The European Green Deal, first announced in December 2019, sets ambitious targets, including reaching climate neutrality in Europe by 2050; addressing the drivers of biodiversity loss in Europe; restoring degraded ecosystems; and adopting a zero-pollution action plan for air, water and soils. Achieving these bold targets will require scientific expertise from many different geoscience areas.

This Union Symposium will provide participants with an introduction to the European Green Deal, highlighting aspects that require geoscience expertise and discussing how scientists can engage with, and effectively support, the Deal’s ambitious targets. The session will also discuss the different stages of development and implementation of the Green Deal’s targets, what’s coming next and where science can be integrated. As a European scientific union focusing on many aspects relating to the Green Deal, the EGU is well positioned to highlight these areas through this session and beyond.

The panel will include scientists working in areas related to the Green Deal and policymakers who either initially proposed the Green Deal roadmap or who are currently working on its implementation. The session will include presentations from these speakers as well as a moderated discussion on how geoscientists can best support the Green Deal’s targets and a Q&A with the audience. Despite being a European specific initiative, the Green Deal also outlines missions working with neighbouring countries to the EU and some countries in Africa. In addition, many countries outside of the EU have discussed similar strategies. This session will therefore be of interest to a broader international audience.

The Covid-19 pandemic has been a major trauma for humanity and naturally calls for multiple scientifically-based responses to mitigate the risks and build resilience to it and its potential successors. It should be stressed that the geosciences communities have already strived to respond to it, drawing on their expertise, even if they have also had to face various upheavals as a result of the pandemic.
The solicited talks of this Union Session will highlight these contributions but, more importantly, will seek to identify new developments. These include a better understanding of zoonotic spillovers, anomalous mechanisms and pathways of multi-scale transmission, the role of natural and man-made environmental complexity.
These developments are expected to greatly improve monitoring and governance of the epidemic at different scales and strengthen community engagement. Overall, they put geosciences into a post-Covid perspective.

In 2020, humanity faced up to an urgent and deadly challenge. The COVID-19 severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) spread rapidly and with shocking impacts, tragically claiming (at the time of writing) hundreds of thousands of lives.

Rapid and dramatic action was called for and – thankfully – was largely forthcoming, from governments, businesses and individuals.

Across the globe, drastic lifestyle changes were imposed, with freedoms curtailed and life for many stripped back to the necessities, and yet these changes were generally accepted. Welcomed even. They were to keep us safe. To protect us now and into the future.

The contrast with the Climate Emergency is fascinating. It too is an urgent and deadly existential challenge, and yet the consensus is that actions are too little, too slow, the urgency is lacking, the public buy-in largely absent.

Despite growing awareness over many decades, there is no effective, concerted programme to address this largest of all global problems.

It appears likely that any reduction in carbon emissions as a result of lifestyle changes to contain the spread of the Coronavirus will be only temporary. Furthermore, financial initiatives to help economies restart and other initiatives to prevent the spread of the disease, such as reduced use of public transport and a huge escalation in the use of single use plastics, are likely to bring increased environmental harm.

This Union session looks at the Climate and Ecological Emergency through the lens of the COVID-19 crisis, and asks, what lessons can we learn? How can some of that urgency be brought to this greatest existential challenge? Can lifestyle changes implemented during the crisis which bring positive outcomes for our future sustainability be maintained and enhanced? And can those which are increasing harm be turned around? In short, can this terrible global crisis serve as a wakeup call for action to protect all our futures?

This Union Symposium invites a broad range of thinkers and influencers, ranging from leading climate scientists to broadcasters, policymakers and influencers to provide their perspectives on how the COVID-19 crisis can help inform actions to address our generation’s greatest challenge.

As geoscientists, we watch over the health of our planet, we see the changes, we understand the impacts. We know the likely consequences of inaction. Our community has a vital role to play.

