Japan Society of Engineering Geology, which was established in 1958, has a goal to facilitate the interchange among the researchers and professionals of engineering geology, to pursue the interdisciplinary and comprehensive research and technological development, and then to contribute the development of science, technology, and culture. We celebrated the 50 year’s memorial in 2008 and our society has been authorized as a corporation in 2009 by the Japanese government. Our Journal, Journal of the Japan Society of Engineering Geology, is now available on line through the Journal@rchive by Japan Science and Technology Agency from its first volume since 2009. Now, the member is more than 2000, which makes the society as one of the major academic societies in earth science in Japan.

The Japan Society of Engineering Geology has developed mainly in the field of engineering geology in accordance with the economic development of Japan; but the fields and the schemes of social requirement to the applied geology have widened to include environment, disaster mitigation, and geoinformatics. These changes are, from another aspect, due to the expansion of the expectation to the applied geology. Academic sectors surrounding the Japan Society of Engineering Geology has been also changing. The Science Council of Japan has established the document Japan Perspective, in which the committee of earth and planetary sciences declared the importance of natural disasters and professionals of earth science. This is closely related to the Japan Society of Engineering Geology. Japan Geoscience Union was established in 2005 under the contribution of 48 academic societies including the Japan Society of Engineering Geology has been dispatching various appeals. Japan Accreditation Board for Engineering Education has started the accreditation since 2001 and now 10 programs are accredited in the field of resources and geological engineering and related fields with the major contribution of the Japan Society of Engineering Geology.

Considering the background stated above, we, Japan Society of Engineering Geology, set the near-future goal of our activity in the former half of the establishment statement: We make a platform for the interchange and learning of engineering geology among the members and set up the environment in which the members can perform research and practice with confidence and pride. We pull over once, listen to the ideas of the members, make the best action plan, and make an action for what we can do now. We have launched a project to listen to the ideas of the members with the Vice-President Nakasuji as a chair and expect enthusiastic contributions from the members for this activity. Besides the above project, we 1) address the education of professionals by setting up a committee for it by combining the previous two related committees; 2) edit and publish a book covering wide range of engineering geology as a 50-years memorial of the society; 3) improve the budget by saving and using electronic media, 4) innovate the website of our society; and 5) consider the style of the journal from paper to electronic journal.