International Union for Quaternary Research (INQUA)

August 2011

INQUA XVIII Congress, Bern, Switzerland. 20-27 July 2011

2,100 registered delegates

For the last eight years Prof. Pete Coxon has been the Secretary-General of the International Union for Quaternary Research (INQUA). INQUA’s role is outlined on it’s website (http://www.inqua.org/) and probably the most important part of INQUA’s remit is the work of it’s Commissions that co-ordinate and fund research in key areas of Quaternary Science on an international basis.

Since 1928 INQUA has held a Congress (more or less) every 4 years (e.g. Berlin 1995, Durban 1999, Reno 2003 and Cairns 2007) attracting large numbers of Quaternary researchers. This year the XVIII INQUA Congress is to be held in Bern, Switzerland, and Pete Coxon was invited to Chair the Scientific Programme Committee. This role has involved frequent visits to Bern and the subsequent organisation of over 2,900 abstracts into 110 scientific sessions (oral and poster) for a 7 day Congress. The final programme, the schedules and the sessions titles are still available at http://www.inqua2011.ch/ where the scale of the meeting can be appreciated.

Ireland was well represented at the Congress and Gayle McGlynn (Postgrad, Geography) gave an oral presentation in one of the sessions (view abstract here). Pete Coxon and Stephen McCarron (NUIM) convened and chaired 3 sessions (details here) whilst other Irish delegates also presented their work to this international audience.

The Mayor of Bern and some of the Executive Committee of INQUA and the Scientific Programme Committee at the poster prize presentations -Tuesday 26th July 2011