From 27 April to 2 May, Earth, planetary and space scientists from all over the world got together in Vienna for the EGU 2014 General Assembly. The meeting was rich in scientific achievements and international discussions and, for the first time, it had a theme: The Face of the Earth. With over 15,000 presentations and close to 12,500 participants from 106 countries, it was also the largest to date.

The theme brought interesting new features to the Austria Center Vienna, where the conference took place. There were exhibition areas focusing on the five sub-themes of the meeting: Rocks of the Earth, Waters of the Earth, Life of the Earth, Atmosphere of the Earth and Space and the Earth. In addition, the conference featured daily keynote lectures dedicated to each of these topics, which proved to be extremely popular among participants.

Union-wide sessions, in particular the IPCC Union Symposium and the Geoengineering Great Debate, also had a full house. The many scientific sessions, medal lectures and side events, which were of high scientific quality and interest, also helped make the Assembly a great success.

There were other well-received novelties at the conference, such as PICO presentations with a new format, intended to enhance interactivity among presenters and participants. The many specials we had for early-career researchers were also welcomed, including a lounge for young scientists and a student canteen.

Media and communications

Following last year’s example, there was a strong online presence at EGU 2014, including active use of Facebook and Twitter. Thousands of tweets featured the conference Twitter hashtag (#EGU2014) and many used this, and other session-specific hashtags, as well as the updates on the official EGU Twitter account (@EuroGeosciences), to follow the goings on at the Assembly. @EuroGeosciences gained some 140 new followers during the Assembly week and close to 80 new people ‘liked’ the EGU’s page on Facebook in that period.

The EGU official blog, GeoLog, and the EGU network blogs also saw a flurry of activity with some 30 posts published at the Assembly, thousands of views and many new subscribers.

In addition to its scientific achievements and active online presence, the conference also saw keen media participation and reporting. The Press Centre welcomed over 40 media participants, including journalists, press officers, science writers and EGU bloggers. The EGU conference has featured in over 200 online, print and radio articles published by the BBC, Nature, Der Spiegel among many others, thanks to the hard work of media participants.

One of the EGU 2014 press assistants has produced an excellent highlights video of the meeting, which you can see at the bottom of this announcement.

Thank you and see you next year!

The Union is especially grateful to those who worked behind the scenes at the Assembly. We thank the ACV staff, all the conference assistants and our conference organiser Copernicus, particularly Katja Gänger, Mario Ebel, Katrin Krüger and Martin Rasmussen, for all their hard work before and at the meeting. A special thanks goes out to the members of the Programme Committee, chaired for the last time by Gert-Jan Reichart, who worked tirelessly in coordinating the full scientific programme for the General Assembly.

The EGU is also grateful to all scientists, in particular abstract authors and session conveners, who participated in the meeting and were instrumental to its success, as well as to the hard-working journalists and exhibitors we had the pleasure to host. Please let us know how we can make the meeting even more enjoyable for you by providing feedback at http://www.egu2014.eu/feedback.

We hope to see you all next year in Vienna, Austria, at the EGU 2015 General Assembly, 12–17 April 2015.

• EGU 2014 General Assembly website