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2019 marks my final year as National Early Career Researcher (ECR) Officer for the British Society of Soil Science (BSSS). It has been an exciting and rewarding opportunity for me to meet fellow early career soil scientists beyond the Lancaster Environment Centre, listen to their feedback and comments and help enhance the support the Society provides them. This support includes access to Society grants and funding for workshops and conferences, free access to the Society journals and discounted rates for training events.  

In the British Society of Soil Science, Early Career Researchers comprise all registered PhD students of soil science and its allied disciplines, such as environmental science, chemistry and biology. It also includes graduates with a recognised honours degree in soil science but with less than five years of professional experience. After completing a PhD, Early Career Researchers work towards ‘full membership’ by gaining five years of knowledge and experience in relevant disciplines and undergoing professional training and development.

Early Career Researchers are critical to any discipline; they are at the first stage of their careers, developing a myriad of skills and preparing themselves to become the next generation of innovative thinkers, tackling important contemporary issues.

Not only have I been fortunate enough to attend BSSS events around the country and network with the community, but I have also had the opportunity to be a member of the Organising Committee for several of these events too. One of these was the BSSS Annual Conference held at Lancaster University last September, where nearly 100 soil scientists congregated to discuss the contribution the discipline can play in achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. I was especially delighted to see that nearly half those attending were early career researchers.

This annual event is a seminal one in the Society’s calendar. It allows our early career community to showcase their work to, and receive constructive feedback from, some of the UK’s most eminent soil scientists. I relish any opportunity to discuss my research with others, who have often undertaken similar work. The most engaging conversations are with those who have approached the problems from a different angle or have explored them using different methods. These dialogues can often highlight fresh and interesting perspectives on the issues.

The Organising Committee and I were keen to continue the Society’s annual tradition of spotlighting some of the outstanding early career work by awarding prizes to two ECRs.This year both, I’m delighted to say, were part of the Lancaster Environment Centre family.

The Best ECR Oral prize was presented to Victoria Janes-Bassett for her talk about the effects of agriculture and land use change on soil biogeochemistry. Over the last half century, demand for food has approximately tripled resulting in global-scale conversions of natural land for agriculture. The addition of fertilisers, tillage and the removal of crop biomass have resulted in significant changes to the natural cycling of nutrients such as Carbon, Nitrogen and Phosphorus which have implications for food security.

The Best ECR Poster prize was presented to Roisin O’Riordan. Roisin studies the role of urban soils in delivering ecosystem services in cities, for example how soils help cities to become more resilient to climate change and benefit the physical and mental health of their inhabitants. In her poster, Roisin presented the preliminary results of a study based in Manchester, which explores the effect of sealing soil surfaces on soil organic carbon and nutrients.

On the second afternoon, I had set up a special ‘Campus Challenge’ social for early career researchers. Four teams, each comprising of students from different institutions and backgrounds, set out on a trail around the campus: where they were asked to complete several fun soil related activities.  One was to think of ways of making the experience of early career researchers more enjoyable and to come up with ideas of how the society could further support their work: these ideas included more regional events, subsidised travel for meetings and a discount card at Wyevale Garden Centres.

For the first time at a BSSS Annual Conference, I was granted the opportunity, on behalf of the Early Career Researcher committee, to produce a poster showcasing the work in the network and outlining our plans for the future. In particular, I was keen to use this poster as a means to generate ideas for the upcoming BSSS ECR Conference, to be held on 16 and 17 April 2019 at Sheffield University.  There is clearly an enthusiasm to receive information about future careers within soil science and we plan to offer delegates a chance to hear from a range of sectors including government, academia and industry. In addition, following the success of the Lancaster University Campus Challenge, there will be a group photo challenge around the nearby Botanical Gardens.

Open to all Society ECR members, this fully funded conference is held biennially and I am currently leading a hard-working programme committee tasked with ensuring that it provides the ECR community a friendly environment in which to hone presentation skills and an engaging forum to establish new colleagues and collaborations. As well as conventional oral sessions, there will two dedicated poster carousel sessions where poster authors will present short summaries of their work within small groups. By attending members will also be invited to take part in and contribute towards a very special Society ECR time capsule celebrating the early career community, which we anticipate unearthing in a reunion event at the Society’s 100th anniversary celebrations in 2047.

If you’re interested in attending please register by going to: https://www.soils.org.uk/event/1602