Abstract
Abstract. In the early months of 2020, as the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) swept across the globe, millions of people were required to make drastic changes to their lives to help contain the impact of the virus. Among those changes, scientific conferences of every type and size were forced to cancel or postpone in order to protect public health. Included in these was the European Geosciences Union (EGU) 2020 General Assembly, an annual conference for Earth, planetary, and space scientists, scheduled to be held in Vienna, Austria, in May 2020. After a 6-week period of changing the format to an online alternative, attendees of the newly designed EGU20: Sharing Geoscience Online took part in the first geoscience conference of its size to go fully online. This paper explores the feedback provided by participants following this experimental conference and identifies four key themes that emerged from an analysis of the following questions: what did attendees miss from a regular meeting, and to what extent did going online impact the event itself, both in terms of challenges and opportunities? The themes identified are “connecting”, “engagement”, “environment”, and “accessibility”. These themes include concepts relating to discussions of the value of informal connections and spontaneous scientific discovery during conferences, the necessity of considering the environmental cost of in-person meetings, and the opportunities for widening participation in science by investing in accessibility. The responses in these themes cover the spectrum of experiences of participants, from positive to negative, and raise important questions about what conference providers of the future will need to do to meet the needs of the scientific community in the years following this coronavirus outbreak.
Highlights
1.1 The General Assembly of the European Geosciences UnionThe European Geosciences Union (EGU) is Europe’s leading organisation for Earth, planetary, and space science researchers
This was formalised into the following two research questions (RQs): RQ1: what did people miss from a regular General Assembly?
We discuss each of these emergent categories, how they relate to RQ1 (“What did people miss from a regular General Assembly?”) and RQ2 (“To what extent did going online impact the event itself, both in terms of challenges and opportunities?”), and how they compare to other research that has been conducted in terms of the transitioning of large academic conferences from physical to virtual spaces
Summary
1.1 The General Assembly of the European Geosciences UnionThe European Geosciences Union (EGU) is Europe’s leading organisation for Earth, planetary, and space science researchers. In approximately April or May, the EGU holds its annual General Assembly in Vienna, Austria It is the biggest geoscience conference in Europe. In addition to the scientific research presented, the EGU’s General Assembly provides researchers with networking and career development opportunities, training, and the ability to connect with their extended global community – both personally and professionally. This is especially key for the early career scientists (fundamentally, researchers who are within 7 years of their most recent degree), who, in 2020, made up 56 % of the EGU’s membership
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
