International Geographical Union
Union Géographique International
2013 Annual Report of the International Geographical Union
In this issue:
Report and comment on the IGU Regional Conference at Kyoto.......................... 1
IGU Executive Committee meetings and decisions................................................ 5
International Year of Global Understanding........................................................... 8
IGU Journals Project................................................................................................ 8
OurSus Sustainable Cities Project........................................................................... 9
Co-operation and outreach.................................................................................... 9
Financial.................................................................................................................. 9
IGU Regional Conference, Kyoto (Japan), 3-9 August 2013
The first regional conference of three in the period between the Congresses in Cologne (2012)
and Beijing (2016) was held in Kyoto on 3-9 August 2013. The conference gathered 1431
participants from 61 countries/regions, including 289 students. Such attendance is rather highfor such meetings and nearly equal that at the IGU Congress in Tokyo (1980) and considerably
more than expected by the Organizing Committee. An important proportion of participants
came from the Asian-Pacific region which justifies the very idea of regional conferences since
one of the most important objectives is to contribute to networking geographers in a particularregion of the world. Naturally, the largest number of participants was from Japan (688)followed by Taiwan (78), the US (70), India (55) and China (53). The Science Council of Japan
provided financial support to cover all of the room charges at the Kyoto International
Conference Center, allowing us to set a very reasonable registration fee despite the elegant
facilities.

The 2013 IGU Regional Conference venue: Kyoto International Conference Centre

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The conference’s motto was “Traditional Wisdom and Modern Knowledge for the Earth’s
Future” which corresponded well to its main objective - examination of the relationshipbetween society/culture and environment and the venue, the ancient capital of Japan.
The opening ceremony was graced by the attendance of Their Imperial Highnesses Prince andPrincess Akishino and several other distinguished guests.

Medal winners of the Geographical Olympiad (iGeo) competition at the Opening Ceremony

The scientific programme was very diverse; it included sessions organized by 39 of 40 IGU
Commissions and interdisciplinary meetings held on the initiative of separate groups, key
lectures of renowned geographers and practitioners and special sessions devoted to theperspectives of our Union and to the main IGU interdisciplinary projects (International Year of
Global Understanding and Our Sustainable Cities). To increase the number of domestic
participants as much as possible, joint sessions were organized by Japan’s major geographicalsocieties and research programs whose head investigators are Japanese geographers.
Special attention was paid to the support of young researchers. The Organizing Committee not
only awarded 10 full-cost travel grants to young Geographers and set the registration fee at lessthan 50% of the regular fee thanks to the generous financial support of the Tokyo GeographicalSociety and the Human Geographical Society of Japan. In addition, the IGU directly supported
travel grants to more than 20 delegates mainly from developing countries. The authors of thebest poster presentations by young researchers received special awards at the closing
ceremony. New initiatives concerning a broader involvement of young scholars in IGU activities
were discussed in Kyoto, particularly through the contacts with the association of Young Earth
Scientists (YES).

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Award ceremony for the IGU Travel Grant awardees

The Conference contributed to the development of cooperation between IGU Commissions.
The total number of presentations made at the conference was 1,256: nine at plenary sessions,780 at commission sessions, 382 (254 oral and 128 poster) at general sessions, 76 at joint
sessions, and nine more at other sessions. Two sessions may deserve a special mention. The
first one is the special session on the status of geographical journals, the issues of their ranking
and open access. It was shown that the abuse of citation indices can do particular harm togeography because of discrimination of regional studies, human geography and publications in
the languages other than English. It represents a serious threat to the future of geographicaldepartments and can undermine the personal career of many scholars. It was decided that IGU
should formally endorse the San Francisco Declaration and develop recommendations tonational research and education governmental institutions. The second one was the session
organized on the initiative of IGU Executive and devoted to the experience of geographyteaching in universities.

IGU President Kolossov’s greeting to the chairs of IGU Commissions and National Committees

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The conference hosted the International Geography Olympiad (iGeo), a competition thatgathers the winners of national Geography Olympiads. iGeo celebrated in Kyoto its 10th
anniversary.
As usually, the conference included an exhibition of geographical literature, maps, atlases andmultimedia products. The special exhibition “Traditional Wisdom and Modern Knowledgepresented in Maps” was held in honor of the Conference: Kyoto University is famous for its
excellent collection of old maps.

