Overview
The main activities of the IAEG are summarised in most recent newsletter of the IAEG.
Link provided. IAEG_Electronic_Newsletter_2021_Issue-No.2-1.pdf
Summary Report on IAEG 2021 Council and Executive Meetings – 4 and 5 October
Conferences
International conferences are now proceeding as blended live/virtual attendance. Several IAEG National Groups and Regions have restarted their programme of conferences.
Of note are the following:
- Geoniagara – Canadian Geotechnical Soc. 26-29 Sep
- Congress Argentino De Mecanice De Auelos Ingeniera Geotecnica – 2nd South American Regional Conference of the IAEG — Oct 1
- Euroengeo 2020 – 3rd European regional conference of IAEG 6-10 October 2021
- Preparation continues for XIV AIEG Congress September 12-13th 2022 in Chengdu, China. Calls for papers have gone out and organisers are proceeding on the expectation at this will be strongly attended by international IAEG membership in numbers. A new executive will be elected at this meeting for the Term 2023-2026.
General
- The Council meeting was well attended with many national groups (who would not always have people attending the conference) able to join virtually
- Officers’ reports received and AU and NZ are in the top 5 countries with a strong membership base.
Financial
- IAEG remains in strong / stable financial position with a surplus in 2020 due to reduced operating costs because of Covid.
- 2021-2023 budgets were approved on the basis that forecast costs would be matched to forecast income with surplus from 2020 to be considered for use to support initiatives, YGP and specific sponsorships.
- The Council approved the 2020 financial report and 2021-2023 forward-looking budgets
- The bulletin of Engineering Geology (BOEG)
- BOEG remains strongly supported with an impact factor of Bulletin now at 4.298.
- Noting the published contributors to the BOEG are dominated by authors from only a few countries (mainly China) and the content is strongly geotechnical and analytical. Few papers are on engineering geology.
- Springer planned move to Continuous Article Publishing will be implemented in 2022 so there will be no more online first articles from 2022 onwards and advice that BOEG will converting to entirely open access in time, but this is very unlikely to happen within 5 years.
Webpage
- The web site remains active and well used and content updated.
- A YouTube channel has been created and all the videos are available on YouTube.
- Social network Facebook and Instagram were also presented.
- General request for content and update of information
IAEG YEG Committee
- Changes to the leadership of YEG (Stratis Karantanellis) and an update on activities of YEP provided.
- YEG is building a network of YEG around the world and linked by media in Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and IAEG website.
- YEG monthly e-Webinar series (stated in June 2020) is well supported as is the “Get to know us better” section on the IAEG-YEG website where interviews with young engineering geologists around the world are posted.
- YEG activates (and reps) are not support by all national groups. The Council discussed and proposed that all national Groups should have YEG representation.
- A motion for nominating representative(s) for YEG by each national group was approved by the Council.
Report of Advisory Board Committee
- The chair of Advisory Board Committee noted of the 19 commissions, 8 commissions (C17, C24, C25, C29, C34, C35, C36, C37) are very active with plans going forward. 4 commissions (C21, C28, C32) are not recently active but had plans for future activity. The rest were inactive. It is recommended that the 4 commissions (C10, C16, C19 and C20) should be advised to close.
- In discussions the council deemed commission C4 to be important and it is agreed there would be a search to find right person to take over and led C4.
New Established and Re-activated National Groups
Representatives from the new National Groups gave presentations as follows:
- Bolivia
- Costa Rica
- Peru
- Belorussia
- Mongolia
- Chile
- Vietnam (Re-activated)
Awards
The following awards were announced:
- Faquan Wu, from China (Hans Cloos Medal 2020)
- Martin Culshaw, from UK (Marcel Arnould Medal 2020)
- Dr. Kiril Anguelov, from Bulgaria (Honorary Membership 2019)
- Prof.Victor Ivanovich OSIPOV, from Russia (Honorary Membership 2020)
- Winner of 2020 Richard Wolters Prize Dr. Yifei Cui from China.
- IAEG past President Paul Marinos elected as the Honorary President of IAEG.