AGU Announces New Strategic Plan

By: AGU President Robin Bell and AGU President-elect Susan Lozier

Thanks to input from many of you and the rest of our members, AGU has a new strategic plan that sets the vision for the future of Earth and space science and our community by accelerating both discovery and solution-based science.

Fundamental to everything AGU does now and reflected in our new strategic plan are our values of integrity, respect, diversity, collaboration and education and outreach. These are not new to any of us – the strategic plan cements their importance.

With AGU’s new definition, vision and mission, we are thinking beyond our current collaborators to develop ideas, generate research and lead to action.

AGU’s three strategic goals will help serve as our guiding lights when we navigate these new paths:

1. Goal 1: Catalyze discovery and solutions to scientific and societal challenges.
2. Goal 2: Promote and exemplify an inclusive scientific culture.
3. Goal 3: Partner broadly with other organizations and sectors to effectively address scientific and societal challenges.

Collectively, AGU has been working through the strategic plan for almost two years, when the board and council started with a lot of data and information on the trends in politics, economics and culture. While no one predicted our current situation, we discussed what would happen around the globe if there was a rise in nationalism and how would this impact international collaboration.

We continued working internally and externally to AGU to solicit ideas and suggestions for the future of our community with member activities, focus groups and surveys. This served as the basis of our four scenarios where we mapped what could happen if the public’s levels of trust in science were high or low as well as how science would progress if it was closed and competitive or open and collaborative.

We combined all of this work and shared our drafts at various in-person and virtual gatherings, from Fall Meeting to our board and council meetings to spontaneous one-on-one and group discussions and surveys.

This was the easy part. Now, the real work begins with developing the tactical plans of how we accelerate the strategic plan to broaden the understanding and value of Earth and space sciences.

Over the next few months (and years), we will solicit your ideas and suggestions for how we achieve our ambitious, yet achievable strategic plan. We will also be calling on you to lead or participate in various efforts.

We are at the precipice of a movement and that will affect and effect not only this current generation, but future generations. If we do this right, we will catapult Earth and space science to the next level where people truly consider their actions for how it will impact our delicate ecosystem.

Let’s work together to make the vision we have for the strategic plan into our reality.

We need YOU.