IUGG Bureau Meeting Minutes

August 31-September 1, 2002 - Cape Town South Africa

Attendance: M Kono (President), U Shamir (Vice-President), JA Joselyn (Secretary-General), A Hansen (Treasurer), T Beer (Member), JY Chen (Member), H Gupta (Member), R Aucone (Assistant to the Secretary General), V Shannon (guest)

• Brief Reports of Activities since August 2001
• IUGG Membership
• Matters Arising from IUGG Bodies
• Matters Arising from ICSU and Inter-Union Bodies
• Special Committees
• IUGG 2003
• Progress Report and Discussion of IUGG Structure, Goals, and Objectives for the Quadrennium and Long-term
• All Other Business

Brief Reports of Activities since August 2001

1. The President
   • M Kono reported his activities with regard to appointments for Union lecturers, and the Nominating, Resolutions, Statutes and By-Laws, and the IGY+50 Committees. Other activities included recommendations for ICSU offices and visits to Association Assemblies.
2. The Vice-President
   • U Shamir has now recruited a full complement of seven young scientists from the Associations (each approximately 30 years of age and including 2 women) for the new Working Group: Geosciences: The Future (GTF). Countries represented include Columbia, Japan, South Africa, the U.K., and the U.S.A. "The future" is considered to be the next 30-50 years. Funding for the WG will be proposed from the IUGG Initiative budget.
3. The Secretary-General
   • All routine duties were carried out including monthly issues of the IUGG E-Journal.
   • Extraordinary matters are considered in detail below.
   • IUGG resolutions back to 1967 are now available on the web in both English and French.
4. The Treasurer
   • The Financial report for 2001 and for the first six months of 2002 was presented. IUGG finances are in a healthy state in spite of some serious arrears in dues payments. Savings have resulted from reductions in expenses for the President's, Secretary-General's and Treasurer's offices, and there was unanticipated income from the Birmingham General Assembly.
   • IUGG Yearbooks will no longer be sold beginning in 2004 because of the time and attention required by the Treasurer to collect payment, and because cost savings have been achieved that offset the income from sales.

IUGG Membership

• There are 65 Member Adhering Bodies with 281 units, totaling an incoming $401,830 USD. Eleven are in Observer status and 3 are in Associate status. Of the 11 in Observer status, the dues in arrears total to $112,165. Dues payments in US dollars has become difficult for some countries because of currency exchange and excessive local inflation.
• It was noted that the Statutes and By-Laws do not specify the length of time that an Adhering body can maintain Associate status.
• The growing practice of individual memberships within Associations was discussed. It was decided that this matter should be added to the agenda of the next Executive Committee meeting in Sapporo.
• There were no membership applications to consider.

Matters Arising from IUGG Bodies

• IAG has modified their Statutes and By-Laws (with the consent of the IUGG Secretary General) to permit individual memberships. They also changed their election procedures in order to save time at the Association business meetings; officers are now elected by postal vote by the National Correspondents in advance of the General Assembly.
• Both IAGA and IAVCEI have recently received grants from ICSU to pursue proposed projects.
• IAMAS and IAHS will hold a joint scientific assembly in 2005 in Beijing. Other Association scientific assemblies will be held in France (IAGA), Italy (IAPSO), and Chile (IASPEI and IAVCEI).
• SEDI (Studies of Earth's Deep Interior). SEDI's recent Assembly was held in the USA. Their next assembly in 2 years will be in Germany.
• CMG (Commission on Mathematical Geophysics). CMG has new leadership and new interest in improved relationships with the Associations.
• Geophysical Risk and Sustainability (GeoRisk). The first GeoRisk conference was held in Budapest, Hungary, in June, 2002. This was a joint meeting with Euroscience, which includes social as well as physical scientists. A major outcome of the meeting was the "Budapest Manifesto on Risk Science and Sustainability." The Bureau agreed to support and promote this document.

Matters Arising from ICSU and Inter-Union Bodies

A new ICSU Executive Director, Dr. Thomas Rosswall, began work this year. ICSU was an active participant in the World Summit on Sustainable Development and their website has improved dramatically recently. The ICSU triennial General Assembly will be held September 24-28 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; M Kono, JA Joselyn, and H Gupta will attend. The following items were discussed.

• FAGS - Upon the advice of the CSPR (Committee on Scientific Planning and Research), funding for the Federation of Astronomical and Geophysical Data Analysis Services (FAGS) has been discontinued. It was decided that IUGG should bring up this ICSU decision to the Unions meeting in Rio and suggest that alternatives be discussed to the drastic action now proposed.
• Water issues. ICSU has decided to terminate SCOWAR (Scientific Committee on Water Analysis and Research) without seeking input from either IUGG or present SCOWAR officers. There seems to be a lack of coordination of ICSU's activities with regard to water issues.
• Natural hazards. Similar comments were made regarding the lack of coordination within ICSU concerning programmes dealing with natural hazards.
• ICSU Mission Statement. A new Mission Statement does not adequately acknowledge ICSU's scientific base of support.
• Nominations for new ICSU officers and Committee members. IUGG has made several suggestions for ICSU Committees.

