Two new Technical Committees have just been approved, and they point to where geotechnical engineering is heading.

TC223 Bio-Geotechnics, chaired by Gráinne El Mountassir, turns living systems into geotechnical solutions. Bacteria, fungi and plants are already being used to bind soil, precipitate minerals in situ, and stabilise ground in ways conventional cement and chemical treatments cannot match, work with real implications for sustainable construction and ground improvement worldwide. The committee brings together specialists across biocementation, biopolymers and bioinspired design, and its task forces run from strengthening academia-industry partnerships to educating the next generation of engineers in a field that barely existed a decade ago. It is a further demonstration of our ongoing contribution to sustainable solutions across the profession. Read more on TC223 Bio-Geotechnics.

TC310 Space Geotechnics, chaired by Zili Li, takes ISSMGE further than it has gone before. As lunar and Martian missions move from exploration toward permanent infrastructure, the geotechnical challenge of building on other worlds becomes real. The committee already includes representatives from NASA and ESA alongside academic members from around the world, working on the ground conditions that will underpin the next era of human expansion into space, and it has set out to build ties with commercial and national space programmes as vehicles, launch infrastructure and permanent habitats move from ambition toward reality. Explore TC310 Space Geotechnics in full.