The AGS hosted its flagship event, the AGS Annual Conference, on 1st May 2024 at One Great George Street in London’s Westminster. It was a sell-out event for the association, with 240 delegates having registered to attend the full day event and evening networking reception.

Chaired by AGS Chair, Vivien Dent, the conference had seven guest presentations covering a range of geotechnical and geoenvironmental topics with an overarching theme of The Future. The AGS Working Group Leaders also provided short reports about their Working Groups from the past 12 months.

The conference showcased entries from the AGS’ Early Careers Professional Poster Competition on the theme Innovations in Your Line of Work, and invited the winner Luqman Ismail, to attend the event. Luqman’s winning entry looked at drone-based survey techniques and suggested that as technology evolves, so should the way we see the ground.

The event started with an opening introduction from AGS Chair, Viven Dent. Vivien took the opportunity to celebrate this year’s AGS Award Winners, in particular, Hugh Mallett who was awarded with a Lifetime Achievement Award for dedicating over 34 years of service to the AGS.

Dipalee Jukes (Co-Founder and Co-CEO at Ground & Water) opened the conference sharing her life experiences as an intersectional woman of colour, female leader and working mother in the industry. Her inspirational talk highlighted the challenges and successes she has faced over the years. This was followed by Jonathan Atkinson (Technical Director at CL:AIRE and Member of Land Condition Community at IES) who presented on how land condition faces a number of challenges in the future and some of the opportunities to develop sustainable practice through interdisciplinary collaboration and development of solutions.

After a refreshment break, Stephanie Bricker (Head of Urban Geoscience and Spatial Planning at British Geological Survey) explored the transformative Common Ground project and its impact on improving access to ground investigation data in the UK. Dr Jennifer Scoular (Head of Product at SatSense) looked at the evolving role of InSAR in geotechnical applications, from tracking unstable slopes and wide-area subsidence to high-resolution monitoring of critical infrastructure, and highlighted case studies demonstrating how InSAR complements traditional site investigation techniques.

Following lunch and networking opportunities, Luke Wilkinson (Principal Geo-Environmental Engineer at Soils) Chris Milne (Transportation Technical Lead – Geotechnics at Murphy Group) and James Blyth (Director at SoilSafe) presented on the challenges of obtaining accurate in-situ ground stiffness measurements and compared surface wave stiffness data with that obtained by other common techniques. This was followed by a presentation from Lin Harrington (Social Value Lead at WSP) on how WSP approaches social value from a ESG and project perspective, and explored some geoscience project case studies. Ben Gilson (Associate at Arup) gave the final presentation of the event which discussed the transformative potential of Generative AI within the field of ground engineering, covering the fundamentals of Generative AI, its uptake, and its impact on productivity.

Alex Lee, AGS Chair Elect wrapped up the conference and took the opportunity to thank Vivien Dent for the exceptional service and leadership that she has provided to the Association over the past two years as Chair. Her legacy has strengthened the association, its direction, collaboration and governance.

The Annual Conference concluded with a networking drinks and canapé reception in the Smeaton Room which gave guests the opportunity to catch up with friends and colleagues at their leisure.

It was a fantastic event that provided a valuable opportunity for industry professionals to come together, network, and share insights.

The AGS would like to take this opportunity to thank our speakers and sponsors including Soil Engineering, Igne, Eijkelkamp Fraste UK, Pebble Geo, SOCOTEC, Brimstone, Groundsure, Equipe, Huesker, Envirolab, BAM Ritchies, In Situ Site Investigation, AFITEXINOV UK, Geosense, Geotechnical Engineering, Landmark Geodata, i2 Analytical and Dr Sauer & Partners.