Minutes of the meeting of the IAG Executive Committee

on April 16, 9:00 - 17:30,

Vienna University of Technology,
Institute of Geodesy and Geophysics,
Advanced Geodesy,
Gusshausstr. 27-29,1040 Vienna,
AUSTRIA

Present: Gerhard Beutler (GB), Michael Sideris (MS), Christian C.
Tscherning (CCT), Fernando Sanso (FS), Véronique Déhant (VD), Ruth
Neilan (RN), Hermann Drewes (HD), Martin Vermeer (MV), Harald
Schuh (HS), Markus Rothacher (MR), J.Adam (JA), Klaus-Peter Schwarz (KPS).

Agenda:

(0) Adoption of agenda.

The agenda was approved. On the secretary general's request the
agenda items (6a, 7a,b, 12a,b) were added.

(1) Result of nominations (FS)

FS reported about the outcome of the nominations. He raised the
issue concerning persons, who are nominated for more than one
position. The EC recommends that the nominating committee asks
such candidates after the election, which position they want to
take.

The EC recommends that in future one and the same person should be
nominated only for one position. The EC recommends furthermore
that persons who are not elected are considered, e.g., as
Vice-Presidents of Commissions.

The question was raised how to handle the situation when many
(more than two) persons have been nominated for the same position.
This may, e.g., happen, after the consultation of the national
delegates. The issue shall be discussed at a future meeting of the
EC.

(2) Bomford Prize (GB)

Two excelent candidates had been nominated for the prize. A
committee consisting of GB, the commission presidents, and KPS and
MR recommends the Bomford prize 2007 to be given to Masato
Furuya from Japan. This proposal was accepted unanimously by the
EC. The EC recommends that the rules for the Guy Bomford prize and
the Levallois prize shall be revised at the EC meeting in Perugia
(the modified version shall be included in the Geodesist's
handbook 2008).

(3) Levallois Medal (FS/GB)

The Levallois committee, headed by Fernando Sanso and consisting
of the past presidents of IAG suggested that C. Christian
Tscherning should receive the Levallois medal 2007. It was,
however, stated that it should remain an exception to give the
prize to "IAG insiders" like past presidents or past secretaries
general. The concern was raised that past presidents might now
queue up for the medal ... at least those past presidents (and the
current president) attending the meeting pointed out that this
should not be an immediate danger.

The IAG EC accepted unanimously the proposal of the Levallois
Committee.

(4) Best paper award 2006 (CCT/WF).

Since a nomination was not available at the meeting, it was
decided to vote on the expected nomination by the JoG editor in
chief using e-mail.

(5) GGOS (MR)

The reference document "GGOS2020" (currently 160+ pages) hopefully
will be will be available for the IAG General Assembly in Perugia.

A shorter strategy document, based on this reference document, may
become available later on. The report presented by MR contained a
table of content of the reference document GGOS2020. It was
pointed out that the document might be rather inclined towards the
geometric part, but should also take into account the gravimetric
aspects of the geodetic reference systems.

MR also agreed to prepare a draft resolution on GGOS to be
presented to the IAG Council in Perugia. This resolution should,
if possible, be raised to the status of an IUGG resolution.

It was also recommended that the IAG EC should receive copies of
the next version of the draft reference document to be able to
comment on the document. Comments from the gravity community are
in particular encouraged.

The future of GGOS was then discussed. It was decided that GGOS
should no longer be considered as a Project for the time period
2007-2011, but as IAG's observing system,i.e. a new entity on the
level of commissions and services. This decision had implications
on the revision of the IAG statutes and byLaws (see next item). It
is, however, clear that the years 2007-2011 will be the years
transforming GGOS from its current status into the fully deployed
observing system.

HS pointed out that new IAG projects may and should be considered in
future.