The terrestrial biosphere exerts disproportionate influence on Earth's climate, making improvements in its representation key to reducing climate uncertainty. After 50 years of development, land surface models contain detailed processes of energy fluxes, photosynthesis, hydrology, C-N-P cycles, and land-use within coarse non-interacting grid cells. Remaining discrepancies in fidelity to observed carbon and water cycles appear primarily related to deficiencies in the representation of forests and human activity. These include the omission of spatial processes of disturbance, migration, adaptation, and management. Also missing is the generative process of life, evolution, which gives rise to life history strategies, trophic-metabolic networks, leaf economics, local adaptation (i.e., optimality, acclimation), and plant behaviour. Despite improvements in representing vegetation demography by utilizing emergent properties of allometric scaling, canopy geometric realism remains low. This may bias carbon and water cycles per radiative transfer and coupled processes of photosynthesis, regeneration, evapotranspiration, heterotrophic respiration, and disturbance.

We believe that physics-based botanical models, forest landscape models, and terrestrial biosphere models may soon merge into new multi-scale models. While low-dimensional representations of forests are often used to improve computational efficiency and cope with a dearth of 4-D forest observatories, deep learning may be combined with new autonomous scanning systems - proximal and/or remote - such as our proposed global tower-based '5DNet' to infer evolvable 4-D physics-based models. This includes learning multi-generation tree models with 4-D traits from image and/or laser scanning time-series. To date, 4-D ontogeny has been inferred from individual scans of mature trees, multi-plant phenological events have been tracked in real-time, and the self-similar and -organizing nature of plants has been used to efficiently compress tree models down to their generating parameters. Achieving leaf-to-global scaling may require co-processor acceleration and fusing deep learning with 3-D radiative transfer modeling to infer global surface properties. An additional focus on evolution and human activity comes as 21st century land surface models mature into general simulations of life on Earth.

This Union Symposium presents exciting work toward achieving this moonshot in Earth observation and systems modeling.

Patience Cowie revolutionised our understanding of the growth and interaction of faults, and the impact these have on the topography of extensional settings. Through her tenacious focus on the science, infectious enthusiasm, wonderful sense of humour and commitment to women in science, she inspired a generation of young researchers, many of whom are presenting in this Union Symposium.
Patience’s early research began with the growth and interaction of faults and their length/displacement scaling. She studied faults at different scales, from small scale, linking damage zone to displacement, to whole fault systems, demonstrating how the development of complex fault networks impacts fault slip rate. She built numerical models of fault interactions that integrated the response of river systems to the changing topography. The predictions of these models challenged geomorphological and stratigraphic understanding of extensional settings, and resulted in a wealth of research on the extraction of tectonic signals from river profiles, and the sedimentological record of these processes.
This Union Symposium aims to sustain the momentum of Patience Cowie’s multidisciplinary approach to tackling fundamental questions concerning the interactions between the brittle upper crust and the surface processes that govern much of Earth’s topography. We are now addressing the physical mechanisms that can lead to the variety of slip styles and frictional behaviour on faults; this is critical to forecasting seismic hazard. As faults propagate, they determine the geometry of river networks, the distribution of erosion and the response time of river channels. These interactions govern sediment routing systems and the stratigraphic record of these processes. This symposium seeks to explore a future vision for the science underpinned by the fundamental processes linking faults and topography, balanced by an awareness of the societal challenges of risk management to natural hazards in these settings.

Different forms of systemic discrimination are experienced by underrepresented minorities throughout society, and the geoscience community is not immune to this often overlooked or unrecognised problem. Recent events and research have highlighted the systematic problem of racism in geoscience, but even beyond race-based discrimination many geoscientists experience some form of discrimination on a daily basis both within their professional and personal life.
EGU has made a commitment to highlighting these challenges, and are seeking to improve our efforts to make discrimination unacceptable, especially within the geoscience community. Through a series of actions including blogs, publications and public events, EGU will continue to work to raise awareness of discrimination in all its forms.
This Great Debate will build on EGU’s stated ambition to promote equality, inclusivity and diversity in geoscience at all levels, and draw influence from how discrimination in the geosciences is experienced by our members from a personal perspective. This panel discussion aims to raise awareness of these issues and try to understand what concrete actions EGU and other scientific societies can take to effect real change for everyone affected by some form of discrimination.

