Subject: [IGSMAIL-4558]: Information concerning IAG General Assembly
From: Gerhard Beutler <[email-masked]>(by way of Ruth E. Neilan)
To: [email-masked]
Cc: John Dow <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Yoaz Bar Sever), [email-masked] (Norm Beck), [email-masked] (Gerhard Beutler), [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked] (Carine Bruyninx), "Caissy, Mark" <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Loic Daniel), Remi Ferland <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Gerd Gendt), Manuel Hernandez Pajares <[email-masked]>, Tom Herring <[email-masked]>, [email-masked], [email-masked], Carey Noll <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (
Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2003 15:44:56 -0700

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IGS Electronic Mail      18 Aug 15:59:51 PDT 2003      Message Number 4558
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Author: Gerhard Beutler

CC: IGS Governing Board and former GB members

Please note that the IGGOS Proposal discussed below is not sent as an 
IGSMail attachment. You can find it here:
http://www.gfy.ku.dk/~iag/iggos_prop_june_03.htm

Dear IAG fellows, IAG members, and IAG friends,

0. Preamble
    ********
The following lines should not be understood as minutes or
summaries of meetings -- minutes will be prepared by the IAG
Central Bureau in a much more professional way. I just try to
offer my personal impressions of and comments on a few events in
conjunction with the XXIII-th General Assembly in Sapporo, which
might be essential for IAG for the upcoming four year period 2003
- 2007.

The following lines are the (attempt of a) "revival" of a
procedure I followed as Chairman of the IGS (1991-1998), where I
produced memory dumps at irregular intervals -- but always
associated with IGS-relevant events. I will try to do the same
during the (hopefully) next four years of my IAG presidency.

1. The XXIII-th IUGG General Assembly in Sapporo
    *********************************************
All IAG General Assemblies, taking place simultaneously with the
IUGG General Assemblies, are transition periods from the "old" to
the "new" IAG Executive Committee. The XXIII-th IUGG General
Assembly, which took place in Sapporo (Japan) from June 30 to July
11, 2003, was certainly one of the best of recent years. The local
organizing committee did a marvellous job.

All scientific events and all executive committee meetings (except
one) at the General Assembly are organized by the "old" Executive
Committee. General Assemblies are big events with many symposia,
meetings, etc., running in parallel. It is therefore difficult or
even impossible for an individual to keep a fair oversight of
events. With only few exceptions I obtained a very positive
impression of the scientific symposia. This impression was
confirmed by many colleagues.

The IAG executive and business meetings were very well prepared --
and therefore ran pretty smoothly, as well. The positive
impression of these Sapporo events is entirely due to the "old"
executive, in particular to Fernando Sanso, Christian Tscherning
and his crew (Ole Anderson, Christina Schneider, et al.). The
Section presidents Alan Dodson, C.K. Shum, Michael Sideris,
Bernhard Heck, and Clark Wilson were the key responsibles for the
scientific program.

The two Council Meetings and the first meeting of the "new" IAG
Executive Committee dealt with many aspects of the immediate
future of IAG. Let me pick out a few of the (hopefully) more
important items.

2. Council Meetings of July 3 and July 7
    *************************************
The IAG Council consists of the delegates of the IAG member
states. It is the highest authority of IAG and has to approve the
budget, resolutions, and other interesting things. It also has to
be convinced of and approve major structural changes or
modifications of the IAG structure.

The IAG is lucky to have an extremely competent and active
Council. This was already apparent at the IAG Scientific Assembly
in 2001 in Budapest, where an IAG Council meeting was called to
approve the new IAG Statutes and ByLaws -- an extremely complex
matter. The IAG Statutes and ByLaws may be easily found under the
IAG homepage (new: http://www.iag-aig.org/, old:
http://www.gfy.ku.dk/~iag/). Only few addenda related to the new
IAG structure had to be discussed and judged in Sapporo:

  - The Council approved the establishment of IGGOS (Integrated
    Global Observing System) as IAG's first and only project.
    (More information in section 4).
  - The Council approved the establishment of the Inter-commission
    Committee on theory with Pelliang Xu as president.
  - The Council gave the IAG Executive Committee the permission to
    establish an Inter-commission Committee on Geodetic Standards
    in the 2003-2007 period, as soon as a convincing concept is
    available.
  - The Council gave the IAG Executive Committee the permission
    to establish an Inter-commission Committee on Planetary Geodesy
    (?!), as soon as a convincing concept will be available.
  - The Council elected Jozsef Adam as president of the newly
    established Communication and Outreach Branch.

