On May 5, 2026, Prof. Taras Gerya at ETH became the President of ILP and delivered his inauguration speech at the ILP Business Meeting in Vienna. He first acknowledged the remarkable leadership of the past President of ILP, Prof. Hans Thybo, and great service of the bureau members in the past 8 years. The long-term support of IUGG and IUGS, as well as contribution from national members are highly appreciated, because they allow ILP to support Task Forces and Coordination Commissions across boundaries and disciplinaries.

Prof. Gerya emphasized that the Lithosphere is the connection between the deep Earth and the Earth's surface. As geologists and geophysicists, we have a better understanding of long-term geological processes and their impacts on environment and human society. Hence the ILP mission will focus on global frontiers solid Earth Science and global resilient long-term society.

ILP will continue to advance fundamental lithosphere research and respond to the societal challenges. In the future, ILP will support the following fields as a priority:

1. Global Earth observatory: Integration of geological-geophysical observations on a global scale for scientific and societal use;

2. Global resources: Origin and long-term availability of various resources linked to Solid Earth evolution processes;

3. Transdisciplinary science: Coupling Solid Earth sciences to other disciplines (e.g., environmental science, soil science, public health);

4. Long-term future of Earth-life-human system: Linking Solid Earth to social sciences with the unique long-term vision.

In addition, ILP will develop join initiatives with the mother unions (starting from the Soil Science Initiative), establish collaborations with other global initiatives on both continental and oceanic lithosphere (ICDP, IODP, DDE), multiply resources by new networking (COST) and research (EU, ERC, etc) initiatives, and encourage leadership and initiatives from young researchers.

Prof. Hans Thybo (ILP Past President) congratulates Prof. Taras Gerya as the President of ILP

Prof. Taras Gerya presents his inauguration speech