European Geosciences Union

The European Geosciences Union (EGU) is a non-profit international union in the fields of Earth, planetary, and space sciences whose vision is to "realise a sustainable and just future for humanity and for the planet." The organisation has headquarters in Munich (Germany). Membership is open to individuals who are professionally engaged in or associated with these fields and related studies, including students and retired seniors.
The EGU publishes 18 open-access scientific journals and a number of other science publications. It also organises a number of topical meetings, as well as education and outreach activities. Its most prominent event is the EGU General Assembly, an annual conference that brings together over 15,000 scientists from all over the world. The meeting's sessions cover a wide range of topics, including volcanology, planetary exploration, the Earth's internal structure and atmosphere, climate change, and renewable energies.
The EGU has 22 scientific divisions that reflect the interdisciplinary nature of the organisation.
History.
The EGU was established by the merger of the European Geophysical Society (EGS) and the European Union of Geosciences (EUG) on 7 September 2002. Council members of the two organisations came together at Hotel Platzl in Munich, Germany, to sign the Union into existence. The final stages of the merger were completed on 31 December 2003. The EGU founding members were: Jan Backman, Jonathan Bamber, Ray Bates, Günter Blöschl, Lars Clemmensen, Max Coleman, Peter Fabian, Gerald Ganssen, Jean-Pierre Gattuso, David Gee, Fausto Guzzetti, Albrecht Hofmann, Jürgen Kurths, Yves Langevin, John Ludden, Arne Richter, Michael Rycroft, W. Schlager, Roland Schlich, Isabella Premovi Silva, Christopher Spotl, Håkan Svedhem, Hans Thybo, Bert Vermeersen, David Webb, Jerzy Weber, Richard Worden. On 12 February 2004, the EGU signed the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities.
The EGU Executive Office moved to central Munich on 1 August 2010, and later expanded by hiring six more staff members in addition to the EGU Executive Secretary, Philippe Courtial. In August 2011, the EGU signed an agreement with the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and with the Aisa Oceania Geosciences Society (AOGS) with the aim to promote the cooperation between the institutions.
In June 2019, the EGU announced a new chapter in its history: the Union launched a new strategy and moved its Executive Office to new premises in the Berg am Laim area of Munich.
Conferences and meetings.
The European Geosciences Union convenes a yearly General Assembly. The first EGU General Assembly took place from 25 to 30 April 2004, in Nice, with the aim to gather together EGU members and other planetary, space and Earth scientists from all around the world. On this occasion the EGU also celebrated researchers for their contribution, with 21 Union and division prizes and medals. The EGU General Assembly moved to Vienna in April 2005 where it has since taken place annually, at the Austria Center Vienna. The first EGU co-sponsored geoscience meeting (the first Alexander von Humboldt conference) was held in Guayaquil. Afterwards, the co-sponsored programme expanded into conference series, meetings, workshops and training schools. The EGU Galileo Conferences cycle started in 2015 when the first call for proposals was launched.
At the 2019 meeting in Vienna, there were 5,531 oral, 9,432 poster, and 1,287 interactive content (PICO) presentations. Over 16,000 scientists from 113 countries participated in the conference Abstracts of presentations are published in the "Geophysical Research Abstracts" (print: , online: ). The 2018 EGU General Assembly hosted 15,075 scientists from 106 countries participated, of which 53% were under the age of 35 years. Over 17,000 abstracts were presented at the meeting.
Publications.
The first EGU newsletter came out in November 2002. The "Eggs" magazine became the EGU newsletter after the completing of the merging between EGS and EUG in 2003. The three-monthly newsletter was modernised in late 2012 and both its format and its name were changed in GeoQ. The necessity to give reports of its activities on a more regular basis, led the EGU to further change its newsletter format and name (now EGU newsletter) in January 2015. The actual newsletter is an e-mail version, having a monthly frequency. At the General Assembly, the EGU has a daily newsletter called EGU Today.
In 2010 the EGU released its official blog, which soon became a quick-to-read source of information about the EGU activities and on research in the Earth, planetary and space sciences fields. The blog has now grown to include division blogs and network blogs.
EGU has also published academic books and other publications. Since 2001, the EGU and Copernicus Publications have published a growing number of peer-reviewed open-access scientific journals:
Journals.
In October 2002 the first EGU journals were published by transferring the property of the EGS publications "Advances in Geosciences" ("ADGEO"), "Annales Geophysicae" ("ANGEO"), "Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics" ("ACP"), "Hydrology and Earth System Sciences" ("HESS"), "Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences" ("NHESS") and "Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics" ("NPG") – to the EGU. The open access journals "Biogeosciences" ("BG") and "Ocean Sciences" ("OS") had been launched via Copernicus Publications in March and November 2004, respectively. In 2005, EGU launched the open access journals "Climate of the Past" ("CP") and "eEarth" in July and October, respectively through Copernicus Publications. The latter was replaced by "Solid Earth" journal in 2009. The open access journals "The Cryosphere" ("TC") and "Geoscientific Model Development" ("GMD") were released in 2007 via Copernicus Publications. In June 2007, the EGU launched Imaggeo, an open access database featuring photos and videos relating geosciences. In August 2008, the "Atmospheric Measurement Techniques" ("AMT") journal was first published, and the journals "Solid Earth" ("SE") and "Earth System Dynamics" ("ESD") began publication in February and March 2010 respectively. In 2011, "Geoscientific Instrumentation, Methods and Data Systems" ("GI") was first published. On 7 April 2013 the open access journals "Earth Surface Dynamics" ("ESurf") and "SOIL" were launched via Copernicus Publications. In April 2018, EGU launched the open access journal "Geoscience Communication" ("GC") and the compilation "Encyclopedia of Geosciences" ("EG"), a collection of articles in between traditional review articles and online encyclopediae. EGU's newest journals are Geochronology, launched in April 2019, and "Weather and Climate Dynamics", launched in August 2019.
Awards.
The EGU bestows a number of annual awards and medals to recognise scientific achievements.
Four of these medals are at union level: 
The EGU also has four union awards:
At division level there are 27 medals for outstanding scientists and division awards for early career researchers. Each year Outstanding Student Poster and PICO Awards are selected for participating divisions.