Award ceremony for the former IGU President Ronald Abler, who received the Tokyo Geographical Society Medal from Professor
Michio Nogami, President of the Tokyo Geographical Society

According to the special survey, a great majority of participants rated the conference
management of the Kyoto conference very high; they remarked favourably on the quick andefficient registration facilities, the tremendous efforts of a large team of student volunteers, auser friendly Programme handbook, a memorable opening ceremony and much, much more.
At the closing ceremony, President Kolossov declared Ton Dietz, Professor of Human
Geography at the University of Amsterdam and Director of the African Studies Centre andProfessor in African Development at Leiden University (the Netherlands), the IGU 37th Lauréatd’Honneur. This award was established in 1976 to recognize individuals who have achieved
particular distinction or who have rendered outstanding service in the work of the IGU or ininternational geography and environmental research.

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Professor Ton Dietz receives the Laureat ‘d’Honneur for outstanding service to the IGU

IGU Executive Committee Meetings and Decisions
The 2012-2014 IGU Executive Committee consists of eleven elected members:
President
Professor Vladimir Kolossov, Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences,
Staromonetny per., 29, 119017 Moscow Russia
Vox: +7 495 959 0029; Fax: +7 495 959 0033; E-Mail: vladimirkolossov@rambler.ru
Past President:
Professor Ronald F. Abler, 525 Pennsylvania Avenue, Unit 301, Sheboygan WI 53081-4666 USA
Vox: +1 202 431 6271; Fax: +1 920 208 3452; E-Mail: rabler@aag.org
Secretary General and Treasurer:
Professor Michael Meadows, University of Cape Town, Private Bag X3, Department ofEnvironmental and Geographical Science, South Lane, Upper Campus, Rondebosch 7701 South
AfricaVox: +27 21 650 2873; Fax: +27 21 650 3456; E-Mail: mmeadows@mweb.co.za
First Vice President:
Professor Dietrich Soyez, University of Köln, Department of Geography, Albertus-Magnus-Platz
D-50923 Köln, Germany
Vox: +49 221 470 2261; Fax: +49 221 479 4917; E-Mail: d.soyez@uni-koeln.de5Vice Presidents:
Professor Giuliano Bellezza, via Nomentana 261, 00161 Rome Italy
Vox: +39 06 9761 0171; Mobile: +39 392 951 5439; E-Mail: giuliano.bellezza@uniroma1.it
Professor Joos Droogleever-Fortuijn, Department of Geography, Planning and International
Development Studies, University of Amsterdam, Plantage Muidergracht 14, 1018 TV Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Vox: +31-20-5254012; E-mail: j.c.droogleeverfortuijn@uva.nl
Professor Yukio Himiyama, Institute of Geography, Hokkaido University of Education, Hokumoncho,
Asahikawa 070-8621, Japan
Vox: +81 (0)166 59 1283; Fax: +81 (0)166 59 1283; E-mail: himiyama.yukio@a.hokkyodai.ac.jp
Professor Aharon Kellerman, University of Haifa, Department of Geography, Haifa 31905 Israel
Vox: +972 4 824 2816; Fax: +972 4 826 2134; E-Mail: akeller@univ.haifa.ac.il
Academician Dahe Qin, China Meteorological Administration, 46, Zhongguancun Nandajie
Beijing 100081 China
Vox: +86 10 6840 8926 and 6840 7926; Fax: +86 10 6217 4797; E-Mail: qdh@cma.gov.cn
Professor Jarkko Saarinen, University of Oulu, Department of Geography, PO Box 3000
Oulu, Finland
Vox: +358 40 48 40 777; Fax. +358 8 553 1693; E-Mail: jarkko.saarinen@oulu.fi
Professor RB Singh, University of Delhi, Department of Geography, Delhi School of Economics
Delhi-110007 India
Vox: 91 11 27666783; E-mail: rbsgeo@hotmail.com or rbsgeo1@yahoo.com