At the beginning of the General Assembly 2020 EGU has published a declaration on the significance of geoscience expertise to meet global societal challenges. At the same time, a global public health crisis was happening due to COVID-19. During any public crisis including this public health crisis or any emerging environmental crisis, authorities often seek advice from experts to take the best possible actions. In many countries systems are in place for several potential environmental disasters such as floods and storms. However, for less frequent or new issues there is no established protocol. As sometimes fast reaction is key to save lives, experts may find themselves in the situation that a statement has to be issued under strong time constraints and without peer-review. In this great debate we would like to discuss different aspects of the requirement for fast information and how to address it, especially how to deal with the related lack of quality assessments and uncertainties. We will also discuss how this COVID-19 public health crisis could draw on the experience gained during other disasters that happen more frequently and which lessons we can learn from that.

Conducting geoscientific research today is unthinkable without research software. However, there are different views on the importance of research software and its role in science.

The proposals to improve research software touch on all aspects of academia, such as funding, credit and reward systems, job descriptions and career paths, or evaluation schemes (of papers, people, projects). A growing community of researchers and software developers gather under the umbrella of Research Software Engineering (RSEng) and argue that research software is not merely a by-product of science, but effective and sustainable development of research software needs a skillset and resources beyond current academic education or management plans.

This great debate puts the questions, problems, challenges, and opportunities around research software in geosciences to the center of EGU, as it is a topic that concerns every researcher who uses computers. It features short opening statements by a panel representing the full breadth of stakeholders in science, and continues with a discussion on how to improve the situation for EGU members who work with and on research software:

- Does research software get the attention it deserves in Geosciences?
- How can we better support research software in Geosciences? How does it differ from other tools/equipment we use?
- Does a lack of support for research software lead to bad science in Geosciences?
- What failures can we learn from where research software played a critical role?
- How can (and should?) research software become a first class output across all Geosciences? How can credit be given to it’s authors and contributors?
- What skills and mindset set people who identify as research software engineers apart from “regular researchers”?
- How should the education of researchers include research software?
- What makes research software in Geosciences “good”, “FAIR”, useful, or user friendly? Who is responsible for that?
- What tasks can individual researchers or leaders in scientific communities undertake if they want to positively influence research software?
- Research software and open source - how do these meet? How can communities be built and can they mitigate issues around research software?

"Publish or perish" is the motto for Fast Science. All Early Career Scientists (ECS) are well aware that the scientific landscape has become a publication factory. Fast Science prefers quantity over quality, thereby creating a proliferation of articles that overwhelm readers and publishers and threaten the effectiveness of the peer-review system. The widespread three-year turnover of project grants causes a lack of longer-term, comprehensively monitored data-sets, contributing to incremental, not fundamental, discoveries. Researchers are challenged to publish at a high frequency, gain international experience, receive outstanding teaching evaluations and acquire multiple scholarships and grants, all of which has to be balanced with their private life. It is no surprise that the 2019 ECS debate addressed mental health problems. In contrast, the Slow Science Movement (http://slow-science.org/) believes that science should be a slow, steady, methodical process and that scientists should not be expected to provide "quick solutions" to society's problems. Slow Science supports curious scientific research and opposes performance targets.

During this Great Debate, we will discuss the alternatives to Fast Science. Is Slow Science a realistic movement? What can we learn from it and what are the disadvantages compared to Fast Science? Would it be possible to integrate this concept of Slow Science into the current scientific landscape and create more sustainable science? Should we aim to publish coherent stories instead of splitting them up, thereby focusing on the real knowledge gain and scientific advances?

The attendees will share their opinions in small groups discussing one of the following topics, each revolving around the themes raised above. After the group-internal discussion phase, the main points from each group will be shared among the groups to continue further discussion and debate.

Being bullied or harassed at your workspace has a tremendous impact on both the professional and the personal wellbeing of the person subjected to such treatment.
Which acts and behaviours classify as bullying and harassment? How can you recognize if you or a co-worker/friend are the target of bullying and harassment? How can you protect yourself and others from bullying and harassment? What can we all together do to stop harmful behaviours from individuals or overarching structures? What do institutions need to do in order to create a healthy and safe work environment?

These questions and more will be addressed during this ECS Great Debate, which shall raise awareness for the harmful effects of bullying and harassment in academia, provide clarity around this complex matter, and encourage people to speak up and take action against it. Through round-table discussions we will talk about what is needed to create a healthy, safe and inclusive work environment for everyone, where bullying, any form of harassment and intimidation have no place.

This session will present the award and medal lecture of the EGU Division of Cryospheric Sciences for 2020 and 2021.

