UNU Fellows at WGC2015
The World Geothermal Congress (WGC) has been organized every five years by the International Geothermal Association (IGA) since 1995. This time, it was held in Melbourne, Australia 19-25 April. As for the last three World Geothermal Congresses, the UNU-GTP’s policy to support the participation of former UNU Fellows in the WGC made it possible for a large number of professionals from all continents to share their research results and experience with the international geothermal community. This year, the UNU-GTP received many applications for the Congress in Melbourne, and was able to offer all first-author applicants with a partial fellowship.
It was a pleasure to see how many former Fellows attended the Congress, and even more so, to see the high number of papers by Fellows in the proceedings.
Of the total 1319 papers published in the WGC2015 proceedings, 262 papers were written by former Fellows, which is about 20%. Majority of the papers were presented, either orally or with a poster. The number of Fellows who authored those papers was 184, which is about 31% of the total alumni of UNU-GTP from 1979-2014. Thereof 173 were first authors. Of the Programme’s 36 classes, 31 classes were represented at the WGC2015 by former Fellows with the missing ones all coming from the 8 first classes. The class with the most representatives through written papers was the class of 2013 with 17 Fellows (of 33 in total), followed by class 2010 and 2011 with 14 representatives (of 28 and 30, respectively). Also worth mentioning is the class of 2005 where 13 of 20 Fellows were authors of papers at WGC.
In total, 94 former Fellows attended the WGC2015, including 7 Fellows attending who had not written papers for the Congress. So it is fair to say that 191 Fellows were involved in the Congress in one way or another. The oldest UNU fellow attending was Aristeo Baltasar from the Philippines from the class of 1980.
The Minister of Industry and Commerce, Ragnheiður Elín Árnadóttir was invited as an honorary guest and speaker to the UNU-GTP reunion event, which was held on Wednesday, 22 April. She also gave an excellent address at the Closing Ceremony of the Congress where the organisation for the next Congress was handed over to Iceland for the WGC2020.
The photo was taken at the UNU-GTP reunion event, which was attended by most of the UNU Fellows at WGC2015, as well as UNU-GTP staff and teachers.
For more information on the WGC2015 visit: http://wgc2015.com.au/
Papers from the WGC can be retrieved from: https://pangea.stanford.edu/ERE/db/WGC/mobile/mTopics.php#topics