The IGU Executive Committee held two meetings in 2013: in Rohtak, India (March) and in Kyoto
in August, before the Regional Conference. After the meeting in India the members of the EC
addressed the National Conference on “Geoinformatics for Biodiveristy and Climate Change”
sponsored by the Indian National Academy of Sciences, Indian Council for Social Sciences andResearch and other governmental institutions. The approved minutes of the 2013 IGU
Executive Committee meetings are made available via the IGU E-newsletters at:
http://www.igu-online.org
The agenda of these meetings and the decisions taken during them were structured along the
IGU priorities for 2012-2016 adopted after the 32nd Congress in Cologne.
The first priority is to keep and to strengthen the role of IGU as a truly global organization, i.e.
to increase the participation of geographers from the countries with low incomes and at thesame time to make IGU attractive for geographers from the “North”, particularly for young
generations. IGU meetings and publications have to be important milestones in their career. In
2013 several countries have either formally re-established membership or have indicated thatthey are likely to become IGU members shortly. The EC paid a special attention to networking
African geographers and worked out a “roadmap” to promote African and other developing
countries membership.
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The second IGU priority is communication and integration of IGU Commissions’ work, thedevelopment of interdisciplinary research by promoting problem- and region-oriented
programmes and the cooperation between natural and social wings of geography in studying
future environmental conditions and their consequences for people, and institutional,
economic, and behavioral changes enabling effective steps toward global sustainability. IGU
believes it very important to involve geographers in the implementation of Future Earth, themost ambitious international research programme integrating natural and social sciences which
has been ever created. IGU through its national committees carefully selected the candidates toFuture Earth’s Science Committee. The world geographical community is represented in it byseveral members, including IGU Vice-President Dahe Qin. IGU also encourages joint and special
workshops, sessions and research projects sponsored by two or several Commissions. The EC
worked out the criteria for an IGU Commission excellence award and established thecommittee to administer it.
The third priority is cooperation with local organizing committees (LOC) of IGU Congresses andRegional Conferences for keeping their high standards, looking for new flexible formats, andbridging gaps between geographers, policy makers and community leaders. IGU EC closelycooperated with the LOC of the next Regional Conference in Poland and for the first time
signed with it the Memorandum of Agreement establishing mutual commitments and financial
responsibility.
According to the fourth priority - cooperation with the leading international organizations incontributing to the cohesion of geography and its better international visibility, IGU
participated in the activity of ICSU and ISSC in embedding IGU in global research programmes
and networks. IGU established closer relations with the Association of European GeographicalSocieties (Eugeo) and the European Association of Geographers (Eurogeo), and signed withthem the Memorandum on cooperation. IGU EC is also organizing “the IGU lecture” at theInternational Geographical Festival in Saint Dié (France). IGU sponsors the activity of the joint
Commission on Toponimy with the International Cartographic Association and maintains
working contacts with the International Union of Geological Sciences (IGS) and the International
Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG), in particular in Geounions, the association ofinternational unions in the field of Earth Sciences within ICSU.
Geographical education is one of the major raisons d’etre of the geographical community andone of its main priorities. IGU should continuously show the value of geographical education invarious international and national academic and policy contexts. IGU, Eugeo and Eurogeo are
working on a common project for promoting geographical education and keeping andmodernizing geographical curricula in secondary schools.
IGU decided to celebrate in 2022 its centennial and created special Task Force. One of its
objectives is to prepare the extraordinary Congress and a new publication documenting IGU
history.

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International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU)

IGU strongly supports the transdisciplinary project of the International Year on Global
Understanding (IYGU) which was created on the IGU initiative and is coordinated by Professor
Benno Werlen, Chair of IGU Commission on Cultural Geography. 2013 was marked byspectacular progress in the implementation of this project. First, its bodies (the Advisory Board,
the Steering Committee, the Outreach Panel and partly Regional Action Centres were formed
and started their activities. More important, the UNESCO Executive Board and later the
UNESCO General Assembly have unanimously adopted the resolution of the IGU initiative for
the IYGU presented by the group of the East African countries in the name of Rwanda.
Therefore, there is a real chance that the UN General Assembly could proclaim the IYGU during
2014 for 2016. The main idea of the project is to bridge the gap in awareness between local
actions and global effects and that there is the urgent need in global action towards resolving
the problems arising from global social and climate change. It was stressed that geographicaleducation for global understanding is critical for addressing global challenges - for providing
sustainable sources of clean water, food and energy, and for maintaining an intact environment
for the well-being of all people. The IGU initiative has already obtained earlier the support of
ISSC, ICSU and a great number of other international and national institutions. Moreinformation about IYGU is available at: http://global-understanding.info/
The IGU Journals Database

There are many journals globally that deal with the broad church that is the discipline ofGeography. In recent years the domination of major publishing houses in the scientific journal
market has become much stronger and it is clear that many geographical journals are publishedthat have a much lower profile and yet could provide a very valuable resource for geographers– researchers and teachers alike - in particular national or regional contexts. It was for thisreason that the IGU embarked on a project to establish a searchable global database ofgeographical periodicals. Information, including contact details, impact factor (whereappropriate) and website addresses of more than 1000 journals from more than 80 countries
worldwide are now available online (follow the link from the IGU homepage at: www.iguonline.org
8Sustainable Cities: The IGU ‘OurSus’ Project

