The INSPIRE initiative intends to trigger the creation of a European spatial information infrastructure
that delivers to the users integrated spatial information services. These services should allow the users
to identify and access spatial or geographical information from a wide range of sources, from the local
level to the global level, in an inter-operable way for a variety of uses.
In order to support the future implementation of INSPIRE, the European Commission has defined a work
programme of preparatory actions which includes the establishment of Spatial Data Interest Communities (SDIC)
and Legally Mandated Organistations (LMO).
Spatial Data Interest Communities are expected to bundle the human expertise of users, producers and
transformers of spatial information, technical competence, financial resources and policies, with an
interest to better use these resources for spatial data management and the development and operation of
spatial information services.
A call for expression of interest in submitting SDICs and LMOs has been launched by the Commission: the call is open on a permanet basis.
SADL (Spatial Applications Division of Leuven) from the Research and Development Office of the
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, and LABSITA (Laboratorio di Sistemi Informativi Territoriali ed
Ambientali) from the University of Rome La Sapienza, Italy, have jointly proposed an SDIC for monitoring
and reporting the implementation of the INSPIRE directive.
The SDIC MORE (MOnitoring and REporting) is based on the experience of both organisations
and wants to include all relevant research initiatives and experience in this field (assessment, Cost/Benefit, of SDI's)
SADL started in 2002 to study the State of Play of the National and Regional Spatial Data Infrastructures in 32 countries in Europe. The last update of these reports has been made available by the European Commission at the end of 2005 (link).
LABSITA has been/is active in investigating GI&GIS use and diffusion in Italian local authorities and has proposed in different conferences the idea of a European Observatory to monitor and report GI&GIS use and diffusion in Europe.
The mission of MORE is to help to define the implementing rules for Monitoring and Reporting the implementation
of the INSPIRE Directive by 2007. In order to fulfill this mission, MORE wants to take the State of Play study as
a starting point. The SDIC wants to support the following activities and the work of the experts of the drafting
team on Monitoring and Reporting:
1) An analysis of existing monitoring and reporting activities will serve to identify possibilities for
automated indicator collection and will assess the relevance of some indicators in terms of distance to target.
2) On this basis series of indicators and monitoring mechanisms will be drafted and an implementation
schema proposed.
3) Focusing on various aspects of costs and benefits related to a better sharing of spatial data and
services across themes within a region or MS, including cross border effects.
MORE intends to work in close collaboration with the Commission and the INSPIRE Drafting Teams in order to
tailor activities, indicators, monitoring mechanism to the specification produced "in itinere".
It is worth noting that a member of the SDIC is an expert of the INSPIRE Drafting Team on Monitoring and Reporting.
The SDIC-MORE will organize supporting activities for experts of the drafting teams in the field of monitoring and reporting the implementation of the INSPIRE directive. Activities that will be organized are, amongst others: working meetings with the members of the SDIC and experts of the drafting team, the organization of workshops to bring together stakeholders in this field and to discuss the way common practices and methodologies could be applied, collection of reference material, assisting experts to elaborate indicators for monitoring and the specifications for doing so and training initiatives.
The AGILE Working Group on Data Policy and the SDIC MORE have co-organised a pre-conference workshop in the
framework of the 9th AGILE Conference.
The workshop, titled Monitoring and Reporting Spatial Data Infrastructures: application to the work of
the INSPIRE Drafting Teams has coverd the following topics:
- Monitoring and Reporting the implementation of Directives: how does it work?
- Methodologies used for monitoring and reporting in the field of GI
- Summary of the INSPIRE State of Play study monitoring the status of 32 national SDIs
- National and regional example(s) on monitoring and reporting
- Technical issues for (semi-) automatic monitoring SDIs
- Monitoring catalogues and services, geo-portals and the use of SDIs
- Cost/benefit analysis of SDI's: state of the art and examples of studies carried out in Europe
The workshop was held on April 19 2006, 9:30 - 17:00, at the Research Institute of Surveying,
Cartography and Remote Sensing (FÖMI), Budapest, Hungary.
The presentations given by speakers are available on the AGILE Data Policy WG web site, at the following
link.
Founding members are SADL KULeuven R&D, LABSITA University of Rome La Sapienza.
Potential partners: AGILE laboratories, EUROGI members and other INSPIRE stakeholders. The SDIC is open to any partner that wants to contribute to the mission and objectives, including from private sector.
You can join, or browse a list with members here
LABSITA
Mauro Salvemini
University of Rome La Sapienza
Department CAVEA
Laboratorio di Sistemi Informativi Territoriali ed Ambientali
Piazza Borghese 9, 00186 Rome, Italy
Tel: +39-0649918830
Fax: +39-0649918873
mauro.salvemini@uniroma1.it
http://www.labsita.org
SADL
Danny Vandenbroucke
K.U.Leuven
R&D Division SADL
(Spatial Applications Division Leuven)
Celestijnenlaan 200 E
B-3001 Heverlee, Belgium
Tel: +32-16-32.97.31
Fax: +32-16-32.97.24
danny.vandenbroucke@SADL.kuleuven.be
http://www.SADL.kuleuven.be
MORE Secretariat
Pasquale Di Donato
University of Rome La Sapienza
Department CAVEA
Laboratorio di Sistemi Informativi Territoriali ed Ambientali
Piazza Borghese 9, 00186 Rome, Italy
Tel: +39-0649918831
Fax: +39-0649918873
pasquale.didonato@uniroma1.it
http://www.labsita.org