The IAEG Executive Committee met via Zoom on 23 April 2021. This was first meeting of the executive since the 2019 September Meeting in Jeju South Korea. The activities of the IAEG have been widely impacted by Coivd-19 and the annual 2020 executive and council meetings were not held. The committee is presently working through the re-establishment of the IAEG activities as travel and local, regional, and international conferences are starting to happen again in one form or another. Noting with the shift to new way of operating and to a revised programme of activities the bylaw and rules by which IAEG are governed are not designed for the current world context. A review of the IAEG bylaws and governance is being undertaken by a sub group of the IAEG Executive. A review of the commission supported by IAEG is also underway.
IAEG Membership in 2021 remains stable at 4294 paid members from 44 active National Groups. There have been new national groups established in South America and Europe, and these are to be ratified at the 2021 council meeting. 43.4% of IAEG membership comes from only 4 countries (China 13.6%, Germany 11.2%, NZ 10.7% and Australia 7.9%).
The finances of the IAEG remain stable with a surplus reported in 2020 due to reduced operational cost (mostly related to restricted travel of the Executive and reduced conference attendance). A neutral budget is forecast for 2021.
The most active part of the IAEG in 2020 has been the YGP groups and this was recognised and congratulated. Greater promotion and support to the YGP programme was discussed and it was encouraged that each National Group have a YGP sub-group or liaison person. NZGS already has this in place. The introduction of the YGP webinar series and posting of recorded conference key notes and lectures to the IAEG website has been well received. Noting the next event in YGP webinar series is the 9th with invited talks from Prof. Jordi Corominas Dulcet (Spain) & Dr. Anika Braun (Germany) on Rock Hazard and Future Considerations for 21 May at 12:00 GMT (Path: search for YEG IAEG’s Zoom Meeting or subscribe to IAEG YEG on Youtube.com). A link to previous talks can also be found the IAEG Webpage.
The IAEG bulletin has again lifted its impact factor and now one the more highly sited technical journals and is now fully on-line. The success of the Bulletin as leading publication is celebrated. However, concerns over the bulletin content (highly computational and geotechnical biased and skewed contribution with over 90% of submitted papers from Asian countries) does not reflect the wider geologic and global representation of the IAEG membership. The falling contribution on geology, limited global case studies and the limited value of the papers to non-academic readers is concern for the Executive. A sub-group of the Executive have been asked to review the scope and nature of the IAEG publications (to report back in October). ailed weekly directly to members.
More work has been completed on the IAEG website and in particular the activity to upload and make more accessible IAGE lectures and YGP content. A request for more content was made.
An update on progress for the 2022 Congress was given. This remains in planning and progressing well. A call for papers will be issued soon. The Executive is expected to have further zoom meetings prior to the annual Executive and Council meeting in October 2021 (currently to linked to the European Regional Conference in Athens via a combination of physical and virtual attendance).