Early Career scientists make up a significant amount of our community, creating an opportunity to include a new generation of hydrologists as active contributors to IAHS. Early Career scientist involvement in geoscientific organizations has rapidly increased over recent years. Organizations such as the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and the European Geosciences Union (EGU) have adopted Early Career representation in committees, board and executive committees.

During its Bureau Meeting in July 2017 (held in Port Elizabeth, South Africa following the IAHS Scientific Assembly 2017), IAHS decided to strengthen its Early Career scientist representation to enable more active participation of those members within IAHS Commissions and Working Groups. To achieve this goal, in line with the proposal submitted by Tim van Emmerik and Nilay Dogulu—and approved by the Bureau members—IAHS will establish an Early Career Committee (ECC) consisting of the Early Career Representative of each IAHS Commission plus a chair and co-chair. The IAHS definition of Early Career embraces scientists up to 5 years after completion of the PhD (allowing for an extra year per child for parents if they took parental leave).

IAHS Early Career Committee (ECC) structure

The ECC is aimed at representing the Early Career membership of the IAHS at the highest level, and within each Commission. ECC members are dedicated to fostering dialogue between Early Career members, and between current and future generations of hydrologists. The ECC chair will be appointed by the IAHS Bureau and will join the IAHS Bureau meetings as an observer. The chair will be encouraged to also be an active member of the Young Hydrologic Society to assure strong connections with other Early Career initiatives in the hydrological community.

More specifically, ECC will have the following responsibilities:
●     Represent Early Career Members of IAHS in the Bureau and the IAHS Commissions,
●     Organize events and sessions at IAHS conferences,
●     Create and maintain an Early Career Member network within IAHS,
●     Liaison with other Early Career leaders at e.g. IUGG, EGU, AGU, and the Young Hydrologic Society,
●     Act as sounding board for IAHS, the IAHS Bureau and IAHS Commissions.

The ECC is a two-year mandate and will synchronize with other (longer) IAHS  mandates. The first mandate will officially come into force from July 2019 at the 27th IUGG General Assembly (in Montreal, Canada) and run until July 2021 when the next ECC will take over at the IAHS Scientific Assembly in Montpellier, France.

IAHS has identified Nilay Dogulu and Tim van Emmerik as the chair and co-chair, respectively, to kick off the ECC. The elected Early Career Representatives will start functioning unofficially on 1 September 2018 and will get to work immediately to plan activities for the upcoming IAHS Scientific Assembly to be held as part of the 27th IUGG GA.

If you are interested in becoming an Early Career Scientist Representative for one of the IAHS Commissions, you can apply by completing the form by 15 August 2018. The ECC embraces equal opportunity for all its members, and strives to have a diverse composition in terms of gender and geography.

• Link to the announcement on the IAHS website: https://iahs.info/About-IAHS/Early-Career-Committee-.do
• Link to the IAHS News: https://iahs.info/news/?news_id=270