that that would, would be the case. now, and now as I mentioned industry, I know Im FSC has fantastic industrial partners. how does that collaboration work with, with the partners outside of academia for IMFSE to what extent it's important for you.

Bart Merci: 39:23

Oh, it's, it's very important. one, once wanting the money, of course, is important that, helps to let the engine, uh, run. But it also gives us what I call treat credibility. if you have, good industry partners, then um, you also, the students realize that we are delivering also good quality, alumni otherwise, and that the industry would not, not support us. collaboration is also quite easy in the sense that, we have very regular communication, with them. we facilitate internships with these, with these companies. They can offer a master dissertation topic each year, at the same time, while we listen to their input and feedback, they respect that we make the final academic decisions. So there is no interference at that level. And what's also important is that the contributions that they give in terms of money are not earmarked to a single person. So it's collected by ourselves and we as a management, board decide to also grant scholarships to, let's say talented applicants that did not receive a scholarship from European Commission. And. that facilitates many discussions, uh, there's no discussion of, Oh, you, you, you really gave the money to a poor student, or, Oh, that company had a better student. And then we did. so those discussions are avoided in that, in that way.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 40:47

just for clarification, the scholarship covers the tuition and living costs as

Bart Merci: 40:52

Yes. Well, depends a bit. So the European, scholarships, uh, the ones that we get from the European Commission Yes. And covers both. some scholarships that we grant as management board also cover both. And sometimes we, only offer a tuition fee waiver. so that depends a bit on, uh, on the amount of money that we have, uh, but also the level and the number of high level applicants. It's.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 41:15

Eulalia, at Catalunya did you already, um, develop a relation with, with industry? I, I'm not even sure if industry for Wildfire urban interface exists because I think that would be governmental, but I guess that's also an interesting, place to see collaborators. Right.

Eulalia Planas: 41:29

Yeah. Uh, well, as I mentioned before, we have a strong relationship with the cluster of, companies related to the fire safety engineer. so although we are more focused on industrial, Bri, let's say, and wildfires, we also. Have done quite a lot of work in, in, in fire protection engineering, in, in So we have, let's say that, uh, good relationship with several companies. We are now in the process of engaging them as, collaborators for the IMF C. and I, I really think there will be more because, uh, as I said, there's, a strong need in, here, for, um, professionals, in the, in the fire, safety engineering domain and and also to. Try to develop new things in contact with, uh, the university. So I think the master, the IMF is a, is a good, place to do that. So, yeah. Um,

wojciech_wegrzynski: 42:31

Hmm.

Eulalia Planas: 42:31

I think we have a good future in here.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 42:34

did not ask that before, but, uh, what's the role of associated partners? Like, there's Queensland ETH Zurih, Maryland, University of Science and Technology of China, and I guess now technically University of Catalonia has advanced to the full partner, so, so there seems to be four associated partners. Now, what's the role of these institutions?

Bart Merci: 42:53

They take care of one, uh, master's dissertation topic each year. So they're, they're not involved in teaching courses at this stage. Again, also to keep, to make things manageable and also, uh, to avoid monetary discussions. Also associated partners, it's students are kind of like exchange students from their side. um, and so within the IM FSC program, they would spend the final semester then, uh, with them?

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 43:20

The final is fourth or

Bart Merci: 43:22

The fourth, Yes. Yes. So that would be like a six month period, all in all. And that they would spend at one of the associate partner institutes? Yes.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 43:30

so let's go through it once again. You start At Gand or Edinburg, you learn the basics, the fundamental fire safety, uh, you basically catch up structures. Engineers catch up to thermal dynamics of, of mechanical engineers. Mechanical engineers learn how to calculate, the inertia or, or stuff for structures. And then they go Lund so they, they, they learn risk, they learn human behavior. They, they attend, the, the fantastic laboratories of Lund then they spread around the world for their final semester. And then the fourth one, they focus on their master dissertation in the institution they've chosen at which they, they can write it. Did I get that correctly?

Bart Merci: 44:08

no, no. In the third semester, they go to either Ghent or UPC or upc.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 44:12

Ah, G or epc. Okay.

