40 Years of the International Geoscience Programme (IGCP)
The International
Geoscience Programme
IGCP
The IGCP is the oldest and one of the most successful
examples of scientific cooperation between a
non-governmental organization – the IUGS –
and an intergovernmental
organization – UNESCO
40 Years of the International Geoscience Programme (IGCP)
Catastrophic events in Earths´ History
Vivi Vajda, Professor in Paleontology, Lund University,
Sweden. IGCP Chair 2009-2012
70 million year old dinosaur footprints in Bolivia
40 Years of the International Geoscience Programme (IGCP)
The thought of IGCP started out in late 1960s as a need to
correlate (=link) the continents
Note that the theory on continental drift was not yet accepted!
Distribution of the Plant fossil Glossopteris:
one of the first firm evidences for existence of Gondwana
Modern distribution of Glossopteris fossils
?
?
?
1911-1913 BRITISH
SOUTH POLAR EXPEDITION
Oates
Scott
Bowers
Evans
Wilson
40 Years of the International Geoscience Programme (IGCP)
School book example is
Grand Canyon
40 Years of the International Geoscience Programme (IGCP)
There were evident needs to aid interaction and
exchange of ideas between scientists in the
East-West divided Europe of that time, and
scientist in Asia- where many countries were
involved in wars
The programme was launched in 1972 during the 24th
International Geological Congress in Montreal as a joint
Initiative of IUGS and UNESCO
40 Years of the International Geoscience Programme (IGCP)
The first IGCP Scientific board, 1973
First IGCP Scientific Board Chairman Sir Kingsley Dunham,
late Director of the British Geological Survey
40 Years of the International Geoscience Programme (IGCP)
From Correlation Programme
Original primary aims - stratigraphy
To a Geoscience programme
IGCP brings together scientists from around the world, and
provides them with seed money to devise and conduct joint
international research and to collectively publish the results.
High on the list of selection criteria are scientific quality and the
extent of the international, multidisciplinary cooperation likely to
begenerated by a proposed project.
40 Years of the International Geoscience Programme (IGCP)
Changes in IGCP
Geoscience in the Service of Society
Edward Derbyshire
IGCP Chair 1996-2001
Professor, Royal Holloway,
University of London
Editor: Edward Derbyshire
40 Years of the International Geoscience Programme (IGCP)
IGCP has during the 40 years supported over 500
projects in about 150 countries
40 Years of the International Geoscience Programme (IGCP)
Presently about 30 projects
running covering over 5 themes
Still keeping the important “bottom-up” approach
40 Years of the International Geoscience Programme (IGCP)
Themes:
•
•
•
•
•
The Global Change and Evolution of Life
Geohazards: reducing risks
Earth Resources: sustaining society
Geoscience of the Water Cycle
The Deep Earth: how it controls our environment
40 Years of the International Geoscience Programme (IGCP)
Which are the main sponsors?
• The initiators and main sponsors of the IGCP
are IUGS and UNESCO’s Division of Ecological
and Earth Sciences
• Other sponsors include UNESCO’s Water
Sciences Division, The Swedish International
Development cooperation Agency (SIDA) and
the National IGCP- committee of China
40 Years of the International Geoscience Programme (IGCP)
Some of the conditions for winning an IGCP
project are:
• Involvement of scientists from the developing countries
• Capacity building programs (i.e. MSc, PhD) within the project
• Conferences and Training Workshops conducted in both the
developing and developed countries
• Sharing of research facilities for producing high-quality data
• Joint publications of journal papers, maps, models
40 Years of the International Geoscience Programme (IGCP)
Ear-marked funding from SIDA, 100.000 USD/year during 5 years
Ear-marked funding supporting scientists from selected
developing countries.
help to integrate “new” project leaders in at least six
excellent projects with the aim to integrate these new
leaders into the whole working process of applications,
annual reporting, organization of workshops, participation in
business meetings etc.
The main point is that the infrastructure is already
set up including networks of experienced
international scientists used to running IGCP
projects
IGCP- integrating nations,
Cultures and Science