REGIONAL'99 IGCP MEETING IN PRAGUE

 

Regional Scientific Meeting of IGCP Representatives of the European Countries

Prague, Czech Republic, June 7-9, 1999

 

Several photographs from the session (photographs by J. Brozek)

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Recapitulation of the programme:

 

DAY 1 - June 7, Monday:

Opening addresses: Mr. Venera - Ministry of the Environment CR, Mr. Pasava - Chairman, CzNC IGCP, Mr. Babuska - IGCP Secretary, UNESCO Paris, Mrs. Hodanova - Czech Commission for UNESCO, Mr. Ruzicka - Director, Czech Geological Survey

Organization of the Meeting by Mr. Hladil, Secretary, CzNC IGCP, with Mrs. Zuskova, Mrs. Riedlova and Mr. Masek

Scientific Reports of IGCP Project Leaders: major highlights of the IGCP 405 (Mr. Sulovsky),

IGCP 423 (Mr. Cermak) and IGCP 429 (Mr. Pasava and Mr. Kribek)

Brief Scientific Review Reports on IGCP major results in the participating countries (10 minutes each)

Joint discussions and dinner at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs CR

 

DAY 2 - June 8, Tuesday:

Full day field trip, discussions, and manifestation of results constraints and new approaches in geosciences.

 

DAY 3 - June 9, Wednesday:

Brief Scientific Review Reports on IGCP major results in the participating countries - continuation.

Presentations and discussions of new IGCP initiatives, with MAB, IHP, ILP involvement

General discussion.

Conclusions and recommendations.

Informal discussion after lunch.

 

Purpose, objectives and expected outputs:

 

In the past, several IGCP Sub-Regional and Regional Meetings of IGCP Representatives have been successfully organised in various regions of the world. In 1997, Representatives of Alpine, Adriatic, Carpathian and neighbouring regions gathered in Budapest, Hungary where Czech Republic has been encouraged to consider the organising of the next meeting. The meeting of the Czech IGCP National Committee, held in June 97 in Prague, has positively met this offer and decided to apply UNESCO for Participation Program to be able to secure successful organisation of the Regional Scientific Meeting of European IGCP Representatives in the period from June 7 to June 9, 1999 in Prague. Czech IGCP National Committee in the co-operation with the Czech Commission for UNESCO and Czech Geological Survey extended invitation to this meeting to IGCP Representatives from all European countries.

Main goal of this international gathering can be briefly summarised in the following text:

- to inform through scientific review presentations about IGCP activities and major results in individual countries

- to present and discuss ideas for new IGCP proposals in order to help our society in solving major issues and attract as many countries as possible

- to help in promoting IGCP activities on national and international levels

- to strengthen personal links among specialists, co-ordinating IGCP

activities in individual countries

A two-day meeting will be accompanied by 1-day field visit .

Brief evaluation of the project including benefits obtained:

 

Representatives of 15 countries attended the meeting (Austria, Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland and United Kingdom). The list of participants is enclosed.

 

The meeting was started by the opening addresses of Zdenek Venera - Director of the Department of Geology, Ministry of the Environment, Czech Republic, Vladislav Babuška - the former IGCP Secretary (UNESCO), representing W. Eder - Director, Division of Earth Sciences (UNESCO), Olga Hodanová - Representative of the Czech Commission for UNESCO, Milos Ruzicka - Director of the Czech Geological Survey and Jan Pašava - Chairman, Czech IGCP National Committee.

After the official opening, Jindrich Hladil, Secretary of the Czech IGCP National Committee has invited leaders of the IGCP 405, 428 and 429 - projects co-ordinated from the Czech Republic, who presented brief scientific reports.

Representatives of the Czech MAB and IHP National Committees took part in this meeting and introduced their activities related to IGCP (e.g. IGCP 429 which has IGCP and MAB co-leaders).

Than, the short summary reports on IGCP activities were presented in alphabetical order of countries by individual national representatives. They focused on update of the IGCP National Committees Summary Reports.

The Austrian representative encouraged participants to support Austrian candidacy for the next IGC in 2004. The representative of Belarus, distributed newly published flyer (Garetsky, R.G. and Kuznecov, V.I. and Zui, V.I., 1999: National Committee of Belarus for the International Geological Correlation Programme: scientific achievements in 1990-1995 and prospect. Institute of Geological Sciences, of the Academy of Sciences of Belarus, 56 pp., Minsk.), documenting practical significance of IGCP research for Belarus.

