Results from surveys to academic and industry and government geoscientists on the future of coal geoscientists

At recent technical conferences, many coal geoscientists in academia and government institutions as well as in industry organizations have expressed concern about the dwindling number of students and young staff members interested in careers in coal geoscience. To better understand what is driving these trends and to identify potential ways that the community can increase interest and participation in coal geoscience, two different surveys were sent to 94 coal geoscientists who were current or past members of The Society of Organic Petrology (TSOP) in February 2020. As the trends and perceptions in industry and government organizations may be different than in universities, one distinct survey was sent to members in industry and government organizations, and a different distinct survey was sent to members in academia. In order to capture as much information as possible from the limited number of respondents, surveys were designed as qualitative responses to questions without limiting the responses to a single selection for some of the questions. Evaluation of the responses was performed using qualitative analysis methods. In total, 53 coal geoscientists (25 from industry and government organizations and 28 academic institutions) from 14 countries returned the surveys for a total response rate of 56%. To facilitate analysis of the responses, results were broken down into four broad geographic areas. The geographic areas for the academic survey include 1) North and South America, 2) Europe, 3) Australia, South Asia (Indonesia), and Africa (Nigeria), and 4) East Asia (China), and the areas for the industry and government survey include 1) North America, 2) Europe, 3) Australia and Russia, and 4) East Asia (China). Not every question was answered by each respondent because either the question did not apply (e.g., employees that did not have information on historical trends), or the question was not applicable to the respondent.