BGA 75th anniversary special: Pushing ahead, part 2

For Environmental Geotechnics director Stephan Jefferis, key to all of the British Geotechnical Association’s (BGA’s) recent achievements are the people involved.

“You don’t have an association unless you have members,” he says.

“One of the key points about the BGA is it is a community of friends. Many people would know by sight most of the members.”

The BGA also holds elections and changes chair and vice chair every two years, which brings in new perspectives.

“We’re absolutely rigorous about holding proper elections,” Jefferis says.

“I do believe it’s the lifeblood of a learned society that you don’t lock in one person’s ideas and that it continues to change and evolve.”

Highlights and challenges

Coffey Geotechnics technical director Martin Preene served as chair from 2017-2019 – but his first memory of the BGA is attending the 1989 Rankine Lecture by Coffey International senior consultant Harry Poulos.

“Attending events, particularly the Rankine Lecture, is quite a thing in people’s calendar and when you’re young, you go to the lecture and then to the pub with your colleagues afterwards,” he says.

“We were involved with the BGA as members before becoming involved in the committee.”

Time on the executive committee also brings occasional challenges. During GCG senior partner Chris Menkiti’s time as chair, from 2013-2015, he was involved in a “battle” to save the Geotechnique journal.

“ICE [Institution of Civil Engineers] finances were tight,” he explains.

“The BGA had some money, but everybody was struggling. We had to mobilise the great and the good to make presentations to the right people at the top of the ICE to reemphasise the benefits which go beyond profit and loss.

“I’m happy to say we were able to change minds and Geotechnique stays on today.”

Clockwise from top left: Kelvin Higgins, Sarah Stallebrass, Martin Preene, Stephan Jefferis and Chris Menkiti

European conference

Another highlight of recent years is the BGA hosting the 16th European Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering in Edinburgh in September 2015.

This came after the first European Conference in the UK in Brighton in 1979, which confirmed the UK as a “geotechnics powerhouse”, Menkiti says. The profit made from Brighton will fund the Rankine Lecture for the foreseeable future.

The Edinburgh Conference also made “a transformational change”, according to Menkiti, with the BGA able to use the resulting surplus to fund its new biennial conferences.

“The two European conferences of the ISSMGE [International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering] hosted in the UK have been key points in time accelerating growth, visibility and significance of UK geotechnics internationally,” Menkiti says, but he adds that the bidding process is a long one.

“You need dedicated people and resources for close to a decade to achieve it – and at least one or two cycles of European and international conferences to make your case.

“There is a lot of competition. You have to be efficient so you don’t make a significant loss.”

Once Edinburgh was confirmed as host, it was important to secure delegates. Jefferis says that the organising committee did “a fantastic job” under Winter Associates director Mike Winter’s local leadership.

They encouraged as many delegates as possible to present papers.

Menkiti explains: “We had electronic means of presenting that would encourage as many as possible to come because they had the incentive to present their work.

“We got good engagement from the UK and Irish contingent, and also had a good accompanying persons programme to encourage partners to come. This all added together to drive the momentum behind the conference.”

Biennial conferences

It fell to the BGA committee, when Jefferis was chair, between 2015 and 2017, to consider what to do with the happy surplus of over £100,000 from the Edinburgh conference.

“We wanted it to bring benefits to the membership, over as many years as possible with a focus on outreach and being less London-centric,” Jefferis explains.

“So the idea was to have a biennial conference with as low a fee as possible outside London if we could.”

To date, three out of the four conferences held have been outside London, encouraging both local and regional professionals to attend.

“It’s very stimulating for the region,” Menkiti says. “That’s an important benefit.”

GCG senior partner Kelvin Higgins adds that while there are regional groups that hold meetings, sometimes there are not many people.

“This is a much bigger event and brings together people from outside the region. We were keen to continue the legacy of previous BGA and ICE conferences, such as Settlement of Structures and Diaphragm Walling.”