The Bulgarian representative talked about the Bulgarian participation in the IGCP 369, 379, 421 and 429.

1998 was the fourth year of the existence of the Croatian National IGCP Committee and the Croatian participation was restricted, after the Croatian representative to the active involvement in the IGCP 356, 360, 369, 376 and 393. Another important information was that after several years the Croatian IGCP National Committee is included as a separate board in the framework of the Croatian Academy of Science.

In 1998, the Czech IGCP National Committee co-ordinated scientific activities in nine IGCP (369, 363, 384, 386, 405, 410, 421, 428, 429) of which IGCP 405, 428 and 429 have international leaders from the Czech Republic. New elections carried out in early 1999 confirmed J. Pašava (Chairman) and J. Hladil (Secretary) till 2001. A closer co-operation between the Czech IGCP, MAB and IHP Committees should result in the formulation and submission of a joint complex IGCP research project in the future.

The French representative highlighted the IGCP-IHP-MAB-IOP co-operative programme on the methodology of the management of the coastal zone. German representative announced that after 26 years, Prof. W. Ziegler retired from the position of the chairman. Prof. F. Steininger (Museum of Natural Sciences in Frankfurt) took over this position. In 1998, German scientists participated in IGCP 341, 346, 351, 354, 362, 367, 368, 369, 373, 376, 378, 380, 381, 382, 386, 391, 408, 410, 413, 415, 418, 420, 421, 428 and 429. Successful co-operation of the German IGCP WGs continued with ODP, ILP, IGBP, IDNDR and ICDP.

The Hungarian representative reported on the active participation in three IGCP (384, 429 and 360) of which IGCP 384 is internationally co-ordinated from Hungary.

The Italian representative noted the active participation in eleven IGCP (362, 369, 378, 379, 382, 393, 400, 410, 414, 418 and 421) of which IGCP 369, 393 and 414 are co-ordinated from Italy. He also talked about advantages of wider involvement of Internet and electronic publications (e.g. CD-ROMs).

The Polish representative briefly summarised the Polish participation in the field of IGCP.

The representative of the Slovak IGCP National Committee introduced a list of IGCP Projects with active participation of Slovak scientists. A newly approved IGCP 442 on Raw Materials of Neolithic Artefacts is co-ordinated by Slovak scientist.

The Slovenian representative informed about the 98 active participation of Slovenian scientists in seven IGCP Projects ( 286, 379, 386, 393, 404 and no. 405. In 1999, next to the above-mentioned projects, also studies in the frame of the IGCP 429 are taking place. At the end of his speech the Slovenian representative offered to search for a possibility to host the next IGCP Regional Scientific Meeting in 2001.

The Swedish representative informed about recent changes in the chairmanship of the Swedish IGCP Committee. John Peel from the University of Uppsala replaced Dorothy Guy-Ohlson. In 1998, Swedish scientists took active part in eight IGCP Projects (367, 369, 371, 374, 400, 404, 410 and 421) of which IGCP 371 is co-ordinated from Sweden. Swedish representative offered to host IGCP Scientific Regional Meeting in 2003.

After informing about participation in IGCP Projects, Swiss representative recommended not only to keep but reinforce fundamental research within IGCP.

The UK representative summarised UK involvement in IGCP projects and expressed concern that this was declining as measured by the number of projects with UK co-leaders and the amount of money sought as travel grants to attend IGCP related meetings. He suggested that this might be caused in part by the fact that the research output of UK universities is assessed by measuring publication output and grants received. As the outcome of the assessment affects future research funding, geoscientists may be feel that involvement in IGCP projects may take up time that otherwise might be invested to yield more immediate research gains. He reported that the Royal Society's Interdisciplinary Committee on Earth Resources (the UK's national committee for IGCP) is considering how interest in the IGCP might be promoted through better communication, education and links with funding agencies.

 

Important outcomes of the Meeting:

The national representatives of 15 European countries strongly supported the following concerns over recent uncertainties at UNESCO, presented by the UK representative:

Although listed as one of UNESCO's inter-Governmental programmes together with IHP, IOC, MAB and MOST, it differs from these four bodies in having a "grass roots" tradition and in operating in responsive mode. One result of this is that it is vulnerable to the UNESCO budget: this is subject to variations in response to in-house pressures and bargaining and so it is subject to poaching of its budget by initiatives taken elsewhere within UNESCO.

