ICON, or the Institute for Conservation, http://www.icon.org.uk, is the lead voice for the conservation of cultural heritage in the UK. ICON's membership embraces the wider conservation community, incorporating not only professional conservators in all disciplines, but all others who share a commitment to improving understanding of and access to our cultural heritage.
The best way to find a conservator in the United Kingdom who can advise you on conservation matters is through the Institute for Conservation (ICON - see above). ICON has compiled a list of accredited conservators, the Conservation Register, which is available via: http://www.conservationregister.com
ICON also provides a forum for groups based around particular conservation disciplines such as paintings, paper etc. to present and discuss current issues, upcoming events and such like. The conservation science group page is located at: http://www.icon.org.uk/
In addition to ICON, there are several other science-based groups within the profession such as the User's Group for Mass Spectrometry and Chromatography http://www.mascgroup.org and the Infrared and Raman Users Group http://www.irug.org
The American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC) at Stanford also has a science-based group called Research and Technical Studies (RATS) http://aic.stanford.edu/sg/rats/
