The European Geosciences Union is launching two new publications at the 2018 General Assembly: a journal, Geoscience Communication (GC), and a compilation, the Encyclopedia of Geosciences (EG). The new publications were approved last October by the EGU Council and will be published by Copernicus Publications.

Geoscience Communication (GC)

GC will be an open-access, two-stage journal with open review, following the model of other EGU publications. It will cover a number of interdisciplinary topics focusing on the intersection between the Earth, planetary and space sciences and the social sciences and humanities. These include, but are not limited to, science communication and policy, open science, history and philosophy of the geosciences, public engagement, outreach and education.

Sam Illingworth, a Senior Lecturer in Science Communication at the Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK and the GC Executive Editor explains why he decided to launch the journal: “The aim is to help further develop geoscience communication as an academic discipline, and to provide an outlet to give recognition for the excellent work that geoscientists do communicating their research to different audiences, via outreach, public engagement and other altruistic endeavours.”

He adds: “Given that geoscience communication is a relatively new field, we also hope to provide support at the editorial level, assisting colleagues and encouraging them to perhaps adopt a more rigorous and scientific approach to their science communication initiatives than they have done previously. The open-access, open-science model championed by Copernicus and EGU provides the perfect platform for many of these conversations to take shape and we are very excited for the future of this journal and for the field of geoscience communication in general.”

GC will be launched at the EGU General Assembly and will be open for submissions after that.

Encyclopedia of Geosciences (EG)

EG will work as a compilation, a collection of articles that fills the gap between traditional review articles and online encyclopediae. It will feature scientific review articles written by experts in various fields of the geosciences and published in the already existing EGU open-access peer-reviewed journals. EG’s content covers all areas of the geosciences, including research on the atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, solid Earth, and biosphere. Further information on the Encylopedia topics is available on the EG website.

Articles collected in EG aim to be accessible to scientifically educated non-specialists and provide a fair and balanced overview of a topic. EG editors recommend using the following thought experiment as a guideline when preparing a review article: “imagine you are new in a particular research field but due to your reputation and experience in another field you are expected to be productive without extensive delay. In particular, you are supposed to actively participate in related project meetings. Which kind of article would help you most to prepare for this task?”. The encyclopedia’s website includes other useful guidelines for review-article authors, as well as a list of frequently asked questions.

Thomas von Clarmann, a group leader and lecturer in remote sensing of the atmosphere at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and one of the EG editors, summarises the motivation for the launch of the encyclopedia: “Facing the large numbers of scientific papers published these days, it is increasingly difficult to keep up with the relevant literature. This is particularly true for scientists in interdisciplinary projects, which are quite frequent in geosciences. Review articles thus become more and more important to guide one through the wealth of literature. The open-access system of EGU is particularly well suited to serve this purpose.”

• Encyclopedia of Geosciences
• Geoscience Communication
• EGU open access journals