EGS XXV General Assembly, Nice, France, April 2000

Message from the EGS President

The 25^th General Assembly of EGS marks a milestone in the evolution of our Society.
Founded by Stephan Mueller, the Society has gone through an evolution, where in particular in the last ten years it has found its place as the European platform for the study of the Earth System.

Vital in this respect has been the growth of our fields of research and closely linked to that is the  growing need to address the Earth’s problems in a multidisciplinary way, building on the continuous development of novel, specialized geophysical concepts and methodologies.

Another key factor has been the steady implementation of the concept of Europe. EGS is a Society clearly globally oriented, but at the same time with a strong foundation in Europe.

In the last decade European research policy has really come off the ground, and the coming years will see an even much stronger emphasis on coordinating national and European initiatives.

The implementation of the EU funding system for promoting active exchange of young researchers between European institutes has demonstrated the added value of the European dimension. At the same time it is obvious that the good organization of European science makes it more attractive to non-Europeans to take part in it.

The Society has realized the challenges resulting from the drastic changes in East-West relationships in the late eighties. From the beginning, EGS has actively promoted the full participation of Eastern European scientists in its programme.

EGS is a young society, but also a society with many young participants at its general assemblies. The participation of PhD students and postdocs is one of the keys to the success of our meetings and the EGS policy has been and will be to make every possible attempt to offer a platform for the young generation of geophysicists.

All these opportunities and challenges can only be met by a Society capable of responding to rapid changes in the world around it and organized in such a way that its prime goal is to serve its members.  

Excellence in the organization of the EGS office team headed by Arne Richter has been instrumental in realizing the ambitious goals of our Society.

EGS – towards integrated Earth System Science

EGS is optimally structured, in terms of disciplines it covers, to address all aspects of the Earth System. The solid Earth, the Atmosphere and the Oceans, and the Solar Terrestrial and Planetary Sciences, together with Hydrology, Geodesy, and the working groups on Non-linear Processes and Natural Hazards are all indispensable in this endeavour.

The Developments within the different EGS sections reflect this dynamic structure.
For example, in the Solid Earth (SE) section during the last few years, through the full introduction of Tectonics in the programme, strong links have been growing towards the quantitative reconstruction of geological processes. The observation that the symposia on Paleo-climate and Sedimentary Basins are amongst the largest symposia in SE illustrates this development, highlighting the potential for research at the interfaces of monitoring reconstruction and modelling of solid Earth processes.

The strong connection of Solid Earth Geophysics with Geodesy is obvious, whereas Geodesy also serves as a strong bridge between Solid Earth, Hydrology and Atmosphere and Oceans in EGS.

Hydrology in EGS is addressing fundamental questions pertaining to  hydrodynamic regime of our planet, but has also been able more recently to widen its scope to the equally innovative  research agenda of those who are engaged in addressing the growing need for hydrological scientific input in engineering and water management problems.

Oceans and Atmosphere science has seen a growing body of research in monitoring as well as in continental shelves and Arctic regions, all clearly of great scientific and European societal interest. 

A novel development of great interest to all the above fields is the growing interest in biogeosciences.

Solar Terrestial and Planetary Science has always been a cornerstone for EGS. These fields, by their nature, require a European platform to prepare space missions and to plan the follow-up science.

Non-linear Processes research has been a field where EGS has taken the lead and serves as an example of how to respond as a Society to new developments in science.

The natural hazards group of EGS has successfully responded to the growing needs of society for quantitative insights in the causes and consequences of geo hazards. 

It is foreseen that more of these working groups will be created in the coming year. EGS is ready to serve as their platform, allowing the full development of a flexible mode of bottom-up activities by its members.

EGS:  at the full service of the geophysical community

The general assemblies are a central element in the functioning of the Society. Attendance at the Society’s general assemblies has exponentially grown in the last ten years from a few hundred to about 4500 attendees.

This growth of the Society has brought it to a stable position with sufficient critical mass to respond to both the individual needs of its members and to serve as a partner to large organizations utilizing the results of geophysical research in the outside world.

With the growth of the meetings the scientific scope has both deepened and widened enabling us to better focus on multidisciplinary aspects.

Topical conferences

At the same time, a growing need is recognized for small scale platforms to  promote in-depth discussion of rapidly-developing new fields, implemented with a more flexible time schedule than possible within large general assemblies.
With this aim, an EGS topical conferences scheme has been implemented with a full range programme of Stephan Mueller Conferences (SE), Venning Meinesz Conferences (G), Alfvén Conferences (ST), Richardson Conferences (NP) and Plinius Conferences (NH).

Typical attendance for these meetings is in the range of 50-150 persons. An overview of the meetings planned for 2000/2001 is on the EGS website.

Distinguished lecturer programme and short courses

EGS has also implemented a Distinguished Lecturer Programme, with emminent EGS scientists visiting academic institutes to give a guest lecture and bringing the results of frontier science to the young students of geophysical science. The EGS distinguished lecturer also serves as a goodwill ambassador for EGS, providing information on membership, meetings and EGS publications. As part of this scheme, Peter Fabian (ST) has just completed a very successful tour as EGS Distinguished Lecturer in Japan.

EGS considers the link between advanced training and research as a vital element in modern geophysical science. It has therefore made an alliance with organizations such as the European Research School on Integrated Sedimentary Basin Studies (EUROBASIN) and the Netherlands Research School of Sedimentary Geology (NSG) for organizing low-price high-quality short courses of 3–5 days to PhD students, postdocs and other young professionals. Full information is available at the EGS website.

EGS publications

Currently EGS is offering to its members journals in practically all the fields covered by the Society: an abstract journal, a “proceedings” journal, 10 topical journals, a review journal and several book series.

It has been the explicit policy of EGS to put priority on the further development of journals where EGS has copyright and ownership of the journal’s title. Royalties obtained through journals have been directly used to the benefit of the membership at large. A low price, making them accessible to a large segment of the Society, has been a key objective.

The Society has successfully developed Geophysical Research Abstracts, Hydrology and Earth System Sciences (HESS), and Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics (NPG), which are now indexed in Current Contents shortly after their launch, and has been able to realize the very successful proceedings journal Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, with a growth from 600 pages in 1995 to 3000 pages in 1999.

The topical meetings are generating thematic volumes with the latest development in specific areas of research. EGS has recognized the growing need for rapid publication of these volumes and has recently implemented an EGS Special Publication Service to provide its membership at low cost with quality peer-reviewed volumes.

Similarly, considering the growing need for up-to-date short course notes, EGS has initiated the EGS lecture notes Series.

Electronic publishing is now revolutionizing the way of communicating science output.
Quality control and peer-review will continue to be key elements in scientific publishing.
The Society is actively implementing its publication policy on this issue based on the overall principle key to its mission: serve geophysical science and serve its membership.

Outlook to the future

EGS has now reached a stable stage where it can consolidate its functioning and at the same time reach out into new opportunities facing geophysics at large.

EGS foresees that only those societies capable to respond to these challenges will have a future.

Full involvement of membership in a bottom-up society is a vital ingredient. Without the commitment of EGS conveners and EGS section secretaries the Society cannot exist. We seek further enlargement of the involvement of our membership by promoting a spectrum of closely related activities and services.

Please provide us with ideas and input to make the next step in the life of our Society a good one by contacting your EGS Office (egs@copernicus.org). 

Sierd Cloetingh