[Board] should we be present with the board at the European > Geoscience Union General Assembly 3.-8.May 2020 Vienna > (Astrid Emde (OSGeo))

["Peter Löwe"]

Hi Board, Astrid, Maxi,

allow me to give a short update about latest news from EGU (European Geoscience Union) and the upcoming deadline for submissions for the annual General Assembly in Vienna (in short: there may be interesting alternatives for the Board to submitting a scientific abstract).

OSGeo has had a bridgehead at every annual EGU conference since 2012, starting with Splinter sessions (comparable to birds of a feather meetings), which eveolved into evening events (Townhalls) and was one of the drivers to create the Open Geoscience Committee, which is currently headed by Maxi Cannata and myself. Maxi and I are long term regulars at the EGU conference and have established good working relations with the EGU Division of Earth and Space Science Informatics, and also its twin-organisation AGU (Americn Geophysical Union). We're also trying to organise annual get togethers with the local OSGeo communities every year in Vienna.

One outcome of the efforts of the Open Geoscience Committee was the signing of a an MOU between AGU and OSGeo in 2018 (https://www.osgeo.org/foundation-news/osgeo-and-agu-sign-a-memorandum-of-understanding/). EGU doesn't do MOUs (yet).

Both the annual EGU and AGU GA events are massive events. EGU GA draws about 17.000 people in May in Vienna, AGU draws about 30.000 people in December in San Francisco.

Over 50% of the conference participants at each events are Early Career Scientists, so reach out efforts regarding FOSS and Open Science can have a lot of impact.

However, as the conferences are massive events, there is always a whirlwind/overload of scientific talks, with a lot of sessions happening in parallel. The current deadline for January 15 is (just) for scientific presentations. If the Board decides submit an abstract for a scientific presentation, like for the session about FOSS (ESSI Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) for Earth and Space Science), the best outcome would be a 10 minute presentation (one of over 5000 oral presentations (based on 2019 EGU conference statistics), or second-best either one of the over ten thousand poster- or PICO-presentations (quick online presentation).

There are alternatives. The annual OSgGo event (Townhall/Lunchbag) is not part of or competing with the scientific sessions, since its a side event: Last year there were "just" 388 side events, which makes it easier for conference participants to attend.

AGU|EGU just responded yesterday regarding a request from the Open Geoscience Committee, regarding the committees 2020 budget and options to improve the OSgeo footprint in AGU|EGU.

In a nutshell, this years EGu will have a helpdesk/"Ask me anything"-format (in parallel to the scientific programme), called "Data Fair". This concept has been field-tested at the last two AGU events and is now being adapted for Europe. The idea is to provide support and reduce anxieties about the values of Open Science / FAIR, including FOSS (communities, tools, licences).

IMHO:
0) We should push both for scientific presentations, side events AND helpdesk activities.
1) The programme for this Data (and Software!) Fair ist still under develeopment and independent from the January 15 deadline. AFAIK there were presentations at AGU as part of the Data Fair there.
2) OSGeo could reach out to AGU|EGU to become an active partner in the EGU "Fair", including talks by OSGeo board members, ask-a-guru support, for OSGeo-projects, etc.

I'm currently waiting for more feedback from EGU/ESSI and ESIP (https://www.esipfed.org/) about how they want to wing the Data Fair and will report back to the Open Geoscience Committee and the Board.

Best,
Peter


<peter.loewe at gmx.de>