RISeR at EGU2020: Sharing Geoscience Online

Covid-19 has dramatically changed our expectations for the past months, and the scientific community must adapt to the new challenges we are facing. Attending conferences and workshops was no exception and will be probably affected during the next months (or years?) by travel restrictions. The RISeR team planned to join the European Geoscience Union (EGU) General Assembly in Vienna in May, but this event had to adapt to the new situation, turning into a massive worldwide online event, the EGU2020: Sharing Geoscience Online.

Víctor was co-convener of the session “New and re-interpreted Pleistocene sea-level records from around the Globe”, which provided an exciting ground for discussions, focussing on recent advances in sea-level studies on a Pleistocene timescale. The session was also an excellent opportunity for Natasha, Víctor and Oliver to present the latest results from RISeR: “The southern North Sea as a natural palaeo-laboratory to reconstruct the coastal response to Last Interglacial sea-level rise”.

The approach adopted by the EGU was a text-based discussion after sharing contributions (posters and slides) one week in advance. The approach was very challenging and felt like a sprint but was the easiest-to-implement option at short notice. There was also a forum to share and discuss results at a more relaxed pace. The virtual nature of the conference encouraged broader academic diversity and made science more accessible by removing financial and travel barriers. We even had some undergraduate Geography students attending the session! The conference was a great experience to add some diversity to the working-from-home reality.

Link to the EGU session, including RISeR’s contribution:
https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2020/session/36473

Report by Víctor Cartelle