The International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) is a sister earth science union within ICSU. Prof. Ed de Mulder, President of IUGS, sent a message to M Kono inviting participation especially in their International Year of Planet Earth (IYPE) initiative, which they hope to have the UN declare for 2004. It was decided to strongly support this IUGS programme, but not to initiate activities. Instead, we will look for existing complementary activities that naturally fall under the IYPE umbrella. It is possible that IYPE could extend to 2007 and be incorporated into IUGG's IGY+50 celebration. A small working group chaired by H Gupta will consider the possibilities.

Special Committees

• Nominations Committee - Klaus-Peter Schwarz (Chair) reported that 2 nominations had been received for President, none for Vice-president, one for Treasurer, 3 for Bureau member (although one is incomplete), and 2 for the Finance Committee. More nominations are needed and M Kono will send a message to the Executive Committee stressing this need. The office of Secretary-General is not up for election in 2003 because that office was elected for 8 years in 1999.
• Resolutions Committee - H Gupta (India) is Chair of the Committee. Other members are Georges Balmino (France), Robert Vincent (Australia), and Kathy Whaler (UK).
• Special Committee - IGY+50; Although this will be an important and highly visible activity of IUGG in the coming years, a small committee is all that is necessary until the Sapporo General Assembly. Confirmed persons on the committee are D Baker (IAGA, USA), I Mueller (IAG, USA), D. Giardini (IASPEI, Italy), and M Kuhn (IAMAS, Austria). Additional names were suggested; the Chair of the Committee will be M Kuhn.
• Special Committee - IUGG Statutes and By-Laws
  Uri Shamir has agreed to be the Chair of this special committee to handle submitted changes to the Statutes and By-laws. Additional names were suggested and they will be contacted.

IUGG 2003

• The opening ceremony is now on Wednesday July 2nd instead of Monday.
• The Assembly LOC had asked if there were any objections to accepting paid advertisements in the Circulars or Programmes. There were none.
• Registration fees. The fees and the timetables for various levels are now set. The LOC insists that there be an age limit as well as the "degree date+5 years" rule for the young scientists. IAG is charging an additional $60 to every IAG registrant, and IAHS also charges more for their registrants to pay for a volume of pre-published Proceedings. This means that persons from the same country registering at the same time may pay different fees. Following discussion it was agreed that this matter should be raised at the next Executive Committee meeting.
• Non-interference with Union Lectures. While there are no scientific sessions in conflict with Union lectures, some Associations have scheduled executive committees meetings in conflict. While the Bureau cannot insist, we can suggest that these conflicts be avoided.
• National Reports. What are the requirements for the national reports (length, inclusion, electronic version)? It was decided that in so far as possible, the national reports should be electronic. The IUGG Secretariat will assist those National Committees who are not able to provide an electronic copy by scanning and uploading any printed material they provide. In this way, it is not necessary to be specific about the format of a national report.
• Scientific Programme. A. Nishida (Chair of the Scientific Programme Committee) has formulated a draft plan for the scientific sessions, including room assignments. This plan will be subject to modification following the abstract deadline. There will be a Programme Committee meeting in Tokyo on approximately March 7-8-9 to finalize all arrangements.

IUGG Draft Budget 2004 - 2007

• On June 12, 2002, a questionnaire was sent to the Executive Committee members, including the Secretaries-General, regarding specific aspects of the draft IUGG budget for 2004-2007. All responses were compiled and following extensive discussion, a draft budget was prepared for further discussion by the Finance Committee and the Executive Committee.
• Birmingham Surplus - the surplus is composed of $36,000 paid by the Royal Society as our share of the earned surplus, plus $18,000 that was collected from individuals who did not specify affiliation to an Association. It was decided that these funds should be entirely allocated towards the 2003 General Assembly. Some of the funds will be disbursed to each Association to defray their costs to attend the Scientific Programme Committee meeting in Japan in March, 2003. The remainder will be allocated for travel assistance to the 2003 General Assembly.

Progress Report and Discussion of IUGG Structure, Goals, and Objectives for the Quadrennium and Long-term

• U Shamir led the discussion of issues identified by the survey. A report of issues and actions (completed and in progress) will be presented to the Council in Sapporo.

All Other Business

• A letter indicating an official expression of interest to bid for the 2007 General Assembly has been received from the Australian Academy of Science. The proposed venue is Melbourne. Other bids may be forthcoming (the deadline for bids is the end of this calendar year).

The meeting adjourned at about 5 PM on September 1. On September 2, the Bureau members met with Dr. A.F. Spilhaus, Jr. and Prof. M. Hamlin, representing the IUGG Finance Committee. Topics discussed included a draft budget for 2004-2007.