The International Committee for the Conservation of the Industrial Heritage promotes international cooperation concerning safeguarding, conservation, investigation, documentation, scientific research and preservation of the industrial heritage. It promotes education and professional exchange in these matters, amongst other ways by holding plenum-conferences for discussion of general policies and problems. The Committee has interim working conferences on specialized topics, such as: railways, steam power, textiles, coal mining. It acts as consultant to ICOMOS on industrial world heritage sites.