Professor PAN Yongxin has been invited to serve as an advisory committee of Study of the Earth’s Deep Interior (SEDI), which is an international scientific organization, and is also an Union Committee of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG).

The ultimate goal of SEDI is an enhanced understanding of the past evolution and current thermal, dynamical and chemical state of the Earth's deep interior and of the effect that the interior has on the structures and processes observed at the surface of the Earth.

The 'deep interior' is generally considered to be the core and lower mantle, but interest may extend to the surface, for example, in the study of mantle plumes or dynamics of descending lithospheric slabs.

The scientific questions and problems of interest to SEDI include the geomagnetic dynamo and secular variation, paleomagnetism and the evolution of the Earth's deep interior, composition, structure and dynamics of the outer core, dynamo energetics, structure of the inner core, core cooling and the core-mantle boundary region, core-mantle boundary shape, coupling and the rotation of the Earth, lower mantle: structure, convection and plumes, nature and location of deep geochemical reservoirs, etc.