One of our six departments at the Faculty of Geo-information Science and Earth Observation started 2022 with a name change: the department of Applied Earth Sciences (AES). In recent years we realized that the previous name (ESA) led to confusion on who we are (it is the same abbreviation as the European Space Agency) and what we do. The former name, Earth System Analysis, did not properly represent the content of our work anymore.
Chairman of the department, Mark van der Meijde, elaborates: "We made an inventory if it was time to change, and we all believed that it was at least good to have a discussion about it. We did that on multiple occasions and in different ways. It resulted in more than ten suggestions for possible new names. A few words that describe us as a department really stood out, they were often mentioned. In a department meeting, we held an election on the best name. The department of Applied Earth Sciences was the best name according to the colleagues and chosen with an overwhelming majority."
More information
More information on our department can be found on our website. If you want to reach out to the AES department you can contact us via aes-secretariat-itc@utwente.nl.