(6) Statutes and By-Laws (KPS)

KPS, chair of the review committee, made the proposed changes
available prior to the meeting, see
   http://www.gfy.ku.dk/~iag/IAG_Statutes_-_final.Feb26-2.pdf
   http://www.gfy.ku.dk/~iag/IAG_Bylaws_-_Restructured_vs_original.Feb26.pdf

The proposals were reviewed and revised after intensive
discussions. The revised proposals will be send to the Council for
final consideration in Perugia. KPS agreed to prepare the final
version. Still open is the issue of the membership benefits, the
list of which must be reviewed in the near future.

The statutes and byLaws were modified "in real time" to include
GGOS as IAG's observing system. It was in particular decided that
the Chair of GGOS should be appointed by IAG EC and that, apart
from this restriction, GGOS should be given the opportunity to
develop its terms of reference very much like the IAG services.
The GGOS terms of reference then have to be submitted to the IAG
EC, which then has to approve them.

(6a) Peer-Review of IAG Symposia.

FS proposed to include the statement "the IAG symposia series is
peer reviewed" into the IAG byLaws.

(7) IUGG07: The IAG meetings and activities

Christian Tscherning presented the current status of planning of
the IAG-related events in Perugia. From now on, the current
version will be available under
http://www.gfy.ku.dk/~iag/IAG_program_07_rev6.pdf.

The lay-out of the program and social activities were reviewed.
Several convenors had difficulties in accessing the LOC web-site.

(7a) Letter by Peiliang Xu concerning the involvement of ICCT in
Perugia.

An offer made by CCT to ICCT to have a session for the discussion
of ICCT issues at the IUGG2007 had been made, but was declined.
However, it will be made again.

Despite the fact that the ICCT-Co-Convenors have not had
appropriate access to the program of the IAG symposia on the Web,
several of the co-convenors have worked with the convenors from
the commission. The EC is convinced that Peiliang Xu (and possibly
the ICCT) reacted, not knowing that the interaction with the
Local Organizing Committee in Perugia (concerning the organization
of the IAG symposia) only started in March 2007 and was/is rather
problematic). A letter to Peiliang Xu will be drafted by GB in the
near future.

(7b) Appointment of IAG fellows at IUGG2007. Fellows to be
appointed will be asked to become individual members of IAG. The
certificate will be given to the new fellows at the closing
session. The IAG EC expects that fellows are also IAG members.

(8) Sponsorship for symposia (CCT). No new requests were made.

(9) Travaux (JA/CCT).

All entities must submit a contribution. The entities within a
commission will be collected by the commission president. The
contributions from the services will be collected by the COB.


(10) IAU Resolutions B1 and B2 (VD).

VD presented the background for the IAU (International
Astronomical Union) resolutions based on material from N.Capitaine
(IAU). VD agreed to prepare the corresponding draft IUGG
resolution(s) to be presented to IUGG adopting the IAU
resolutions. The resolution text from IAU is available under

  http://www.iau.org/fileadmin/content/pdfs/IAU2006_Resol2.pdf
  http://www.iau.org/fileadmin/content/pdfs/IAU2006_Resol1.pdf

(11) Next IAG EC meeting

The next meeting of the IAG EC is scheduled for July 2, 9-12:30,
Perugia.

(12) AOB.

(12a) Springer copyright policy.

Springer Verlag has digitized Journal of Geodesy and old issues of
Bulletin Géodésique. As a consequence older issues have
been copyright by Springer without the IAG agreement. 
Springer shall be asked to provide more copies of the journal in 
digital form.


(12b) International Centre for Earth Tides (ICET): A call for
hosting the center has been prepared and will be distributed by
the COB with a deadline of June 1, 2007. A decision can then be
made in Perugia after recommendation by the SC 3.1.

The IAG president thanked Harald Schuh and his crew for hosting
the meeting, in particular for organizing the meeting room, for
offering/organizing coffee and and lunch. The meeting was
adjourned at 17:30.

respectfully submitted

C.C.Tscherning, Secretary General.