As usual, the Council had to select the venue of the IAG
Scientific Assembly of the new four year period. Excellent
proposals were available. The Council made the following decision:

IAG Scientific Assembly 2005:
----------------------------
Location:        Cairns, Australia
Date:            22-26 August
Tentative Title: Monitoring a dynamic planet with geodetic tools
Local Organizer: Chris Rizos
Specialty:       Joint Symposium with IAPSO

I believe that we can already now look forward to a fascinating
event in a spectacular scenery (Barrier Reef, Rain Forest, a few
crocodiles, etc.).

At this point it is appropriate to mention that the IUGG Council
chose Perugia, Italy as the venue for the XXIV-the IUGG
General Assembly in 2007. From the IAG perspective the combination
of the Cairns meeting in 2005 and the Perugia meeting in 2007 is
ideal.

Last, but not least, the Council decided that in recognition of
his four years of IAG presidency Fernando Sanso should be
appointed as honorary President of IAG. The above decisions were
all taken at the Council meeting of Monday, July 7.

3. The IAG Executive Committee 2003-2007
    *************************************
The IAG elections for the period 2003-2007 were organized by
Klaus-Peter Schwarz, past president of the Association. According
to the IAG Statutes the Council is the electing body. The election
took place by mail. With one exception, namely the head of the
Communications and Outreach Branch, all IAG EC members were
already known in March 2003. The new IAG Executive consists of the
following voting members:

(a) The IAG Bureau
     - Ch. Tscherning (Secretary General)
     - M. G. Sideris (Vice-President)
     - G. Beutler (President)
(b) Commission Presidents;
     - Commission 1: Reference frames: H. Drewes
     - Commission 2: Gravity field   : Ch. Jekeli
     - Commission 3: Earth rotation and geodynamics: V. Dehant
     - Commission 4: Positioning and Applications Ch. Rizos
(c) Service representatives:
     - R.E. Neilan
     - M. Rothacher
     - H. Schuh
(d) The president of the Communication and Outreach Branch:
     - Jozsef Adam
(d) Members at Large: L.P. Fortes, Ch. Merry.

Presidents of the Inter-commission Committees, Chairs of the IAG
Projects and the Assistant Secretaries shall attend any meeting of
the Executive Committee, with voice but without vote.

4. The First Meeting of the IAG Executive Committee 2003-3007
    **********************************************************
On Saturday afternoon, July 5, 2 p.m. - 6 p.m. (!), the new
Executive Committee met for the first time. The agenda (included
below) was pretty busy.

Agenda of July 5 Meeting:
========================
1. Welcome
2. Status of the transition phase in overview
3. "Co-existence" of Commissions and Services
4. Status of IGGOS Project
5. Status of Outreach Branch
6. Inter-commission Committees
7. Commission structure "long-term entities"
8. Study Groups: Status report
9. The Geodesist's Handbook 2004
10. Next IAG Executive Committee Meeting
11. Any other business

Ad 2., 7., 9. There is a preliminary structure of the new
structure available on the IAG homepage. The corresponding paper
is entitled "New IAG Structure: Status March 2003". This draft
structure is currently being further refined by the Commission
presidents. Most of the long-term entities are known by now. The
study groups still need considerable attention. The (more or less)
final Commission structure will be available early in September.
The Bureau will then compile the available information and make
the attempt to remove or minimize (possible) duplications etc. The
months of October and November are reserved for fine-tuning. The
Geodesist's Handbook 2004 must be at least as accurate, reliable,
and valuable as source of information as its predecessor in 2000.

Ad 3. Commissions and Services are IAG structure elements on the
same level of the hierarchy. Commissions and services are
represented in the the IAG Executive Committee. It is of vital
importance that the interface between these two different types of
entities works smoothly. In view of the substantially different
different working environments of Services and Commissions the
task to set up a REAL interface is not at all trivial.

As a result of the discussion at the July 5 meeting, of a
follow-up discussion at the IGS Governing Board meeting (in the
second week of the Sapporo General Assembly) I decided to
establish and chair an ad-hoc working group consisting of the
three service representatives in the EC and myself in the
Executive Committee with the goal to develop a "white paper"
describing the interface between the IGS and the Commissions.
After convergence this document should serve as a template for the
other services, as well. The document should be available in
September 2003.

