It was in September 1906 that the predecessor of the IAG, the
'Internationale Erdmessung', th organized the 15 General Assembly at the
Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest. It was 95 years later, in
September 2001, that the IAG returned to this beautiful city to hold its
Scientific Assembly, IAG 2001, in the historical premises of the
Academy. The meeting took place from September 2-7, 2001 and continued
the tradition of Scientific Assemblies, started in Tokyo (1982) and
continued in Edinburgh (1989), Beijing (1993) and Rio de Janeiro (1997).
Held every four years at the midpoint between General Assemblies of the
IAG, they focus on giving an integrated view of geodesy to a broad
spectrum of researchers and practitioners in geodesy and geophysics. The
convenient location of the main building of the Hungarian Academy in
downtown Budapest and the superb efforts of the Local Organizing
Committee contributed in a major way to the excellent atmosphere of the
meeting. As at previous meetings, the scientific part of the program was
organized as a series of symposia which, as a whole, gave a broad
overview of actual geodetic research activities. To emphasize an
integrated view of geodesy, the symposia did not follow the pattern of
the IAG Sections, but focussed on current research topics to which
several IAG Sections could contribute. Each symposium had 5 sessions
with presented papers and poster sessions on two consecutive days.