Bart Merci: 44:14

yeah, yeah. So the, the third semester is then the advanced fire protection and also wildfires and industry protection. And then the fourth semester is then, uh, one of the, uh, full park universities or one of the associate park

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 44:27

Okay. Now, now I understand. So the groups are not like one fourth of the year. They're like half of the year

Bart Merci: 44:33

Yes, yes. Yes.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 44:34

that, that, that makes it more manageable. I really wondered like if you end up with a group of six people, I mean, it's great that you do that, but that, that's a huge effort. Yeah.

Bart Merci: 44:43

no, no, no. So the groups are about, let's say on on average also including local master programs would be 15, 20 students in each class at at each moment

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 44:51

Very, very interesting. Okay, now let's, uh, let's touch the, final part of the course, the master thesis. I've seen some of them. They usually are very, very good. I mean, you see them published in five 50 Journal in different places. they're really, really good pieces of research for an undergraduate. So, how, how do you find the topics? how, how do you get this level of, of science out, out of students? I mean, these guys and girls are, are, are just students you would not expect, them being able to write a fire safety journal paper, like straight out of their head. One out of 30 could maybe, but, you get them very consistent at writing good papers. So there must be a secret in there. What do you feed them?

Bart Merci: 45:37

Well, you talked about this list of pubs, so

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 45:40

Yeah.

Bart Merci: 45:42

but on a, on a more serious, No jokes aside. I think, it's, again, it's a little bit of a mix. Uh, so there is a list of topics that each institute would provide. So academics would provide a topic and then students can, can pick, one of those topics. The same holds, as I said before, for the, the companies from the, the consortium that support us. So they can also offer a topic which is also then added to the list. And the same holds for associated partner

wojciech_wegrzynski: 46:08

Mm-hmm.

Bart Merci: 46:09

then on top of that, students can also define their own topic. Now, of course, um, also requires a number of iterations because sometimes students are a little bit too optimistic, or too ambitious. Both, both ways can, can happen. So

wojciech_wegrzynski: 46:22

Welcome to Fire Science.

Bart Merci: 46:24

Yeah, so, but it's important to start from a well defined topic. That's, I think the, the basics of each successful master dissertation. and then, well, what do we do? We, we do train them quite, strongly during their studies in, uh, understanding the science in depth. And so not only broadly, but also in depth. So I think that is, a key difference to, Let's say to do distinguish between the top student and then a less, the top student, of course, would only be the top students who would the end be capable of writing a paper for fire safety journal, or fire technology or whatever journal. I, I think it's, it's that plus the fact that they can then also have one semester really focused to their master dissertation and they're not distracted by courses. which also, gives them responsibility, and puts some pressure perhaps also on them because they cannot hide behind, uh, exams, rather courses or assignments that they have to finish. so I, I think that that creates, I would also call it perhaps some seriousness during the, the final semester that, that students go full speed and, and fully focused on their, uh, on their dissert.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 47:32

But let's imagine someone wants to go to Queensland and write a paper on, on or master thesis about bushfires, to what extent they have access to Eulalia and their, uh, their knowledge base. Do, do you still like, oversee these guys and, uh, and help

Eulalia Planas: 47:47

So, so, uh, allow me to, to reply . So then, uh, so we always have, if a student has a master dissertation with an associated partner, there is also always one academic supervisor at one of the full partner universities. it's the joint degree assigned by now at this point, four full partner universities. And so that means that one of us has to take academic responsibility. So it's perfectly possible and even plausible, I would say, if, if student were to go to Queensland to do a master dissertation on, on wildfires, that Al or a colleague at UPC would be involved as academic supervisor on behalf of and so in need, there would be an automatic interaction with the colleague at UPC for that topic. So that, that is, that goes very natural, I would say. um, that's the, the way usually goes at, uh, I M F C and now with UPC it would be exactly the same. And, when, there is a research topic, probably in the, in the field of on fires, probably, we will, be the f c reference,

Bart Merci: 48:55

And that's also perhaps one of the things that on online tools facilitated significantly. you compare that to five to 10 years ago, and let's say the early days of IMFSE then, uh, I, I, just as an anecdote, I remember traveling to Zu. To ET to just check on the student, uh, doing his anticipation there on how things were going. And everything was perfectly fine as I had hoped and expected. But still now it would be much easier like, okay, can we do an online meeting? And then, uh, you can do that on a

