Want to have your say? Deep-time Digital Earth and Springer Nature are polling experts to frame the future Top Ten Research Trend of Earth sciences

Scientists at the Deep-time Digital Earth (DDE) Big Science Program — a major international initiative — are turning to their global colleagues to find out. They have created a list of 30 trending topics across the geological sciences, and are inviting researchers from around the world to vote and select the top 10 trends from proposed 30 topics.

The survey is live on http://trends.ddeworld.org/, and Springer Nature is collaborating with DDE in getting the poll out to a wide range of researchers from April 18 to June 15, 2024.

“These 30 topics reflect the latest trends and advancements in geosciences, and have the potential to address real-world problems that are closely related to society, science, and technology,” says Hans Thybo, chair of the Science Committee of the DDE Big Science Program. “By involving global experts in the voting process, we hope to determine the most important and relevant research areas, guiding future Earth science research.”

By leveraging the Dimensions and Web of Science databases, they have analyzed 411,815 articles from 466 geoscience journals over the past decade (2014-2023). To whittle down years of progress and research findings to just 30 topics, they used a combination of expert- and data-driven approaches. It integrated expert knowledge, literature data, and co-citation to achieve a granularity for the trends. The final proposed collection of research trends spans five domains: deep space, deep time, deep Earth, habitable Earth, and big data.

The vote comes as the DDE Big Science Program is set to publish a new open-access report assessing geosciences progress over the past decade. This report aims to provide valuable insights into major research methods and breakthroughs for significant scientific problems in Earth sciences.

The results of final Top Ten Research Trend in Geosciences will be published in the report during the 37^th International Geological Congress in August 2024.

Vote Now：https://trends.ddeworld.org/

The DDE Big Science Program was launched in 2018. Initiated by the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) in cooperation with professional associations, academic institutions and scientists around the world. The program aims to harmonize ‘deep-time’ digital geological data and revolutionize data-driven discovery in understanding Earth’s evolution.

Deep-time data relates to the geological processes that the Earth has experienced through millions of years. They include data related to the evolution of life, climate, material, and geography.

The program will centralize data in accessible hubs, enhancing understanding of the distribution and value of Earth’s resources and materials, along with natural hazards. This initiative will also empower researchers to gain deeper insights into the Earth's geological past and offer projections about its future.

2024 Research Funding Opportunities Provided by DDE:

1) Research & Development Project

    Funding Level: Up to Maximum US$200,000.00 each Project

    Requirement: At least one participant is a DDE Member

    4 Open Opportunities in 2024

2) Seed Grant Fund Project

   Funding Level: Up to Maximum US$150,000.00 each Project

   Requirement: No Restrictions, Open to Scientist Globally

   4 Open Opportunities in 2024

3) Workshop Project in RCE (Hangzhou)

   Free Cloud Computing Power and Workspace with Financial Support

   Requirement: No Restrictions, Open to Scientist Globally

   4 Open Opportunities in 2024

For more details of above fundings please visit https://www.ddeworld.org/science/fundingopportunities