If you recently attended the European Geosciences Union (EGU)’s General Assembly, you may have discovered that EGU is much more than an annual conference. Or perhaps, you recently joined EGU as a member, and are now wondering: How can I become more involved in the EGU community?
My name is Josephine Cakuru, and I am the Community Development Assistant of the EGU Executive Office. Building upon my experience working in community development, I will highlight some of the most common questions I have heard from members and share some practical ways to stay connected, build skills, and engage with the Union throughout the year, including funding opportunities, community resources, how to get involved with your scientific community, and discover our early career scientist network.
Funding opportunities
One of the questions that came up during the 2026 General Assembly was whether EGU offers study scholarships. Whilst EGU is not a funding body for research, the Union invests in activities and initiatives that support the community all year round. These include financial support for:
- Public Engagement Grants,
- Science Journalism Fellowship,
- Cutting-edge Galileo Conferences,
- Topically focused Conference series,
- Sponsoring specialist training schools,
- Developing high education teaching resources,
- Working as a scientific advisor in the EU Parliament,
- EGU Geoscience Days science communication events,
- EGU Special Activity Fund for “out-of-the-box”, high profile activities,
- and delivering online workshops series for Early Career Scientist career development, science-for-policy, peer-review training, and science communication.
For more detailed overview of available support, please visit: EGU support beyond the General Assembly: funding, workshops and more this Summer.
EGU resources
EGU has a library of knowledge and guidance to support its members, including multiple different topics and formats. Take advantage of these resources, and in some cases, you can make your own contributions. These include:
- Imaggeo, our open-source community-contributed resource for geoscience photos and videos
- Our monthly newsletter, the Loupe
- EGU YouTube, for webinar recordings, podcasts and more
- EGU news, for Union updates and opportunities
- EGU blogs, for community-lead content
- Publications Highlights, from our scientific journals
- The EGU Jobs page, which lists current open research positions
- Educational resources for higher and university-level education
- Our interface toolkits, such as for engaging the media and policymakers
Join your community via EGU Divisions
Better know EGU’s communities by joining one (or more) of EGU’s scientific divisions
EGU is made up of 22 Scientific Divisions that cover studies of the Earth, planetary, or space sciences, from Atmospheric Sciences to Tectonics and Structural Geology.
Get involved with your scientific division by:
- Attending or presenting at such as seminar-style Campfires and webinars,
- Reading and writing division blogs,
- Following their social media accounts,
- Celebrating your peers and nominating them for division awards and medals,
- Providing feedback, voting and meeting other members at the annual General Assembly division meeting.
Staying in touch
Get informed about upcoming events and opportunities by subscribing to their mailing lists and following their divisions’ social media accounts to stay informed about upcoming events and opportunities.
Many members began by observing and following updates, before gradually becoming more involved.
Volunteer for your division
Scientific divisions are run by volunteers who organise the above alongside other activities and managing their division’s programme for each General Assembly. You can have a say in shaping these activities by becoming a volunteer as well!
Division volunteers often support particular initiatives by adopting an officer role, such as the Early Career Scientist (ECS) representative, the voice of the division’s ECS members who organises ECS activities, and Science-Policy Officers, who keep members informed about opportunities for impact at the science-policy interface.
You can also steer your community and have a say in the direction of the Union by becoming a division president. Each division is led by a president who also has a vote on the EGU Council. Because of this vote, the division president is elected during the Autumn EGU elections.
Get involved as an Early Career Scientist
Photo Pfluegl/EGU
One of the highlights of the General Assembly for me this year was the quality of conversations during the networking events and the practice sessions associated with the short courses. I also had the opportunity to speak with some of the Early Career Scientist (ECS) Representatives about why they first joined EGU and what encouraged them to stay engaged over the year. One common answer among them was that a key motivation for getting engaged was the importance of the connections that they had built within the community.
An Early Career Scientist (ECS) is a student, a PhD candidate, or a practising scientist who obtained their highest academic certificate (e.g. BSc, MSc, or PhD) within the past seven years. If you are an ECS, then you already have an entry point into the community!
EGU’s ECS community is supported through a number of initiatives, such as:
- Join community discussions in your division’s online events, such as seminar-style Campfires,
- Celebrate the achievements of your ECS peers by nominating them for Outstanding ECS awards,
- Get financial support for in-person training schools,
- Attend, or even get funded to deliver, some of the many online Autumn workshops aimed at ECS, free for EGU members,
- Get transport costs covered and fee waivers for the General Assembly via the Roland Schlich travel support scheme
- Get guidance on your first General Assembly, or share your experience with Assembly novices, through the peer-support scheme.
ECS Feedback and updates:
Have an idea or feedback about how EGU supports the ECS community? Contact the ECS Union representative, who co-ordinates the division ECS representatives and helps steer the EGU by voting on the EGU Council.
A good first step is to subscribe to your division’s ECS mailing list.
Volunteer as an ECS
Organise ECS division initiatives by volunteering as par to a division’s ECS team or be the voice for your ECS community by becoming an ECS representative! Across EGU’s scientific divisions, ECS Representatives work to advocate for the voices of the early career members during the Assembly and throughout the year. The ECS teams also coordinate several division initiatives, including division blogs, online events like seminar-style campfires and webinars, and networking opportunities.
Help to run union-wide ECS initiatives by supporting the ECS representatives’ network – the division-spanning group which together addresses common topics which affect our ECS members, from visibility to inclusion. Find out more by contacting the ECS Union representative.
Interested in getting involved?
The most important thing is simply to start.
You might start by:
- Enjoying the benefits of EGU membership, such as access to financial support, lower registration costs at geoscience meetings, discounts for publishing with EGU journals, and more!
- Subscribing to the EGU monthly newsletter
- Engaging with your division by following the community’s ECS mailing list or their social media accounts
- Contacting one of your division’s blog editors if you are interested in submitting a blog post for your division
- Registering for one upcoming webinar or campfire on the EGU Webinars and Online events
- Sending any suggestions for webinar topics to webinars@egu.eu.
If you would like to explore more ways to get involved, visit the EGU’s volunteer opportunities page and see what matches your interests.