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 49:25

Yeah, the, the world became much, much smaller place after the, the pandemic. And I see a lot of like, If we are on, you know, expanding the model, I, I think, this online well presents a lot of opportunities to expand. Like it will be very brutally hard for anyone to, to replicate m FSC first you would have to obtain the European funding and, and stuff. So I don't think it would be even possible at this point, having one program of, of this scale. However, we, we see, uh, some very interesting efforts like biolife happening where with PhDs and, and MSCA action that, that granted like, I think it was 16 or even 18 PhDs in that field. That's one more, more thing. if someone, uh, because many of the students will go into industry, many of them will, will like to, be a part of academia. What, what are the academic prospects for, for your graduates?

Bart Merci: 50:20

Well, you know, academia as well as we do. Yeah. So it's, a world where there are, I would say, very regularly opportunities, if you are accepting to be at any place on this planet. Yeah. So if you're open to traveling, then this is, definitely an opportunity as you say. I mean, we have quite a, a fraction of our graduates doing a PhD. It's in between 15 to 20%, which is quite a high number, I would say. and, and many of them go with one of the partner institutes of Im fsc, but certainly not all. I mean, the many students also going to different. And one of the assets that they have gained is once you've spent two years away from home, and you've managed to settle there, you can live almost anywhere on this, on this planet and find your way. and so they're very flexible in terms of, in terms of living, I would say. Yeah. so are there are the opportunities there. Sure. but for that, I mean, if you look at now at academia, as you all know, it takes a while to find your way there and to become permanent staff. So most of our alumni, are not yet at that stage and we're a bit too young as a program for that. But, um, but many of them already have obtained a PhD and, and some still selective in academia.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 51:35

Yeah, I, I think it's hard to extract one, one secret, but you, you really have a nice individual approach to people. I mean, you, you treat people well, , and you have nice people. And, that seems to be, a very big part of the success story there. And, and the ability to, to really expose, young students to really wells best scientists. Within a very well defined curriculum, like looking at that from this perspective cannot go bad.

Bart Merci: 52:06

Yeah. Now, now that you mentioned Wojciech check treating people. Well, I think, I mean, it is been a, a clear trend and I think it's a good trend and to have more attention for D-E-I um, aspects and diversity, equity, inclusion. I think we had this from the start in IMFs E and, and, and, and I think that also kind of, Pays off quite significantly. Also, a, again, going back to the communication skills, I think that's also part of it and that, that you treat everybody with a mutual respect and, um, and understanding and this, I mean, we're talking here soft skills now clearly, but it's something that we put really in the center of our values from, from the start with IMFs E and, and I think indeed, I mean it kind of also connects to what you said, like, um, alumni feeling part of a family. I think indeed more or less, uh, the, the feeling that is created.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 52:56

I wanted to ask you a question. Why masters? Why, why not bachelors or something? But I think now I understand itself, self explainable. You need people with a certain background, but it's kind of beautiful that you make structural engineers, mechanical engineers, chemical engineers altogether because then they can, you know, level up to the same level on their own, just by, uh, being exposed to each other. You know, structural engineer will help the chemical one, the chemical one would help them in chemistry. that's a really great way to, to build a common base and then proceeding through a very difficult subject of fire dynamics, uh, from the same level. Yeah.

Bart Merci: 53:36

But, it does require some maturity and so that's indeed also why master's level and not bachelor. You, you can expect that of, of someone in their twenties and, and someone perhaps, certainly with some professional experience already. that's by the way also something, and that we try to strive for that there is some spreading in age in each cohort and, experience. but indeed you cannot expect that if you, if you put together, , 20, uh, 18 year old, um, people, that you have a different dynamics, interesting dynamics, surely. Yeah. But the different dynamics that, uh, that we do not cover at this point.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 54:11

And, just, just a final one. how, how many make it through? Like, what's the statistic? Is it, I would shoot it, It's upwards of 85%, maybe even upwards of 90.

