The roles and responsibilities of engineering geologists and other geoscientists in serving society and protecting the public—an overview of international approaches to ensuring effective and ethical professional practice

Abstract

This paper is about approaches to ensuring effective and ethical professional practice in the application of geoscience in the interest both of protection of the public and a better informed and more resilient society. It starts by providing an overview of the aims and objectives of the Task Group on Global Geoscience Professionalism (TGGGP) formed in 2012 by the International Union of Geological Societies (IUGS), with the aim of supporting and promoting professionalism in all areas of geoscience practice and developing shared perspectives internationally about how this should be done most effectively. The authors will highlight the importance of achieving a shared understanding of, and commitment to, ethical professional practice across the entire geoscience community in the interests of serving society and protecting the public. To illustrate this, it will propose that continuing dislocation and separation of the academic community from the applied community in geoscience is not in the interests of anyone—least of all the public—and present a framework for promoting closer and more collaborative relationships between geoscience professionals who work as educators, researchers, in government and for ‘industry’.