City, University of London soil mechanics professor Sarah Stallebrass, who was BGA chair from 2009-2011, emphasises that the conferences “collect together the state of the art in that particular area as relates to the UK, which is important”.

Jefferis adds: “You don’t often get a conference with a narrow focus that goes into depth on a particular topic.”

The BGA was also keen to generate a legacy of published papers from the biennial conferences.

“Every other year it gives people that chance to share their knowledge and experience,” Preene says.

Website and live streaming

Another development of recent decades is the ever-evolving BGA website. It was created in 2000 and initially run by Geocentrix. Preene was involved in around 2015 in a major update, including making it mobile-friendly.

“People don’t always consume on desktop and laptops,” he says. “You hear about people working on site watching one of our lectures on their phone after a shift.”

Another update is planned for later this year.

“The mechanics of how the website looks in different formats has to evolve,” Preene says. “We need to keep it accessible and inclusive. If it’s dated, people will give up after 20 seconds, and we lose a chance to engage with people.”

Apart from the independently streamed Rankine Lecture, the earliest recording of a streamed event in the archive is 2014.

Streaming is a complex issue for the BGA, as the organisation tries to strike the balance between making content easily accessible for members and encouraging people to come to events and network in person.

Menkiti says: “The attitude to streaming has changed. In my time as chair, there was debate about streaming live because the aim was to maximise footfall in the lectures.

“We were reluctant to stream at that time so people would attend. But of course post-Covid things have changed.”

Higgins concedes that there are advantages and disadvantages, stressing that if streaming technology hadn’t been available during his time as chair from 2019-2021, “Covid would have been a bigger disaster than it was”.

However, he adds: “It’s an issue because the idea was to try to generate interaction with people and you don’t get that remotely. If you’ve got a speaker who turns up and there’s maybe 20 or 30 people in the lecture theatre, it doesn’t encourage people.

“When we have the AGM [annual general meeting], we get 200-odd people, and talking to 200 people is a big difference from 10 or 20.”

Supporting professionals

Another noteworthy initiative is the Research Development Fund, which formalises support the BGA has been providing, Higgins says.

“We get approached by people and organisations wanting us to support them and projects.

“We use it to assist with funding for reports or other activities which are of general benefit to membership.”

There is a strict procedure for vetting to make sure applications are worthy and of interest to the community as a whole rather than a specialist group.

“It’s not a large amount of money, but it does provide a means of seed funding different activities,” Higgins says.

Meanwhile, the BGA’s first Annual Dinner and Lecture was held last year, with Higgins involved in the conception of the event.

“It was a networking thing,” he says. “The idea was to get people together. The Rankine Lecture is a very corporate event; the tables are sold to companies in the main.

“The annual lecture has much more of a member focus. I think people enjoyed the dinner and lecture and that stimulates conversation.”

Today’s BGA

Looking ahead, Preene believes that with the greater digital delivery there is “a real chance” for the BGA to become less London-centric.

“As someone who doesn’t live in London, I think we’ve struggled to justify the ‘British’ part of our association’s name,” he says.

“I think we need to try to engage more, offer regional events to our members and help regional groups offer our events to their members.”

For Stallebrass, a notable change since she was first involved with the BGA is the Early Career Group (ECG).

“It allows younger members to get together and discuss problems and arrange things. There are better networking opportunities.”

The BGA ECG was set up while Menkiti was chair, and he says it “has really flourished”.

“It has engaged the younger generation and subsequent BGA chairs and committees have really developed and taken it on.”

The atmosphere created is a positive change, Jefferis believes.

“When I first started we were in awe of the lecturers,” he says. “It was a great moment to ask a question at lectures.

“The ECG has broken the ice. It means younger members are familiar with senior people. It’s much more open house.”

• Read part 1, part 3 and part 4 of the BGA 75th anniversary special, which covers the last 25 years of developments.