What to do at EGU  — a guide for early-career scientists

The Young Scientists' Meeting Corner at the EGU 2015 General Assembly (Credit: EGU/Stephanie McClellan)

Are you going to the EGU General Assembly in Vienna next week? Check out these events for early career scientists.

To remind you when and where all these nice events and activities take place, you can directly view and import them in your electronic calendar (Isn’t it wonderful?! :-))

Social event for Early Career Cryosphere Scientists!

If you cannot make it to anything else; make it to our social event, which is organised together with APECS. After the short course on Wednesday evening (see below) we will head to the Wieden Bräu for some food, drinks and networking. We will be there at approximately 20.30. You do not have to sign up in advance, but if you know that you are coming it would be very helpful if you could let us know by filling in this doodle.

Here you can even find the event on facebook.

Meeting about the Cryosphere Blog

If you like this blog, are curious about it and would like to contribute to it  — directly and/or indirectly — please come and meet us on Tuesday the 19th of April at 12.15.

Short courses

The idea behind the short courses is to give an insight into a certain area and/or the applications/uses/pitfalls in and around the topic. There are a lot of very interesting courses at this year’s meeting and below we have highlighted a few of them. Why not drop by and meet the experts who have kindly agreed to participate and share their knowledge?

Cryosphere short courses

Using Ice core chronologies: Dos and don’ts  

Assoc. Prof. Anders M. Svensson from the Centre for Ice and Climate, University of Copenhagen will tell you all you need to know about ice cores. The course is an introduction to ice core science with an emphasis on how ice cores are dated, what the main uncertainties are, and what to be aware of when comparing with other records. The course is especially of interest to researchers who do not work directly in the ice-core community, but who find themselves using ice core data for comparison with other climate data and time-series, and who would like an introduction to what ice core records can and cannot provide.
Time and date: Wednesday the 20th of April, 19:00–20:00
Place: Room 0.31

Remark: This short course takes place just before the social event and it is said that learning heaps of stuff about ice cores is the best way to start your evening 🙂

The Cryosphere — Publishing Your Work: Meet The Editor!

Publishing your research in peer-reviewed journals is a key skill for anyone wanting a career in research. In this short course scientific editor of “The Cryosphere”, Prof. Frank Pattyn, Université libre Bruxelles, will give insights into what an editor is looking for in a good publication. In addition, Anna Wenzel and Xenia van Edig, editorial staff at Copernicus Publications, will give you a view behind the scenes of publishing.
The short course covers the ins and outs of writing a good cover letter, how to respond to reviewers comments and how to pitch your research to journals. It will also give you an idea of how to get involved in journal reviewing and editing yourself. In addition, the course will provide insights into the two-stage review process of The Cryosphere and the editorial workflows of Copernicus Publications. The course is aimed at both new researchers who want to know where to begin and also those with a few publications under their belts, who would like to know how to get more involved in the wider world of scientific publishing.
Time and date: Friday the 22nd of April, 13:30–14:30
Place: Room -2.85

Climate of the past – Meet the editors

This short course is an open discussion with the chief editor of the EGU journals Climate of the Past, Professor Carlo Barbante, and Earth System Dynamics, Professor Axel Kleidon. We will discuss topics including: open access publishing; the review process, from submission to publication; how to review a paper; top tips for paper writing and submission, as well as an open question and answer session. Scientists from all divisions and at all stages of their career are encouraged to attend.
Time and date: Wednesday the 20th Apr, 17:30–19:00
Place: Room 0.31

Introduction to climate modelling

Climate modelling is an extremely powerful tool for the quantification of earth system dynamics, allowing the reconstruction of past environments and projections of future change. In this workshop, an introduction to and discussion of the development and application of models at different spatial and temporal scales will be discussed and illustrated. Professor Christoph Raible is a senior scientist of Climate and Environmental Physics at the University of Bern. In this workshop, he will share his broad experience of the field of climate modelling and its application to climates of the past, present and future.
Time and date: Thursday the 21st of April, 19:00–20:00
Place: Room 0.31

More general short courses

Of course there also many short courses of general interest for young researchers. Here are a few suggestions, but you can find more in this blog post or in the program:

The communicating geoscientist 

This short course will focus on the various ways scientists can communicate science and do public engagement. A panel of scientists who do different types of science outreach :
* outreach to schools
* science videos
* blogging
will share their experiences.
Time and date: Tuesday, the 19th of April, 15:30–17:00
Place: Room -2.85

Working at the science policy interface 

This short course will focus on how scientific research is incorparated into policies. 3 esteemed speakers will share their experiences with science policy at the European and global levels.
-Valérie Masson-Delmotte : Head of the IPCC AR6 Working Group 1 / Laboratoire des sciences du climat et l’environnement
-Katja Rosenbohm: Head of Communications at the European Environment Agency
-Jens Otto : Head of Resource Efficiency, Sustainability and Health at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre
Time and date : Thursday, the 21st of April, 12:15–13:15
Place: Room -2.85

ECR Lounge

This year the early career researchers lounge is located on red level (level 2) of the conference centre. The lounge has free tea and coffee and is a place to hang out and refuel before emerging yourself in the hectic experience that is the EGU General Assembly. It is also a good place for networking and meeting other early career scientists in your field (or indeed in another field).

ECR Forum

Come along and meet your early career scientist representatives, find out what the EGU does for early career scientist and take the chance to become more involved in the Union. This forum is a great opportunity to let us know what you would like from the EGU, find out how you can get involved in the Assembly and meet other scientists in the EGU early career scientist community.
Time and date: Wednesday the 20th of April, 12:15–13:15
Place: Room L7

Am I early career?

If you have made it this far into my post, you probably are. Officially the EGU defines an Early Career Scientist (ECS[9]) as an undergraduate or postgraduate (Masters/PhD) student or a scientist who has received his or her highest degree (BSc, MSc, or PhD) within the past seven years  (where appropriate, up to one year of parental leave time may be added per child).
However, everyone is of course more than welcome to attend the short courses and contribute to the discussion!

What else?

The General Assembly can be an overwhelming experience. Here are my tips for surviving a week of full on science
Take advantage of the lunch breaks and go for a walk! When you exit the main conference building turn left and head for the river, or turn right and you will find that behind the concrete buildings there is a very nice park.
Go to a session outside your field or area of interest. Even in completely different research topics, I often find similarities in methods or applications that inspire me to think differently about my own research.

Explore Vienna and treat yourself to a bit of time off to recover during the week. If your programme is completely packed, then hurry to the U-Bahn in a lunch break (the ticket is after all included in the registration fee) and go to the centre of town. Half an hour’s stroll will give you at least an impression of the city and you will not leave Vienna with the feeling that you have really only seen the conference centre.

I hope to see you there!

Edited by Sophie Berger and Emma Smith