From October 12th to 17th, the 32nd International Conference on Lightning Protection (ICLP), co-hosted by Tsinghua University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University with the co-sponsorship of the China Meteorological Administration, was held in Shanghai. Professor He Jinliang, Director of the Institute of High Voltage and Insulation Technology at Tsinghua University and Director of the National Lightning Protection Standardization Technical Committee, served as the Chairman of the conference. Professor Fu Zhengcai from Shanghai Jiao Tong University acted as the Co-Chairman. Professor Zeng Rong from the Department of Electrical Engineering at Tsinghua University and Researcher Zhang Yijun from the China Meteorological Administration jointly served as the Chairmen of the Technical Program Committee. The conference invited 59 renowned global experts to serve on the Technical Program Committee. A total of 562 experts, scholars, and engineering technicians from 50 countries and regions attended the conference, and 558 papers were received.
In addition to organizing 9 special sessions and 2 open forums led by international scholars, the conference featured 15 thematic sessions covering traditional topics such as lightning physics, lightning protection engineering, and new areas including electromagnetic time reversal applications in lightning and electromagnetic compatibility. The sessions also addressed lightning phenomena, discharge processes, electromagnetic pulses, induction effects, hazard effects, electronic systems protection, electrical and railway system protection, building lightning protection, practical issues in lightning protection, lightning down-conductor and grounding techniques, high-voltage test simulation of lightning effects, rocket-triggered lightning experiments, lightning protection standards and testing, lightning safety, medical aspects, and education.
During the conference, 17 domestic and international companies specializing in lightning protection and testing equipment, including Schneider Electric from France, Duel-Maison, Earth Networks from the United States, Sime and Vesala from Russia, DEHN from Germany, Phoenix and OBO Bettermann from Finland, Guantu from Shanghai, Zhongguang from Sichuan, and Sankosha from Japan, participated in technical demonstrations and exchanges.
In the invited presentations, Professor Farhad Rachidi from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) and Professor Marcos Rubinstein from the University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland (HES-SO) jointly presented on "Applications of Electromagnetic Time Reversal in Lightning and Electromagnetic Compatibility." Professor Chris Andrews from the University of Queensland, Australia, presented a special report on "Neurological Impairment Due to Lightning Injury."
The International Conference on Lightning Protection (ICLP), as a prestigious international organization, is governed by its Scientific Committee, comprising 15 internationally renowned experts in the field of lightning protection. Each country generally has one committee member. Professor He Jinliang, as the Chairman of the 32nd ICLP, was unanimously elected as a committee member at the 2012 ICLP Scientific Committee meeting, becoming one of the two committee members from Asia.
ICLP is currently the highest-level academic conference in the field internationally. Its inaugural conference was held in Bad Reichenhall, Germany, in 1951, and has primarily been hosted by European countries in rotation. Hosting requires a proposal made four years in advance, with the host city determined by a vote of the ICLP Scientific Committee. This conference marked only the second time it was held outside Europe. In terms of submitted and accepted papers, as well as attendance numbers, it set a new record for ICLP. Attendees agreed that the conference set a new benchmark in terms of the quantity and quality of papers and the organization of lightning protection international conferences. Following Professor He Jinliang's organization of the Asia-Pacific International Lightning Conference in China in 2011, this conference was another major international lightning conference held in China, with the highest participation of renowned lightning experts internationally, and the highest number of submitted and accepted papers and attendees in the history of international conferences in the field of lightning protection.