Ad 4: Status of the IGGOS Project: A planning committee chaired by
the undersigned, with Hermann Drewes as secretary, came up with
the proposal to establish the IGGOS in 2003. As mentioned in
section 3 of this report, the IAG Council approved the
establishment of the IGGOS in Sapporo. The work of the the
planning group is contained in the document "Proposal to Establish
the Integrated Global Geodetic Observing System (IGGOS) as IAG's
First Project", by Gerhard Beutler, Hermann Drewes, Christoph
Reigber and Reiner Rummel (on behalf of the IGGOS Planning
Group)".

The essential elements of the report are:

DEFINITION: IGGOS stands for Integrated Global Geodetic Observing
System. "System" should be understood as the basis on which the
future advances in geosciences can be built. By considering the
Earth system as a whole (including solid Earth, atmosphere, ocean,
hydrosphere, ice, liquid core…), monitoring it by geodetic
techniques and by studying it from the geodetic point of view, the
geodetic community can provide the global geosciences community
with a powerful tool consisting mainly of high quality services,
standards and references, and theoretical and observational
innovations.

The VISION statement, the MISSION, and the OBJECTIVES are
contained in the proposal mentioned above.

SCIENCE RATIONALE and SCIENCE PLAN: IGGOS has a central theme and
a master product. The theme must be scientifically sound, broad
and include all the activities IGGOS might envisage in future.

"Global deformation and mass exchange processes in the System
Earth" is the central theme.

INITIAL IGGOS STRUCTURE: The key elements of the initial IGGOS
structure are:
1. The IGGOS Project Board as the central oversight
    entity.
2. Few well-defined Working Groups. The tasks of the working
    groups are to a high degree independent of the tasks of the IAG
    services.
3. A Science Council representing the geodetic community. IGGOS
will be based, to the extent possible, on the existing IAG
Services. New entities will be created only, if absolutely
necessary.

IGGOS DEFINITION PHASE: The time interval marked by the IUGG
General Assembly in Sapporo and the the IAG Scientific Assembly in
Cairns should be viewed as the IGGOS definition phase.The main
goals of the definition phase are
  - Derive the IGGOS Science Plan from the IGGOS Science Rationale
  - Define "final" structure
  - Prepare IGGOS implementation into more general entities $
    (IUGG, UN, etc.)

IGGOS CHAIR 2003-2005: The IGGOS planning group proposed Prof.
Christopher Reigber, GFZ, Potsdam, Germany as Chairman for the
IGGOS definition phase 2003-2005. The (old) IAG Executive
Committee approved this proposal and appointed the Chris Reigber.
Here is an extract of his curriculum:
  - Member of the IGGOS planning group.
  - Came up with essential elements of our proposal to the IAG,
    which was accepted by the IAG Executive Committee in Nice.
  - Chaired CSTG for four years (1987-1991)
  - Chaired IAG Commission II for four years (1991-1995)
  - Chaired the IERS Directing Board (1996-2000)
  - Chaired the IGS Governing Board (1998-2001)
  - Project manager of the CHAMP mission (launched in 2000)
  - Co-investigator of the GRACE mission (launched 2002)

IGGOS was the (only) theme of the one-day G7-symposium on July 10
in Sapporo. The symposium attracted much attention and it was
substantial. It became clear
  - that the IAG services will work very actively within IGGOS,
  - all major organizations are willing to collaborate,
  - that the scientific community approves the concept.
Let me mention in particular that the US American Proposal INDIGO
was put into the IGGOS framework and that IUGG passed a
resolution, where IAG and the other IUGG Associations are strongly
encourage to establish IGGOS as geodesy's contribution to Earth
Sciences.

5. IAG Personal Membership
    ***********************
This report revealed quite a few elements of the new IAG
structure. One essential element was not touched, so far: It is
possible now, to become an Individual Member of the IAG. There is
a modest fee and there are a few privileges associated with this
membership (see IAG ByLaws). The most important aspect from my
perspective is the further development of the "IAG Esprit de
Corps". The new Executive, after having decided to become
individual members "in corpore", strongly encourages the greater
scientific community of IAG to become IAG Members as soon as
possible. Application forms are available at the new IAG homepage
http://www.iag-aig.org/ . Please visit it -- even if you should
not yet decide to become IAG members!

Yours sincerely,

Gerhard Beutler

President IAG