European Working Group on Acoustic Emission (EWGAE) started as European Stress Wave Emission Working Group, holding its first meeting in 1972. Thus far, 27 meetings have been held, with published proceedings from the last six meetings.
A series of events sparked AE interest in Europe and led to the founding of the European Working Group on Acoustic Emission (EWGAE). During the summer of 1971, Harold L. Dunegan toured England and a number of countries on the continent giving short courses on AE and demonstrating Dunegan Research Corporation's new line of AE instrumentation. On March 14, 1972, Dr. Adrian A. Pollock of Cambridge Consultants, England conducted the Institute of Physics Conference on Acoustic Emission at Imperial College in London; fifteen papers from throughout Europe and the United States were presented. This meeting brought together the key people of Europe already involved in AE research; from England: in addition to Dr. Pollock, Dr. Don Birchon at the Admiralty Materials Laboratory, Drs. Ian L. Mogford and Ian G. Palmer at Central Electricity Research Laboratories, Peter G. Bentley at Risley Engineering and Materials Laboratory of the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority, and Dr. Brian Harris at the University of Sussex; from Germany: Drs. Jurgen Eisenblätter and Peter Jax at Battelle-Institut; from France: Dr. P.F. Dumousseau at the Centre Technique des Industries Mecaniques and M. Nicole Chretien and Dr. E.G. Tomachevsky at the Centre d'Études Nucléaires de Saclay, Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique; from Italy: Dr. M. Mirabile at Centro Sperimentale Metallurgico; from Denmark: Arved Nielsen at the Research Establishment Risø, Danish Atomic Energy Commission; and from the Netherlands: Dr. J.C.F. DeKanter at the Technische Hogeschool Delft. As a result of this meeting and Dunegan's influence, Pollock and Birchon organized the European Stress Wave Emission Working Group, which held its first meeting November 1972, at the Admiralty Materials Laboratory in England. Fifty people from seven countries attended. Birchon was elected chairman and Pollock, secretary. The second meeting, co-chaired by Drs. Eisenblätter and Jax, was held September 1973, at Battelle-Institut in Frankfurt, Germany, at which the group adopted their present name, European Working Group on Acoustic Emission. Meetings were held yearly through 1989, and every other year since 1990 in different European countries.
    The first EWGAE meeting, from which extended abstracts were published, was the 15th meeting held in Istanbul, Turkey, October 1986. Seven extended abstracts were included in a special issue of the Journal of Acoustic Emission. This was followed by the proceedings of the 16th meeting at London, October 1987, in conjunction with the 4th European Conference on Non-Destructive Testing. At the 20th meeting, held in Leuven, Belgium, host Prof. Martine Wevers handed out folders of all the papers presented at the meeting. Starting with the 22nd meeting (Aberdeen, Scotland, 1996), proceedings have been published for each meeting. Today, AE testing is being conducted throughout Europe in areas such as proof testing, in-service monitoring, and corrosion and leak detection.
    The Codes Subgroup published 5 codes up to 1985. This activity was then superseded by Working Group 7 on Acoustic Emission Testing (AT) within the Commission for European Norms (CEN) Technical Committee 138 for Non Destructive Testing. Codes produced by WG7 to date cover Terminology, General Principles, Equipment Characterisation, Examination of Pressure Equipment During Proof Testing and Detection of Corrosion within Metallic Surrounding filled with Liquid. The Group is currently drafting a code for the Testing of Fibre-reinforced Plastics - Methodology and General Evaluation Criteria.
 
The following table gives an overview of history of the EWGAE conferences held since 1972:

* proceedings published

Above text on the basis of paper of Thomas F. Drouillard “Acoustic Emission Working Groups: Forums for technology exchange and dissemination”, ICAE-6/AEWG-50, Lake Tahoe USA, October 29-November 2, 2007 (Advances in Acoustic Emission – 2007).