To
Irina M. Artemieva, President, president@egu.eu
Peter van der Beek, President-elect
David Fernández-Blanco, ECS Union representative, ecs@egu.eu
Philippe Courtial, Executive Secretary, executive-secretary@egu.eu
Alice-Agnes Gabriel, Seismology Division President, sm@egu.eu
Dear EGU leadership,
The convener guidelines and rules state "(Co-)conveners cannot be the presenting author, and are discouraged from being a co-author, in oral presentations in a session they convene" (https://www.egu24.eu/guidelines/conveners.html.
A different set of rules was posted on the website during the session abstract submission period, which did not contain this rule. See this snapshot of the website from Sep 23 2023: https://web.archive.org/web/20230923000517/https://www.egu24.eu/guidelines/conveners.html
We, early-career scientist (ECS) conveners and co-conveners of sessions in the seismology section, including co-organised sessions, for the upcoming EGU 2024, therefore made the decision to convene before we were aware of this rule. This puts us in a difficult position, where we have committed to help convening the sessions but instead may prefer to give oral presentations in them. Apart from the unexpected change in rules, we also have fundamental concerns about the rule itself.
We as ECS take part in convenership to gain visibility in the community, expand our professional networks, and also as a service to the community by hosting high-quality sessions at EGU to enable other researchers to present their work. At the same time, we expect to be able to present our scientific work unfettered, which this rule disallows. Especially at early career stages, oral presentations are crucial to reach a broad audience.
We are likely to convene a session in a field that our research is focused on and thus we are also likely to want to present in our own sessions and be affected by this rule disproportionately. The negative impact this rule has on our career development affects the future of EGU negatively, as well. In the appendix, we list explicit reasons for this.
In an anonymous survey among the ECS conveners in the seismology section we found that 65% (out of 42 replies) indicate they are less likely to convene a session in the future or have already decided to not convene a session again due to this rule (see attached).
We kindly ask EGU to reconsider their stance on this rule. As an immediate measure, we hope EGU will follow the first set of rules posted until the session proposal deadline. In the long term, we hope that EGU will exclude ECS from the rule, or remove it altogether.
Respectfully,
- Sven Schippkus (convener session SM5.2)
- Charlotte Bruland (convener session SM5.3)
- Leonardo Colavitti (convener session TS5.1)
- Yesim Cubuk-Sabuncu (convener session SM5.2)
- Clément Esteve (convener session SM6.2)
- Simona Gabrielli (convener session TS5.1)
- Álvaro González (convener session NH4.3/SM8)
- Gizem İzgi (convener session SM3.3)
- Richard Kramer (convener session SM5.3)
- Johanna Lehr (convener session SM3.3)
- Fabian Lindner (convener session GM2.1)
- Afonso Loureiro (convener session SM3.2)
- Peter Makus (convener session SM5.2)
- Jonas Preine (convener session SM6.5)
- Johannes Rembe (convener session GMPV2.3)
- Geneviève Savard (convener session SM6.2)
- Josefine Umlauft (convener session GM2.1)
- Janneke van Ginkel (convener session GM2.1 and NH4.4)
- Qingyu Wang (convener session SM5.2 and SM4.3)
Appendix
Oral presentations at EGU tend to reach a different, larger audience than poster presentations. Therefore, removing the option for ECS to give oral presentations in the sessions they convene, will reduce visibility for their own research in their research community. This rule can negatively affect the career development of ECS due to:
- Lower number of citations
- Fewer opportunities to establish collaborations
- Less visibility for future or ongoing job applications
- Less opportunity to convince potential reviewers for publications or proposals
This rule can negatively affect EGU due to:
- ECS perceive this rule as lack of appreciation for invested time and effort
- ECS may decide not convene a session again
- ECS may discourage others from convening sessions
- ECS may be discouraged from convening a session multiple years in a row, which would result in lower quality sessions organized by conveners with less experience
- Fewer interested and committed conveners in coming years, particularly among ECS
- Fewer qualified and motivated candidates for other positions within EGU in the future
Survey results:
