An Introduction to the Geographic Information Network in ... - CiteSeerX

An Introduction to the Geographic Information Network in Europe (GINIE) Max Craglia1, Chris Corbin2, Alessandro Annoni3, and Louis Hecht4 1. University of Sheffield (Coordinator) 2. EUROGI 3. European Commission - Joint Research Centre 4. Open GIS Consortium (Europe) Limited

Abstract GINIE is a project funded by the Information Society Technologies Programme of the European Union, running from the 1st November 2001 to the 31st October 2003. Its main purpose is to develop a cohesive Geographic Information Strategy at the European level. This short paper provides some of the background and context to the project, and introduces its main components, namely developing a European Geographic Information Strategy, supporting GI capacity building and the raising of awareness across the whole of Europe, and contributing to the global discussions in relation to GI policies and infrastructures. This 8th EC-GIS Workshops is also one of the main activities sponsored by GINIE. It therefore provides an opportunity to present to the many interested parties attending the workshop some of the earlier findings of the project as well as gathering feedback on the proposed structure and functions of the Advisory Board on Geographic Information.

1.

Introduction

The European policy developments relating to Geographic Information (GI) that provide the background to GINIE have been reviewed amongst others by Craglia and Masser (1997), Masser (2001) and Longhorn (2001). One of the central initiatives was 'GI2000: towards a policy framework for Geographic Information' that was published in 1996 by the EC’s Directorate General for the Information Society following extensive consultations with all the main stakeholders in the field. In this document it was argued that 'a European policy for geographic information is needed by the European information society. The policy will contribute to providing better and more efficient government, more effective management of scarce resources, and new business opportunities. The policy is necessary to ensure cross border initiatives are nurtured and managed cost effectively.' GI2000 was intended to take the form of a Communication to the European Council and Parliament on the importance of developing a mechanism for co-ordination through a High-level Working Party, core reference data, and metadata standards and catalogues. Although the Communication did not materialize as planned, GI2000 had the merit of raising the debate on the importance of GI in Europe, and contributed to the funding in the 4th and 5th R&D Framework Programmes, and the INFO2000 and e-Content programmes of several projects relating in particular to issues of core data, metadata, and catalogues, many of which are documented via the www.ecgis.org web site. On the policy level, important developments have taken place on the wider front of public sector information, of which GI is a recognized main component. Hence both the Green Paper on Public Sector Information: a Key Resource for Europe (CEC, 1998) and the subsequent draft Directive on “the re-use and commercial exploitation of public sector documents” (CEC 2002) recognize that the current fragmentation in Europe in respect to the conditions for accessing and reusing public sector information, including GI, are hampering

the development of the Information Society and the common market and require concerted action at all levels, local, regional, national, and European, including common regulations to ensure transparency and a level playing field. Another recent and very important development comes from the adoption in 2000 of the EU Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC), which has a strong spatial impact as it defines river basins as the most appropriate spatial framework for a comprehensive approach to water protection. All member states have to define such basins by 2003 and prepare management plans within the following six years. These plans require the collection, integration, and analysis of a large body of data, which the Directive specifies need to be in GIS format, including the physical, environmental, and socio-economic state of the basin. But the role of GI in EU policy making is not limited to the Water Framework Directive alone. It is firmly established by the recognition that it supports the issues identified in the Commission’s White Paper on European Governance1. In 2001, this recognition lead the European Commission to launched a new initiative to develop an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe (INSPIRE) embedded in Community legislation “to make harmonised and high quality geographic information readily available for formulating, implementing, monitoring and evaluating Community policy and for the citizen to access spatial information, whether local, regional, national or international”. (www.ec-gis.org/inspire) Whilst the developments briefly reviewed above are very important in raising awareness, setting common policy frameworks, and supporting several technological, and data related activities, much work is still required in respect to: • Raising awareness of the issues, and building institutional and organisational capacity across Europe, • Learning from the experience of others, not only in Europe, but also in the USA, Australia, and the Far East, and representing European perspectives in the global debates. • Developing a strategy for GI through the partnerships of governments, industry, and research, • Ensuring that such strategy takes a broader view than the EU alone, and is inclusive of the pre-accession countries, and the Mediterranean basin, • Developing a financially and organizationally viable mechanism to implement the strategy beyond the lifetime of this project. Coordination within the European Commission has been increasing through the establishment in 1999 of COGI, the Inter-service group on GI, which is chaired by EUROSTAT. This has been a very important development, but the coordination and capacity building effort needs to extend beyond the inner workings of the EC to embrace the wider Europe, and the Mediterranean Basin, include all the stakeholders in the field, such as GI associations, governments, industry, and research institutions. It is to carry out this work that the Geographic Information Network in Europe (GINIE) project has been established bringing together three crucial sets of players: the national and pan-European GI associations represented by EUROGI, the European Commission, represented by its Joint Research Centre, and industry through the European arm of the Open GIS Consortium. The project is 1

COM(2001)428 – European Governance - a White Paper . The White Paper refers to five principles of good governance: openness, participation, accountability, effectiveness and coherence

coordinated by the University of Sheffield, one of the OGC members, also strongly linked to the European GI research community.

2.

GINIE’S Objective and Activities

The overall aim of the GINIE project is to establish and promote a European strategy for Geographic Information. To do so GINIE is structured around a series of key activities that include: • Developing a sound knowledge base through the comparative policy analysis of frameworks for access, use, and dissemination of GI in the wider Europe and beyond; • Raising awareness and capacity building through workshops, conferences, case-studies, and dissemination of findings in multiple languages, as well as targeted actions for policy-makers at national and European levels, • Contributing to the international debate taking place at the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Conference in Budapest in September 2002, as well as strategic input to the new European Commission initiative developing an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe (INSPIRE), • Establishing government and industry panels to help formulate a cohesive European Strategy for GI, and a business model to make it work. These activities are grouped under the following key work items: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 3.

Development of a European Geographic Information Strategy GI capacity building and awareness raising Establishment of a European View on the Global Perspective Related to GI Organisation of the 8th EC GI & GIS Workshop around GINIE. Extensive dissemination of findings Development of a European Geographic Information Strategy

As indicated in the previous Section, developing a cohesive European strategy for GI is the central objective of the project as a whole. This includes the following: A workshop on data policies in Europe, held in Marne la Vallée in May 2002, to compare recent developments including progress towards e-government, and existing frameworks for access, dissemination, and reuse of public sector information and GI across Europe. A workshop on registries and e-services to be held in Germany in January 2003 to assess how recent developments in technologies and standards are able to support the policies for access and dissemination of public sector information and the development of e-services, including e-government. Provision of input to and coordination with the INSPIRE initiative outlined above. This includes the participation of INSPIRE experts to GINIE workshops, and direct input to the position papers of INSPIRE and in particular to those on data policies, and standards and architecture.

Establishment of government and industry panels to formalize the input of these important communities into the development and implementation of the European GI strategy. These panels, to be established during 2002, will play a central part in setting the terms of reference and developing a business plan for the GI Strategy. The end result of GINIE is a fully functioning Advisory Board on Geographic Information (ABGI) comprising representatives of governments, industry, research, and the European Commission, with a financial and administrative structure able to act authoritatively. The function of the ABGI is to promote and co-ordinate the use of Geographic Information in Europe for business, citizens, research, and policy-making, thus bringing together the many independent initiatives that already exist in Europe, and ensuring that they inter-operate at both technical and institutional level. The concept of the ABGI is represented below.

A consultation document (Green Paper) on the ABGI will be prepared during the second half of 2002 for wide dissemination and discussion, leading to a first preliminary meeting of the ABGI towards the end of 2002.

4.

GI capacity building and awareness raising

This part of the project is just as critical because there is little point in developing strategies and business plans if then there is no institutional, organisational, and human capacity to implement them. Therefore, GINIE activities include: The analysis of existing National GI Associations (NGIA) or coordinating bodies with a comparative analysis of alternative models to develop guidelines of best practice. A Workshop to support the countries that are soon to join the European Union. The aim of this workshop, to be held in Prague in September 2002, is to bring together experiences within each of the Accession countries, together with that of their neighboring countries and a number of western European member states that have a strong buoyant GI community. The workshop will produce recommendations on building sustainable GI capacity across the

whole of the European Union based on a sound analysis of the current GI capacity within each of the accession countries placed in the context of the experiences of the current EU member states. A Workshop of Mediterranean Countries to be held in Crete in April 2003. Participants from all the countries in the Mediterranean basin will be invited to discuss key issues in respect to the legal, institutional, technical, data-related, and skill developments that are needed to increase the availability and accessibility of GI for all stakeholders, and will produce a model of collaboration for the whole Mediterranean area. To enable a GI strategy for Europe to be developed and implemented requires the widest community of people to be involved that understand the need and provide the will to develop and implement the strategy. To reach this position there is a need to market (promulgate) the benefits and as a result raise the level of awareness with the key stakeholders that are shaping society. Hence a multi-lingual portfolio of case-studies to illustrate the value of GI will be developed together with a picture book and search engine to facilitate search and retrieval of relevant material. In practice this involves the development of a four-level framework: Level 1: Target audience: Politicians. Maximum impact minimal use of words = PICTURE BOOK Level 2: Target Audience: Policy makers and strategists Identifies the issue and the benefits.= CASE STUDIES Level 3: Target Audience: Technical Management and strategists Identifies the how and the what. = CASE STUDIES Level 4: Target Audience: Technical Implementers Detailed description. = COOK BOOK This framework, available in English and other languages, is underpinned by a Case Study Locator Service (search engine) ISO compliant that enables the above to be located and retrieved.

