General interest in dam safety has increased significantly throughout the world in recent years. Ageing dams (most dams were designed for an effective life of 50 years and are now quickly approaching or overcoming this limit), new hydrologic and seismic information, advance of analysis and design methodologies, improvement in construction and field investigation techniques, rising awareness by public and regulatory agencies have resulted in an increased emphasis on dam safety. Moreover, changes in safety standards, environmental requirements, legislation, land use and other factors influencing dam safety will inevitably occur, while functional deficiencies and structural deterioration are likely to appear as dams age. In this framework, dam safety stakeholders require policies and procedures that will promote public confidence, by establishing novel professional practices that take into account the lessons of the past and conform to the most advanced technical state-of-the-art. Furthermore, in a European context, it is easily predictable that the process of European integration will bring about a harmonization of standards applicable to dams, as in other fields has just occurred. All these circumstances highlight the need of trained dam safety personnel. The course, organized under the auspices of the thematic network NW-IALAD (Integrity Assessment of Large Concrete Dams), funded by the EU Fifth Research Framework Programme, will provide attendants with a comprehensive view to establishing or enhancing an effective dam safety program. An additional dams related event will be hosted the same week of the course, namely a Nw-IALAD workshop on “Performance of Real Dams and Scale Models” (Dec. 17), aiming at presenting a data-base on experimental investigations (according to Nw-IALAD workplan) and to discuss, through qualified invited lectures, existing gaps and future needs on experimental investigations and diagnostic techniques in dam safety assessment. nvited Lecturers: Course 1. Georges Darbre - Office Fédéral des Eaux et de la Géologie, Switzerland 2. Michele Fanelli - Consultant, Italy 3. Vissarion Papadoupulos - National Technical University of Athens, Greece 4. Gerald Zenz - Verbundplan, Austria 5. Giovanni Barla - Politecnico di Torino, Italy 6. Piero Sembenelli - SC-Sembenelli Consulting, Italy 7. Giovanni Lombardi - Lombardi Engineering Ltd, Switzerland 8. Bernhard Schrefler - Università di Padova, Italy 9. Victor Saouma - University of Colorado at Boulder, USA 10. Bernard Tardieu - Coyne et Bellier, France NW-IALAD Workshop 11. Darbre Georges - Office Fédéral des Eaux et de la Géologie, Switzerland 12. Giulio Maier - Politecnico di Milano, Italy 13. Massimo Meghella - CESI, Italy