An update from the Royal Geographical Society

As part of its work to promote geography and the work of geographers, the RGS-IBG has created a series to showcase the skills and insight geographers offer in telling stories with data. While maps and geovisualisations are powerful as standalone images, the Society is interested in revealing the story behind them, to highlight the ways in which connecting data on people, places and environments underpins effective decision- and policy-making and improves public understanding.

RGS-IBG invites submissions of static maps or visualisations, along with an interview in written and/or video form, to tell the story behind the image’s creation; the data, techniques and approaches; and the reasons for using mapping or visualisation for this topic. In exploring these questions, the Society is looking to showcase skills, share work, and encourage its audiences to be critical and ambitious in the maps and visualisations they create and the geographical stories they tell. Questions and submissions can be sent to policy@rgs.org

The ‘I am a Geographer’ scheme showcases profiles of geographers, there career paths, and how they make an impact on society. The purpose is to inspire young people to choose geographer as a subject to study and the pathway to their future careers. Members are invited to provide profiles for the scheme and increase the visibility of geomorphology with young people. The RGS-IBG is particularly keen to increase the number of profiles from those working in Industry, such as our Professional Geomorphology members.

The Young Geographer of the Year is the Society’s annual competition, which recognises the outstanding work of the next generation of geographers. With its age ranges spanning the primary years to A Level, the competition encourages thoughtful and creative answers to the competition’s theme which is set each year.

The Society encourages schools to run their own in-house competition and then send their top 10 entries into the national competition. The Young Geographer competition has been running for over 20 years. The 2021 competition ‘Remapping our lives’ has just finished.

The RGS-IBG has been producing a number of geography themed podcasts. Members are invited to listen and to volunteer for future podcasts, but please be aware that there is often a long waiting list.

A review was undertaken to understand who goes on to study geography at university. An external report was commissioned, broken down by gender, ethnicity, background, across human and physical geography UG courses. The report and further details can be found here.

The RGS-IBG is delighted to be working with the Advanced Mathematics Support Programme (managed by MEI) on a Geography and Core Maths Initiative. Further details and resources can be found here, along with a briefing document to download. The next series of events is open for booking now. Contact Simon if you are interested in contributing to this work.

The 2021 Essay Competition, organised in partnership with the Financial Times, asked students to explain how transport changes might help the world to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. Further details, along with the names of the award winners, can be found here.