One Day in Europe is a feature of EFG’s monthly newsletter GeoNews. Each month we travel to one of EFG’s national membership associations and discover their main activities and challenges. In August we visited Sweden.
The Geological Section (Geosektionen) is an independent, non-profit organisation within the Swedish Association of Scientists confederation. Its aims are to represent the geology profession at a national level and to promote the professional development of geoscientists.
EFG
delegate Pia Hansson answered our questions. Pia has a PhD in bedrock geology, from the University of Lund in Sweden. Her research was in low-temperature geochronology and she mapped the latest 200 million years of geology in south Sweden, in close association with SKB, the Swedish Nuclear Waste and Management Company. Directly after finishing her PhD in 2008 she was employed at Tyréns, a consulting company within infrastructure. Since Pia started at Tyréns she has been working in various commissions, including both soil- and rock mapping, investigations and control programmes, i.g. for “Trafikverket”, communities and for SKB. Geoenergy is another of Pia’s working fields where complex facilities has passed her desk. She has been technical and over all responsible in several of the commissions she has been involved in. Since September 2015 Pia is head of the Geotechnical department in South Sweden.
How many 
members does Geosektionen represent? – Circa 630
How did your membership evolve over the past few years? – Sort of steady state – some retire and some new enter.
And in which field of geology do your members mainly work? – Mainly within academia but very spread otherwise.
How is your association structured? – The board with its Head of Board, Vice Head of Board, Secretary, financial responsible and “others”.
What was your association’s main achievement in 2015? – To attract young geologists, to work to get geology as a subject in school, general geologically related information to the board and to our member.
What is your focus for 2016? – Same as in 2015.
What are currently the main challenges for your association? – To get the time to do work with our goals. We are a non-profit organisation and do all the work as volunteers, at the same time as we have very demanding regular works.
Do you promote geology towards society? If yes, how? – We are involved in Geologins dag – Annual Day of Geology and we try to get geology as a subject in school.
Do you have any particular activities to attract young geoscientists? – We represent on Arbetsmarknadsdagar.
Are you in contact with decision makers at national level? – No
How would you define your association’s relation with EFG? – We are a comparably small organisation and try to do our best.
What would you like the other EFG membership associations to know about Geosektionen? – Nothing about our organisation but that Sweden has beautiful geological places.
Is there any experience/good practice from Geosektionen that you would like to share with other associations? – We are small and have a hard time to get things done but we have very good spirit and friendship within the board.
What would you like to know about the other EFG membership associations? – How do small, volunteering organisations get time to do their work?
In your opinion, how could EFG improve the knowledge about the activities carried out by other associations? – We hear mostly about the big organisations activities because they accomplish the most. Would be interesting to hear about smaller organisations and what they do to fulfil their goals.
More information about Geosektionen: http://www.naturvetarna.se/