In the light of the above, IGCP is subject to an unpredictable and seriously unstable budget. The IGCP's Scientific Board awards seed money to Projects in January, but budgets in UNESCO are never known until June. People outside the UNESCO system do not understand this situation, and it seriously undermines the confidence of all geoscientists involved in IGCP Projects. There is evidence that it is undermining the excellent reputation of IGCP.

The duties of the post of IGCP Secretary (UNESCO Grade 5 appointment), secure for over 27 years, have been added to the burdens of the current Director of the Earth Science Division, and a downgraded assistant post (at "grade 1 or 2") substituted. Even this replacement is not scheduled until the spring of 2000, almost a year after the retirement of the recent Secretary, and so further disrupting the work of the Secretariat.

Whilst not wishing to tell another organisation how to conduct its internal business, we are concerned that the lack of information over a long period about the staff replacement gave the impression that UNESCO does not give IGCP support a high priority. It is now evident that these two threats to the IGCP (uncertain budgets and the Secretariat post) cannot be influenced using 'normal' channels. Action is required at the ambassadorial level. Specifically, it will be necessary for national delegations to join together and develop a strong and coherent case for presentation at the biennial General Conference of UNESCO in November 1999.

 

The participants agreed and recommended the following :

- that the fundamental science should not disappear from IGCP Projects,

- that better communication based on personal links should be established between IGCP national committees and national committees for other UNESCO programmes (e.g. MAB, IHP, IOC, and MOST) in individual countries,

- that all new IGCP Project proposals should be listed at the UNESCO web site well before their evaluation procedure in order to keep scientific community informed in advance,

- that IGCP Secretariat should promote a more extensive use of the Internet and encourage the publication in electronic format of the major final products of IGCP projects.

 

Other:

The main part of the time was devoted to formal as well as informal discussions (at Hotel Expo, at Ministry of Foreign Affairs CR and also outdoor (Historical Tramway). Several new IGCP projects in preparation have been discussed to improve their effectivness and attractiveness.

The field trip to Western and Northern Bohemia showed actuogeological and environmental applications current geoscience, with all industrial, social and cultural aspects. Significance of development of theory was documented as well.

 

List of the official foreign delegates:

Surname; First name; COUNTRY; e-mail

Baud; Aymon; SWITZERLAND; aymon.baud@sst.unil.ch

Brezsnyanszky; Karoly; HUNGARY; brezsnyanszky@mafi.hu

Cavazza; William; ITALY; cavazza@geomin.unibo.it

Hovorka; Dusan; SLOVAKIA; mineralogia@fns.uniba.sk

Janoschek; Werner R.; AUSTRIA; wjanoschek@cc.geolba.ac.at

Juracic; Mladen; CROATIA; mjuracic@zagreb.zoak.pmf.hr

Muszynski; Andrzej; POLAND; rectorof@main.amu.edu.pl

Paertan; Alexandra; AUSTRIA; not available

Peel; John; SWEDEN; john.peel@pal.uu.se

Pirc; Simon; SLOVENIA; simon.pirc@ntfgeo.uni-lj.si

Polgari; Marta; HUNGARY; forizs@sparc.core.hu

Tchoumatchenco; Platon; BULGARIA; ptchouma@geology.bas.bg

Vaslet; Denis; FRANCE; d.vaslet@brgm.fr

Wilson; Chris, R.L.C.; UNITED KINGDOM; R.C.L.Wilson@open.ac.uk

Ziegler; Willi; GERMANY; wziegler@sngkw.uni-frankfurt.de

Zui; Vladimir; BELARUS; zui@ns.igs.ac.by

 

List of the official Czech participants

Surname; First name; COUNTRY; e-mail

Babuska; Vladimir; CZECH REPUBLIC; babuska@ig.cas.cz

Cermak; Vladimir; CZECH REPUBLIC; cermak@ig.cascz

Elias; Vaclav; CZECH REPUBLIC; elias@ih.cas.cz

Hladil; Jindrich; CZECH REPUBLIC; hladil@gli.cas.cz

Hodanova; Olga; CZECH REPUBLIC; unescocz@mbox.vol.cz

Jakes; Petr; CZECH REPUBLIC; jakes@natur.cuni.cz

Jenik; Jan; CZECH REPUBLIC; jenik@natur.cuni.cz

Pasava; Jan; CZECH REPUBLIC; pasava@cgu.cz

Ruzicka; Milos; CZECH REPUBLIC; ruzicka@cgu.cz

Sulovsky; Petr; CZECH REPUBLIC; sulovsky@sci.muni.cz

Venera; Zdenek; CZECH REPUBLIC; Zdenek_Venera@env.cz