DDE Response to IUGS Communique
The IUGS communique on DDE issued in early April 2025 resulted from the presentation of the DDE annual report to the IUGS-EC Open Session on 18 March 2025, held at the Geological Society of France, and another meeting between IUGS and DDE Leaders on 21 March 2025 in Paris.
The DDE report to the IUGS EC acknowledged the strengths and weaknesses of DDE implementation during 2019-2023 pointed out by the IUGS-led Review Team which submitted its report to DDE in November 2024. Since then, DDE Governance and Executive leadership have begun to address several of the concerns raised by IUGS-led Review Report. During the presentation of DDE’s Annual Report to the IUGS EC on 18 March there was a lively and open exchange of views between DDE representatives and IUGS EC Members, as well as others attending the IUGS EC Open session.
In the spirit of transparency requested by IUGS EC, please find below the IUGS Communique and the response of DDE, issued jointly by the President of the DDE Governing Council, Prof. Harvey Thorleifson, and the Chair of the Executive Committee, Prof. Qiuming Cheng. As noted in the opening sentence of the IUGS Communique, Prof. Qiuming Cheng was the President of IUGS during 2016-2020 and was instrumental in the launch of DDE as IUGS’ first Big Science Program in 2019.
· IUGS Communique
· DDE Response to IUGS Communique
DDE continues to address the concerns raised by IUGS and will submit a comprehensive report to the 82nd session of IUGS EC scheduled to be convened from 21 to 29 January 2026 in Bogota, Columbia. In the meantime, implementation of DDE in all its aspects is moving forward along positive and encouraging trajectories in full consultation with DDE Governing Council Members and a number of partners including the Zhejiang Lab that released GeoGPT to the public at EGU 2025 in Vienna, Austria on 28 April.
Further information on the progress of DDE will be shared following the conclusion of the 9th session of the DDE Governing Council scheduled to be convened in late June 2025.
Visitors to this information note are welcome to share any views and comments they may have with the DDE Secretariat at: secretariat@ddeworld.org.