2022 AGI Leadership Forum
The Next Generation of Geoscience Societies:
Views from Early- and Mid-Career Geoscientists and Leadership

Long-term trends in professional society memberships suggest an overall decrease in the coming
decade. How will societies respond? This year’s Leadership Forum will focus on retaining
membership in geoscience societies. We will discuss trends in society membership and
employment of geoscientists, and solicit perspectives of early-career (within 8 years since
BA/BS degree) and mid-career (9 to 19 years) geoscientists.

How important to maintaining membership are:
• meetings (in-person, online, hybrid; regional, annual, focused)?
• publications (online, open-access, printed, peer-reviewed, preprints)?
• other membership services (field trips, short courses, workshops, certifications,
continuing education, public policy/government affairs, social media, online and business
networking, employment services, diversity, etc.)?

What successes are Member Societies having in their efforts to retain members?
What are societies not doing to help geoscientists in their professional careers?
What more can AGI do to help Member Societies build and retain members?

We request that Presidents, Executive Directors, and Early- and Mid-Career Members of the
governing boards of AGI Member Societies, or their designees, participate in the forum. The
Leadership Forum will be entirely online, with a total of 5 hours split between 2.5-hour sessions,
with ample time for discussions, on two consecutive days, Monday-Tuesday, March 28-29,
2022.

We will request that you provide names of early- and mid-career geoscientists who would be
good panelists.

Thank you.

Paul Weimer, AGI President       Jon Arthur, AGI Executive Director
[email protected]        [email protected]

Jon Price, AGI President-Elect
[email protected]