5.

Establishment of a European View on the Global Perspective Related to GI

There are two main objectives to this work item: learning from the experience of other countries to support the establishment of national and European data infrastructures, and providing a European perspective to the discussions on spatial data infrastructures taking place at the global level. With this in mind the main activities under this heading include: A workshop on National Spatial Data Infrastructures held in Ispra, Italy in May 2002 with the participation of experts from Europe and the US to analyse the points of strength and weakness of their experiences and produce recommendations for action at the European level. These are presented in the paper by Annoni in this volume. A workshop on local-to-global infrastructures to be held in Rome in March 2003 to evaluate the institutional, organisational, and technical mechanisms put in place in different countries to integrate national, regional, and local level spatial data to support good governance and services.

An in-depth comparative study of spatial data infrastructures in Canada, the US, and Australia with a view to learn from these experiences and also establish Memoranda of Understanding between European and international organisations in charge of SDI coordination to help support and coordinate their activities. Contribute to the discussions to be held a the 6th Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Conference (www.gsdi.org) to be held in Budapest in September 2002, and contribute subsequently to the legal and economic GSDI Workgroups and to the revision of the GSDI Cookbook with a stronger European input.

6.

Organisation of the 8th EC-GIS Workshop

The Annual European Commission GI & GIS Workshops have provided a forum for GIS experts from across Europe to establish and maintain contacts, and to enable consultation and cross-fertilization of ideas between the developers and participants. The sponsoring of this years edition by GINIE has enabled to develop a programme tailor to the objectives of the project, and in particular to add to the traditional presentation of EC-funded projects, the presentation and discussion of INSPIRE position papers and to devote a special session to the presentation of the GINIE preliminary findings coming form the Spatial Data Infrastructures and Data Policy Workshops as well as discussion on the preliminary ideas relating to the ABGI.

7.

Communication and Dissemination

Given the objectives of GINE, communication and dissemination are absolutely central tasks in this project. Therefore, in addition to the traditional means of dissemination that include participation at conferences and workshops, publications of articles, and printed material, and a strong Web service, a particular effort has been put in place to ensure that each workshops produces not only an analytical report in English but also extended executive summaries translated in 5 or more languages for wide dissemination among decision makers.

8.

Conclusions

In 1986, results of MP Lengagne Commission in France and in 1987, the Committee of Enquiry on Geographic Information in the UK chaired by Lord Chorley, argued that the main challenges to the greater use of GI were not technical or data-related as much as they were organisational and institutional in nature. Almost fifteen years on we have witnessed unprecedented developments in technology and data, yet the most difficult challenges have barely been scratched, particularly at the European level. Should further evidence be needed, we have seen that the most successful experiences in developing National Spatial Data Infrastructure are characterized by a relatively small but highly focused coordinating structure able to harness and sustain political support and working closely with key stakeholders in government agencies, private sector, and research environments to “make it happen”. Europe needs to address head-on these organisational and institutional challenges and develop such coordinating mechanism. This is the GINIE challenge. For further information and updates please visit our Web site: www.ec-gis.org/ginie

References Commission of the European Communities, 1998, Public Sector Information: a Key Resource for Europe COM(98) 585 Final. Brussels: Commission of the European Communities Commission of the European Communities, 2002, Proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on the re-use and commercial exploitation of public sector documents, COM(2002) 207 provisional version. Brussels: Commission of the European Communities Craglia M. and Masser I. 1997. “A European Policy Framework for Geographic Information” in Computers Environment and Urban Systems, 21(6), pp. 393-406 Longhorn R., 2001, “The Impact of Data Access Policies on Regional Spatial Data Infrastructure”, Proceedings of the 7th EC-GIS Conference, Potsdam, June 10-13. Ispra: JRC. http://www.ec-gis.org

Masser I., 2001, Regional SDI’s: the European Perspective. Paper presented at the International Symposium on Spatial Data Infrastructure, Melbourne, 19-20 November