Bart Merci: 54:21

Yeah. It's more, And so indeed, I mean, we have very few dropouts. if we have a dropout, it's very often due to personal circumstances. um, and, but very rarely because of, lack of competence, Or, or knowledge. And, and that's a little bit the, the luxury of course, of, of having a few hundred applicants. And then in the end, only 20 make, or 20, 25, 30 now this year and make it to, into the program. Then unless you, you don't do a good job during the selection procedure and the ones that are accepted into the program have a good chance of being successful.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 54:56

Okay.

Bart Merci: 54:57

that combination of screening and interviews turns out to be a fairly effective way of, filtering good candidates,

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 55:04

fantastic. So the most important question, where does one apply?

Bart Merci: 55:09

ah, on the website. So imfse.Com imfse.be, all these, all these linked to the same website and the application forms are online now for the, uh, upcoming academic year.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 55:20

Is there a separate, application process for the scholarship based, and non-scholarship.

Bart Merci: 55:25

No, but you, you can, well by default we assume that you are interested in a

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 55:30

Okay. That's reasonable.

Bart Merci: 55:34

But yeah, you can indicate if, if you really don't need it, that can be indicated as well. But it doesn't change the, the quality check. Yeah. So, we are not, more tolerant for somebody who's bringing a bag of money because that doesn't, help anyone. that only leads to a lot of frustration for all parties involved. It's much better to try to avoid that before entering than, uh, once they are in the program. So

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 56:00

Very, very good. And I guess if someone assess their religious listener of fire science show, they definitely will, will score a lot of points at the interview. So it's, I hope for that. Okay. Bar, uh, Bart, thank you very much for coming and talking about Origins and the concept. Eulalia Thank you for, for telling us about, uh, the future and the new opening of the program. And, I hope this will be, Useful to, to people who would first like to understand what makes a, a fire safety engineer well trained and how to replicate the success story, elsewhere. And boy, I I need to jump into that beautiful paper now.

eulalia_planas: 56:42

Thanks to you

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 56:43

How could I miss it? What was I doing in 1995? I, I bet I better not tell that.

Bart Merci: 56:50

thank you very much for the invitation. Wojciech check was a pleasure being here and uh, thanks for the interview.

Eulalia Planas: 56:55

thank you very much for, it was a and it's a nice initiative, sports cast,

eulalia_planas: 57:01

so

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 57:02

please recommend it to, to the, all the students. Uh, my statistics will go through the roof way. Guys, thank you so much and, and see you around.

Bart Merci: 57:11

take care Wojciech. Take care of that. Bye. Bye.

Wojciech Wegrzynski: 57:14

And that's it. Well, what the, what the program was a nice group of people. I wanted to extract the secret of IMF. Um, but I'm not sure. If there exists one secret, I guess it was mentioned in the episode, there's probably many first thing. First treat people. Well. Work with nice people. That's that says. Only helps with, developing a great, great. Safe our safety program. Second thing. Build this mentorship relation where people can learn. And have highly motivated people to learn. If you have highly motivated people and you have highly motivated. Teachers. This cannot go they will transfuse the knowledge for sure. Third thing, opening yourself to, to diversity. The program has participants from 80 countries. That's very diverse group. And each of them brings something new, something unique, you know, even when they start learning about their own country legislation systems, they are so different. So such as. The difference in approaches to fire safety. It's beautiful to learn from each other. That, and that certainly helps to build this holistic view over what, what fire safety engineering truly And for thing. I don't think we talked about that much In the podcast episode, but I know they learn through experiment. They touch the fire. They really do observe the fire. It's not just bland. Sit at the desk, read the handbook, open up the yes, run the simulation. You're done. It's a very, very active program where they really get the chance to, to know fire. And by experiencing fire, you become a better fire engineer. You cannot learn experience, you have to experience experience. Like I like to say. So, yeah, there's a, there's a lot of, of this nice things about the program and altogether they make it. One of the best, or maybe even the best in the world for sure. So, thank you, Bart, thank your Eulalia for joining me in this episode. I wish you all the best for the IMFSE. Uh, wish all the best to IMFSE students. And I hope there among the audience, there are some new people who would like to be. IMFSE family members. The path is open. You just need to apply. And as Bart said, this. At this points for listening to fireside show. So we make sure to claim, make the plane. And it will help you in the interview. Uh, so guys that's it for today. Thank you very much for being here with me and, see you here again next Wednesday. Thank you.