IGU also supports the project of making the site on cities’ sustainable development created in2010 on the initiative of Dutch and Chinese geographers the world centre of information andcertification working under the sponsorship of IGU. This project is based on the idea that
despite their different sizes, location and functions all cities are facing similar challenges interms of sustainable features, such as green R&D, environment-friendly consumption, green
campaigns, challenges, and education, etc. In 2013 the project had a full double Internet
infrastructure, in English and Chinese (www.oursus.org and zh.oursus.org). There were numerous
cities presented on its website and many academics and professionals made use of it, albeit still
mainly from China. It is expected that the project will reach full maturity in 2016 towards the
IGU Congress in Beijing. It should have a wide and internationally balanced representation ofboth cities and users. It is necessary to mobilize geographical communities in many countries
and to create national centres of the project.
Communication and Outreach
The main communication tools of the IGU are its quarterly newsletter, compiled by VicePresident Giuliano Bellezza and its website, maintained by Secretary-General Mike Meadows.
Four issues of the new series of the e-Newsletter were published in 2013 and can be
downloaded from the website by following the newsletter link from www.igu-online.org. IGU
now has a Facebook page and the new website design. In 2013 volume 61-62 of the IGU
Bulletin was published representing the years 2011-12. IGU also issued a publicity leaflet on its
current activities and updated the handbook for its members.
One of the most important tasks of the IGU is to act as the connection between theinternational community of geographers and the major global scientific organisations. IGU isformally recognised as a voting member Union of both the International Council for Science(ICSU) and the International Social Science Council (ISSC) and plays a vital role in representing
the discipline at the highest level of global scientific administration. It is vital that geographers
are represented on the major international science committees and successfully nominatedcandidates for membership of the Future Earth programme (see: www.icsu.org/future-earth), a
joint ICSU-ISSC 10-year international research initiative that will develop the knowledge forresponding effectively to the risks and opportunities of global environmental change and forsupporting transformation towards global sustainability in the coming decades.
Financial
A summary Profit and Loss statement and Balance Sheet (amounts given in US$) for 2013 are
attached to this report and indicate that the overall financial position of the IGU remains stable.
The revenue generated by its member countries continues to ensure that IGU is able to remain
9active in the international geographical community and is able to strive towards fulfilling its
major objectives (see www.igu-online.org).
Forthcoming IGU Conferences

18th to 22nd August 2014, Krakow, Poland Regional Conference

http://www.igu2014.org/

20th to 26th August 2015, Moscow, Russia Regional Conference

http://www.igu2015.ru/

August 2016: People’s Republic of China International Geographical Congress, Beijing
More details at: www.igu-online.org

1012:28 PM

International Geographical Union

02-03-14
Cash Basis

January through December 2013

Profit & Loss

Jan - Dec 13
Ordinary Income/Expense
IncomeDirect Public Grants
Corporate and Business Grants
Nonprofit Organization Grants
Direct Public Grants - Other
Total Direct Public Grants
Investments
Interest-Savings, Short-term CD
Total Investments
Program Income
Membership Dues
Publications
Subscriptions
Total Program Income
Total Income
Gross Profit
ExpenseAwards and Grants
Cash Awards and Grants
Total Awards and Grants
Operations
Banking Fees
Books, Subscriptions, Reference
Commissions
Internet and Web Site
Postage, Mailing Service
Printing and Copying
Projects
Secretarial Assistance
SoftwareSupplies
Total Operations
Other Types of Expenses
Memberships and Dues
Total Other Types of Expenses
Travel and Meetings
Conference, Convention, Meeting
Executive Committee Meetings
TravelTotal Travel and Meetings
Total Expense
Net Ordinary Income
Net Income

24,741.80
58,002.73
655.0083,399.53
3,969.31
3,969.31
135,374.91
174.56558.65
136,108.12
223,476.96
223,476.96

34,670.06
34,670.06
3,823.89
944.56
27,606.49
2,130.90
955.658,650.75
63,033.12
1,392.29
377.99507.95
109,423.59
6,545.80
6,545.80
5,340.01
14,715.24
17,164.02
37,219.27
187,858.72
35,618.24
35,618.24

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12:31 PM

International Geographical Union

02-03-14
Cash Basis

As of December 31, 2013

Balance Sheet

Dec 31, 13
ASSETS
Current Assets
Checking/Savings
Johnson Bank IGU Endowment
Johnson Bank Operating AccountPetty Cash
SBCT Market Link
SBCT Money Market
SBCT Operating AccountTotal Checking/Savings
Total Current Assets

46,584.33
7,627.80
590.95743.98103,227.29
28,183.41
186,957.76
186,957.76

TOTAL ASSETS

186,957.76

LIABILITIES & EQUITY
EquityOpening Balance Equity
Net Income

151,339.52
35,618.24

Total Equity
TOTAL LIABILITIES & EQUITY

186,957.76
186,957.76

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