The 2020 Division Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award is awarded to Anna E. Hogg for outstanding research in the field of satellite remote sensing of the cryosphere and her contributions to science communications.

The 2021 Division Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award is awarded to Christine L. Batchelor for her contributions to cryospheric sciences by her studies on glacial history and palaeo-ice sheet reconstructions.

The 2020 Julia and Johannes Weertman Medal is awarded to Julienne C. Stroeve for her fundamental contributions to improved satellite observations of sea ice, better understanding of causes of sea ice variability and change, and her compelling communication to the wider public.

The 2021 Julia and Johannes Weertman Medal is awarded to Martyn Tranter for his outstanding fundamental contributions in the innovative and emerging field of glacial biogeochemistry, leading to the paradigm shift in recognizing bio-albedo effects.

This session is organised by the EGU Earth and Space Sciences Division to honour the recipients of the Ian McHarg Medal and the Early Career Scientist Award.

The Ian McHarg Medal is awarded for distinguished research in information technology applied to Earth and space sciences. It is named after Ian McHarg (1920-2001), a pioneer of the concept of ecological planning, who set forth the basic concepts of what was to become Geographic Information Systems (GIS).

The Earth and Space Science Informatics Division’s Outstanding Early Career Scientists is awarded for outstanding contributions to the field by researchers early in their career.

The Bagnold Medal Lectures from the medallists from 2020 and 2021 will be presented in this flagship GM session. The session will be introduced by the GM President, Daniel R. Parsons and citations given for each of the Medallists.

Are you unsure about how to bring order in the extensive program of the General Assembly? Are you wondering how to tackle this week of science? Are you curious about what EGU and the General Assembly have to offer? Then this is the short course for you!

During this coursee, we will provide you with tips and tricks on how to handle this large conference and how to make the most out of your week at this year's General Assembly. We'll explain the EGU structure, the difference between EGU and the General Assembly, we will dive into the program groups and we will introduce some key persons that help the Union function.

Feel free to join us, we are looking forward to meeting you!

The European Geosciences Union is a the largest Geoscientific Union in Europe, largely run by volunteers. Perhaps you have been to the General Assembly before, maybe you have published in one of the EGU journals, or are you following EGU and/or several EGU divisions on social media.

Whatever your closest link with EGU, would you like to get involved?

This short course is aimed at Early Career Scientists and will provide an overview of all the activities of EGU, which are much more than just the General Assembly. We will give practical tips on how to get involved, who to contact and where to find specific information if you want to organise a event.

More than 50% of EGU's members consist of ECS, let's get active!

Recent publications show that many people working in academia experience mental health issues. Factors like job insecurity, limited amount of time and poor management often cause high stress levels and can lead to mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety or emotional exhaustion. Following the EGU blog series and short course ‘Mind your Head’ in 2019-2020, and the successful ECS Great Debate at the General Assembly in 2019, we aim to continue the dialogue and reduce the stigma surrounding mental illness.

In this short course we invite panelists to share their experiences, how they dealt with it and what support they received. Afterwards we aim to actively engage the audience to discuss how to take control of their mental wellbeing and prioritise it in the current academic environment. We invite people from all career stages and disciplines to come and join us for this short course.

COVID-19 has affected our daily lives in an unprecedented range of ways. It is a human, economic and social crisis that has potentially changed the way we live, work and interact with each other forever. Researchers have not been spared from this, facing numerous challenges since the start of the outbreak, both personal and professional. This session will focus on a couple of these challenges in detail and discuss the lessons that we can learn to strengthen the scientific community and research in the future.

The first challenge that this session will address is the impact COVID-19 has had on research activities directly. Since the introduction of lockdowns in Europe, many researchers have had to reduce their research activities due to additional responsibilities at home while others have been locked out of laboratories and libraries, of all kinds, or been unable to undertake fieldwork to collect primary data. This has not only impacted the careers of many scientists but also led to project goals becoming unachievable, issues with funding and PhD candidates unable to complete their research. In this short course we will look at what can be done on an individual level to improve the current situation that many researchers find themselves in.

In addition to the financial, structural difficulties, many researchers are starting to view the way that they do science as more flexible than they might have considered possible before the coronavirus outbreak. This short course will also make space for discussions about how the practicalities of doing research (be it infrastructure, work patterns or styles of employment) could change in the light of what we have learned during this challenging time. We will also ask the question ‘how can large organisations and institutions attempt to better prepare in case another global crisis arises in the future?’

