1st International Congress CHEMISTRY FOR CULTURAL HERITAGE (ChemCH 2010)

Since the very beginning of conservation and restoration concepts and practice different branches of  Chemistry , such as physical, organic, environmental chemistry and chemistry for cultural heritage, have been playing a key role in diagnosis, understanding causes and state of conservation, studying ancient production techniques, developing and evaluating restoration materials and methods, guiding conservators in the planning and execution of conservation-restoration interventions of both movable and immovable cultural heritage as well as in the education and training of conservation professionals.
The last decades have seen the introduction of new and advanced chemical technologies applied to the different above mentioned fields of application, which had marked a substantial improvement in the capability of the Chemistry discipline to answer specific conservation-restoration needs raised by the conservation-restoration international community.
The International Congress on Chemistry for Cultural Heritage, organized in 2010 by the University of Bologna – Microchemistry and Microscopy Art Diagnostic Laboratory (M2ADL) in collaboration with the Italian Chemical Society (SCI) and its Division of Environmental and Cultural Heritage Chemistry, and under the auspicies of EuCheMS (Working Party on Chemistry for Cultural Heritage [http://www.euchems.org/Divisions/index.asp] is particularly aimed at providing an Heritage international platform for presentation and discussion on the capability of the Chemistry discipline to answer specific conservation-restoration needs raised by the consrvation-restoration international community.

The Ravenna congress is the first of a series of congresses on Chemistry for Cultural Heritage Planned to be organised on a biennal basis.
The 2 ^nd Congress is scheduled to be held in Istanbul in 2012 and organised by the Chemical Society of Turkey.