The HUMBOLDT Project

The increased use and awareness of the public of geospatial data has shown the fragmentation of datasets and sources, gaps in availability, lack of harmonisation between datasets at different geographical scales and duplication of information collection. The creation, interchange and use of data from different types of sources is thus very difficult. This proves to be a hindrance both to the development of existing and new markets, and to decision support for governmental and other organisations.

The main goal of Humboldt is to enable organizations to document, publish and harmonize their geospatial data. The software tools and processes created will demonstrate the feasibility and advantages of an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe as planned by the INSPIRE initiative, meeting the goals of Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES).

Research

Humboldt plans to develop, validate and provide a set of software frameworks. Based on the results of the community process, the state of the art and on feedback from the project environment, it will develop and use new software engineering methods to be open and flexible, yet manageable in complexity.

On the other hand, Humboldt will address research topics like information visualization, data transfer, spatial analysis, web services, databases, data modelling, semantics for spatial data and others. On the one hand, approaches will be developed within the project and, on the other, the implementation of the Humboldt framework will enable other researchers to access spatial services easier and to get benefits out of this project.

Project Workplan

Humboldt project is organised into 12 Workpackages:

  1. Administration
  2. Cost & Process Analysis
  3. State of the Art
  4. Development process specification
  5. Framework Interface
  6. Component validation
  7. Data Harmonisation
  8. Framework development
  9. Scenario applications
  10. Evaluation
  11. Dissemination
  12. Training

The HUMBOLDT project has a duration of four years. 27 partners from 14 different European countries are working in the HUMBOLDTt project under the direction of the Graphic Information Systems department of Fraunhofer IGD.

List of HUMBOLDT Partners

HUMBOLDT and GISIG

In HUMBOLDT project, GISIG coordinates the training activities under WP12 "Training" as well as the application scenario "HS-Protected Areas". Moreover, the Association is involved in WP3 "State of the Art" and in WP11 "Dissemination", where linkages with thematic networks and initiatives promoted by GISIG will be established.