The European Research Council (ERC) is a leading European funding body supporting excellent investigator-driven frontier research across all fields of science. ERC calls are open to researchers around the world. The ERC offers various different outstanding funding opportunities with grants budgets of €1.5 to €3.5 million for individual scientists. All nationalities of applicants are welcome for projects carried out at a host institution in Europe (European Union member states and associated countries). At this session, the main features of ERC funding individual grants will be presented.

Drafting your first grant proposal can be daunting. Grant writing improves with experience, so how do early career scientists compete on equal footing with those who are more established? In this short course, a panel of scientists and funding agencies will share their experience on applying to different funding bodies and provide top tips to early career scientists. You can gain insight and (even better) inspiration by discussing with the panel the bits and pieces you may struggle with when writing a strong grant proposal. This session will be followed by a ‘pop-up’ session in the Networking and ECS lounge, for more specific questions to our panel.
NOTE - this course has a broader scope than the more specific ERC and Marie Curie short courses. This course gives broad tips and hints on how to write a successful proposal irrespective of the funding body.

After the PhD, a new challenge begins: finding a position where you can continue your research or a job outside academia where you can apply your advanced skills. This task is not always easy, and frequently a general overview of the available positions is missing. Furthermore, in some divisions, up to 70% of PhD graduates will go into work outside of academia. There are many different careers which require or benefit from a research background. But often, students and early career scientists struggle to make the transition due to reduced support and networking.
In this panel discussion, scientists with a range of backgrounds give their advice on where to find jobs, how to transition between academia and industry and what are the pros and cons of a career inside and outside of academia.
In the final section of the short course, a Q+A will provide the audience with a chance to ask their questions to the panel. This panel discussion is aimed at early career scientists but anyone with an interest in a change of career will find it useful. An extension of this short course will run in the networking and early career scientist lounge, for further in-depth or one-on-one questions with panel members.

Diversity has many dimensions including, but not limited to, race/ethnicity, gender, disability status, nationality, language, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic background. Diversity is key for scientific progress and society because different perspectives and life experiences give rise to diversity in scientific questions and approaches to address them, and stimulate collaboration between academics and local communities. Nevertheless, geosciences remain the least diverse of all STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields.
In this short course, early career scientists will be presented with practical advice on how they can contribute to promoting diversity in both their present and future career stages and help to build a geoscience community that is welcoming and supporting to marginalized scientists.

The short course will consist of the following invited talks, followed by discussion with the speakers:

(1) Asmeret Asefaw Berhe: "Forms of diversity and how can early career scientists support it"

(2) Bala Chaudhary: "Building an anti-racist lab"

(3) Budiman Minasny: "The fair-play of scientific collaborations - beyond helicopter research"

Scientists of all career stages are welcome to participate and join the discussions!

Bullying and discrimination within academia are widespread and impact science at all levels. Early Career Scientists of underprivileged and underrepresented groups are those most affected by such work environments. Thus, discriminatory work environments further contribute to the continued lack of diversity within the geosciences, ultimately hampering scientific advancement. Systemic power dynamics within academia lead to the fear of retaliation and the impunity of professors, which is why culprits get away with abuse far too often. Despite increased discussions about this topic, institutions tend to provide little or ineffective support for those affected, nor clear steps forward. In this interactive short course, an expert panel will (i) provide practical recommendations on how to combat discriminatory work environments and (ii) explain strategies for bystander intervention. This will be followed by an open discussion between the expert panel and all participants about how to battle discriminatory work environments in the geosciences.
This Short Course is a joint effort of the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Working Group of EGU, the Young Hydrologic Society and EGU.
With Prof. Dr. Aradhna E. Tripati, Prof. Dr. Erika Marin-Spiotta, Dr. Anjana Khatwa and Dr. Moses Milazzo we have a great panel consisting of a diverse group of experts and ambassadors for more diversity and equity within the geosciences.

