Council members, including the secretary-general and treasurer, are volunteers, as are the editors of Studies in Conservation and IIC's Congress preprints.

[2] In 1930, the International Museums Office of the League of Nations held a conference in Rome on the examination and conservation of works of art.

[4] On April 27, 1950, the International Institute for the Conservation of Museum Objects (which acquired its present name in 1959) was incorporated as a limited company in the United Kingdom.

[5] Its aims were "to improve the state of knowledge and standards of practice and to provide a common meeting ground and publishing body for all who are interested in and professionally skilled in the conservation of museum objects”.

Constable, Murray Pease, Ian Rawlins, Harold Plenderleith, Sir Wallace Akers, Helmut Ruhemann, and Paul Coremans.

Others who joined in that first year included Arthur van Schendel, René Sneyers, and Sheldon and Caroline Keck.

That meeting, in Rome, was attended by 150 people, and the papers were published by Butterworths under the title Recent Advances in Conservation.

[10] Subsequently, conferences have been held at two- or three-year intervals with published preprints on a topic of current interest.

These events are aimed at helping recent graduates and those still studying conservation to develop their skills and gain valuable career insights.

They offer invaluable networking opportunities and panel discussions with webcasts, studio visits and a lively social programme.

There are currently Regional Groups in Scandinavia, Austria, Croatia, France, Greece, Italy, Japan, and Spain.

Following Our Common Future: Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development (1987), also known as 'The Brundtland Report', and Stephen Dovers, former Director of the Fenner School of Environment and Society at the Australian National University, the IIC understands sustainability to comprise seven 'Interlocking Crises': Biodiversity Loss; Climate Change; Global Security; Pollution and Wastes; Population; Poverty and Development; and Resource Use.