Each year at the General Assembly, the EGU organizes a limited number of union-wide keynote sessions or Geopanels (GP), formerly known as Union Symposia (US) and Great Debates (GDB). These events are intended to be cutting-edge, focusing on current topics, and of interest to a broad range of the Earth, planetary, and space sciences. They can bring forward unresolved and highly debated research topics with an important broad scientific impact.

Geopanels (GP) can focus on research and innovation topics as well as on outstanding issues that matter for research, such as education, outreach, promoting equality, diversity, and inclusion, interfacing science with society, practitioners, and policy makers.

Geopanel sessions are open to registered participants (on-site and online) of the EGU General Assembly.

Geopanel session structure

  1. A session consists of one time block of 1 hour and 45 minutes.
  2. Typically, a panel has 3 to 5 members (solicited speakers) in addition to the moderator. It is up to the conveners to decide on the speakers and exact timing of the session's contributions.
  3. Solicited speakers do not submit an abstract.
  4. Financial support to solicited speakers for travel/accommodation and/or registration must be requested by the session conveners using a designated form (see conditions below).

Geopanel sessions are live-streamed and recorded for on-demand viewing by registered conference attendants during the conference viewing material period (i.e., during and in the weeks following the General Assembly). They will also be archived online after the General Assembly for general viewing, subject to agreement from all speakers/panellists and the convener team.

If more than one Geopanel are proposed on the same area or topic (as decided by the Programme Committee Co-chairs), the organizers will be put in contact with each other and will need to negotiate their subject boundaries, possibly adjusting their title and description to be more specific within their theme. Then, links to the other event/s will be provided in the session descriptions, to encourage cross-disciplinarity.

Submitting a proposal for a Geopanel session

  1. Carefully read the general convener guidelines and rules.
  2. To ensure the broadest representation of ideas and viewpoints, the EGU strongly encourages diversity in career stage, gender, geographical origin, and scientific approaches for Geopanel speakers/panellists and for the convener teams.
  3. One can submit a maximum of 1 Geopanel as lead convener. (Co-)convenership for a Geopanel counts as an additional one in the EGU general rule of a maximum of 3 (co-)convenerships in total within the entire General Assembly programme, with one as lead convener.
  4. Conveners should have their sessions ready to be included in the final programme (description, list of speakers/panellists, titles of talks, timing of the session, etc.) by mid-February. Any further session modification can be done following the general guidelines for conveners.

Moreover, proposals of Geopanels need to include the following additional information in the proposal form (this information is not public):

  1. A justification of the union-wide character of the proposed session, indicating which EGU Programme Group(s) is/are more closely related to the proposed topic.
  2. A contact person in the Programme Committee or EGU Council (already contacted or to be contacted).
  3. A preliminary list of speakers/panellists, where it can be indicated if any have already been contacted and/or agreed in principle to participate in the session in case it is accepted.

By submitting a proposal, conveners agree to abide by the EGU code of conduct.

Financial support for Geopanel sessions

  1. While Geopanel speakers, panellists, conveners, and moderators do not automatically receive discounted registration fees or travel reimbursement, limited financial support is available to facilitate their participation when justified.
  2. Sessions accepted for the EGU General Assembly programme will receive a financial support budget for up to 3 speakers per Geopanel session. This support is generally intended for speakers who are not geoscientists, who would otherwise not attend the EGU General Assembly, and/or who do not have funds to cover their expenses.
  3. Requests can include support for registration fees, up to 2 nights of accommodation (up to €150 per night), and/or travel (up to €400).
  4. Financial support requests are subject to approval by the EGU Treasurer and the EGU Executive Secretary, under recommendation of the Programme Committee.
  5. Conveners must identify the speakers/panellists to receive financial support as well as the conditions of said support via a designated form, to be circulated by the EGU office. Conveners are responsible to maintain the financial support budget, as outlined above.

Organizing a Geopanel session

The EGU Programme Committee will review all Geopanel proposals, with the goal of a final selection which represents a diverse range of subjects, relevant and of interest to a wide proportion of the Union membership. Conveners who proposed a Geopanel session during the public call-for-session-proposals will receive a status update for their session by late-October. Selected proposals will be provided with further organizational information and form links, and can then proceed with the following steps taking into account the conference deadlines and milestones:

  1. Officially approach speakers with an invitation to take part in the Geopanel session either on-site in Vienna or virtually.
  2. Identify which speakers require support (reminder: support is intended for those who would not typically attend the EGU General Assembly/don’t have the means to do so). A designated form must be filled by the convener on behalf of each speaker to receive support, based on the guidelines above. It is the responsibility of the convener to maintain the financial support budget.
  3. Ensure that all session contributors (speakers, conveners, moderators) have filled the Geopanel recording permissions form, in accordance to EU GDPR.
  4. Liaise with the speakers to build a cohesive session programme, including the sequence and duration for presentations and sufficient time for discussion and both pre-appointed and audience questions.
  5. Provide any scheduling requests during the SOII phase, open mid-January.
  6. Update the session information, such as the session description, convener team, and session speakers, using the session modification tool. The final information should be populated by mid-February (in alignment with the closing of the SOIII phase) in preparation of the launch of the detailed programme.
  7. Upload the presentations either by compiling them into one file to be uploaded as a session material or by instructing the speakers to do so individually (this is possible once appointed speaker/contributor in the system).
  8. Advertise the session to the community to ensure good attendance!