Careers in academia exist beyond research and publications. There are always aspects more than what meets the eye. Often, we tend to learn about what is made available and evident, leaving behind many questions. It is only natural for aspiring scientists to have questions that shape their minds and impact their research. Some questions pertain to professional realms, others may relate to more broader perspectives on ambitions, inspirations, and what one deems as meaningful. Not every day do we get the opportunity to present these floating concerns at a forum and have experts address and pay heed to the same. In this session, a successful scientist with many years of experience will provide a look back to give a personal perspective of her/his career.

This year, we have the absolute pleasure of having with us Professor Todd A. Ehlers, who is an all-round geologist, head of the Earth Surface Dynamics group at the University of Tuebingen, Germany. Todd’s work has been contributing to better understand how tectonic, climatic and biogenic forces interact and drive landscape evolution, using an ensemble of techniques such as thermochronology, cosmogenic nuclides, numerical modelling, near-surface geophysics. Besides his research expertise, we shall engage in conversations regarding the challenges that came his way, and the manner in which he overcame those, and how his research shaped his life and in turn, how his life is impacted by the research he does. The discussions shall offer a unique opportunity to learn and empathise with a scholar’s work and life that has inspired many. The session shall conclude with the prospect of questions that Todd shall be happy to answer.

Over the last decades, research in the Solar-Terrestrial sciences has greatly advanced our understanding of this huge and complex system. For half a century, satellites and a continuously growing network of ground-based observatories have allowed us to make observations in more remote regions of the Sun-Earth system and with higher precision than ever before. Besides, high-performance computing has enabled the development of powerful numerical models, which gives us an unprecedented insight into each level of solar-terrestrial couplings. As new space missions and breakthroughs in numerical simulations fill in today’s missing pieces of knowledge, new questions arise, that need to be tackled by new thoughts. Being an Early Career Scientist, it is often hard to identify which questions are new and what has been answered before. In this short course, we have invited a panel of renowned researchers. They will give their view on how far we have come in our understanding, and most importantly, on what open questions and challenges lie ahead for the young scientists to embark upon. This is an excellent opportunity to meet with the experts and discuss the future of our community. The target audience is students and early-career scientists who want to increase their awareness of current and future research challenges within solar-terrestrial sciences and to discuss their potential contributions. The audience is invited to propose specific topics and/or questions for discussion in advance to ecs-st@egu.eu.

How do you peer-review? Apparently you are just supposed to miraculously know. Many of us never receive formal training in peer review, yet our peer-reviews are the cornerstone of scientific legitimacy. Constructive, respectful, coherent reviews nurture dialogue and advance research. So, how can we review papers in an efficient way? In this course, we suggest a process to help ensure that we give the authors the most useful feedback? We will hear from peer-review experts about how they go about the process and have an open discussion with the audience.

Publishing your research in a peer reviewed journal is essential for a career in research. The EGU Journals are fully open access which is great, but the open discussion can be daunting for first time submitters and early career scientists. This short course will cover all you need to know about the publication process from start to end for EGU journals, and give you a chance to ask the editors some questions. This includes: what the editor looks for in your submitted paper, how to deal with corrections or rejections, and how best to communicate with your reviewers and editors for a smooth transition from submission to publication. An open discussion will be served to give you time for questions to the editors,and for them to suggest some ‘top tips’ for a successful publication. This course is aimed at early-career researchers who are about to step into the publication process, and those who are yet to publish in EGU journals. Similarly, this course will be of interest to those looking to get involved in the peer-review process through reviewing and editing.

Writing a scientific paper is an essential part of research, and is a skill that needs practice.

This session is organized in cooperation with the Young Hydrologic Society (http://younghs.com/).

Meet editors of internationally renowned journals in biogeosciences and soil system science and gain exclusive insights into the publishing process. After a short introduction into some basics, we will start exploring various facets of academic publishing with short talks given by the editors on - What are the duties and roles of editors, authors and reviewers? - How to choose a suitable journal for your manuscript and what is important for early career authors? - How can early career scientists get involved in successful peer-reviewing? - What is important for appropriate peer-reviewing? - What are ethical aspects and responsibilities of publishing? - Together with the audience and the editors, we will have an open discussion of all steps and factors shaping the publication process of a manuscript. This short course aims to provide early career scientists across several EGU divisions (e.g. BG, SSS, NH and GM) the opportunity of using first hand answers of experienced editors of international journals to successfully publish their manuscripts and get aware of the potentials and pitfalls in academic publishing.