Taking place on 23-27 May the EGU 2022 General Assembly, will bring together geoscientists from all over the world for an hybrid meeting covering all disciplines in the Earth, planetary, and space sciences. EGU aims to provide a welcoming, inclusive, and safe forum where scientists, especially early career scientists, can present their work and discuss their ideas with experts in all fields of geoscience.

EGU is pleased to announce a new format for the General Assembly in 2022, which will take place both in Vienna (Austria) and online, as the first step in our journey towards building a fully hybrid event.

“We are very excited by the opportunities that an hybrid meeting can potentially provide for our members, both in terms of sustainability and accessibility,” says EGU President Helen Glaves. “But to make sure that this change is done properly we need to move progressively towards a fully hybrid meeting, which will ensure our General Assembly fulfils the needs and expectations of all attendees, whether participating in person or online.”

To further increase engagement, EGU is bringing back the popular presentation pre-upload and commenting feature. Presentation materials can be uploaded during a 2-month period, which will start 1 month prior to the General Assembly. During this 2-month period, uploaded files will be accessible to all registered conference attendees (on-site and virtual).

“We learned many valuable lessons from our experiences running the online General Assembly in 2020 and 2021” EGU Programme Committee Chair Peter van der Beek confirmed, “but we also laid useful foundations for our future development. The new hybrid vPICO format, for instance, will draw from both previous versions of the in-person PICO events, and the online interaction we achieved during vEGU21. This way everything our attendees experience at EGU22 will be familiar, just combined in new ways.”

Due to the new hybrid format for EGU 2022, allowing both in-person and online participation, authors will notice a small increase in the Abstract Processing Charge (APC), which is necessary to partially offset the additional costs of preparing for this enhanced mode of participation. This year the APC will be €45. “We did not want to have to raise the Abstract Processing Charge, but the additional costs associated with preparing for a hybrid meeting are undeniable,” commented EGU Treasurer Patric Jacobs, “so this small fee increase is necessary to provide our members with the standard of meeting that they have come to expect from EGU.” EGU22 will also have increased registration fees, the details of which will be available in November 2021, due in part to normal inflation, but also because of the higher costs of running a safe and secure conference in a hybrid format, in 2022.

With this announcement, EGU and its conference partner, Copernicus Meetings, are opening the call for abstracts for the General Assembly 2022. The deadline for abstract submission is 12 January 2022 at 13:00 CET. Authors will be limited to one abstract as first author (with a few exceptions). All first authors must also be a current member of EGU to submit an abstract.

The Roland Schlich travel support grant will once again be available to in-person attendees (deadline for application is 1 December 2021 13.00 CET), with a registration-fee waiver scheme also being implemented for virtual participants. To check your eligibility for these schemes, please visit the EGU22 webpage on participation support.

“We are looking forward to seeing many of you again in-person in Vienna,” said Peter van der Beek, “but for those who prefer to join us online for whatever reason, we are excited to offer a range of opportunities for interaction with the world-leading science our community is known for.”

If you have questions or concerns regarding EGU22, please visit www.egu22.eu or email: egu22@copernicus.org.

If you are a journalist or public information officer, please check our dedicated media page for information about media participation at the Assembly.

• EGU22 General Assembly website