The eSDI-NETplus Network

Technological development and increasing awareness about the importance of geographical data have compelled the fast growing of digital content of this kind. This growth has not been accompanied by dissemination and accessibility measures. Geographical data are typically clustered by application segments, and re-use of data is often not foreseen. This impacts very negatively on the costs and on the real accessibility of Geographic Information (GI). The enrichment of geographical data by semantically well-defined metadata and the widespread implementation of Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI) (as foreseen, for example, in the INSPIRE initiative context), allowing extensive GI reuse, will solve today’s problems
 

Objecitves

The objective of eSDI-Net+ is to bring together existing SDI key players and target users in a Thematic Network to be established as a platform for communication and exchange between different stakeholders involved in the creation and use of SDI’s. The network will promote high-level decisions, low-level technical discussion and information exchange, in order to increase awareness concerning the importance of GI enrichment and of SDI’s for GI reuse, to allow an integrated view of the experts and to permit the creation of integrated guidelines, standards, and implementation of best practices. Within the network, communication mechanisms between the European and local levels will be implemented to maximize the benefits of INSPIRE, GMES and GALILEO, regarding digital GI content.
With eSDI-Net+, multicultural and multilingual aspects in accessing, exploiting, using, and reusing digital GI content in Europe will be addressed. As a result, the proposed project will contribute to achieving interoperability between national digital collections and services (e.g. through common standards) and facilitating access and use of the material in a multilingual context.
The intelligent and effective use of GI goes through the understanding, the involvement of the user community, which often concretises in e-communities through appropriate e-government initiatives, programmes and projects. Therefore, eSDI-Net+ intends to be the catalyser of different initiatives, actions and services based on GI.

Project Workplan

eSDI-Net+ project has started at the end of September 2007 and will last 3 years. It envisages three project phases that include five work packages:

Phase I: Network establishment, State-of-the-Art and Activities Planning
WP1: Network Establishment, Administration and Enlargement
WP2: Identification and Analysis of Best Practices

Phase II: Implementation of planned activities
WP3: Best Practice Showcase
WP4: Awareness and Dissemination

Phase III: Assessment and Sustainability
WP5: Project Assessment and Sustainability
 

List of eSDI-NETplus Partners

The eSDI-Net+ consortium includes 21 organisations from 14 European countries. The consortium is divided into three groups of stakeholders that are: 1. providers of digital geographical data (local, national and regional public authorities, private organisations and institutions owning digital geographical data); 2. users of digital geographical data (research institutes, universities, software manufacturers); 3. national and international GI umbrella associations, consultancy and network management (involving users, interested organisations and entities indirectly involved in the project).

1. The Foundation “INI-GraphicsNet Stiftung”, Germany (IGS)
2. AGH University, Poland (AGH)
3. AM/FM GIS Italia, Italy (AMFM)
4. Association for Geospatial Information in South-East Europe, Bulgaria (AGISEE)
5. Association of Geographic Information Laboratories for Europe, Netherlands (AGILE)
6. Association USIG (Users of Geographic Information), Portugal (USIG)
7. Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto di Matematica Applicata e Tecnologie Informatiche, Unità Organizzativa di Genova, Italy (CNR-IMATI)
8. European Umbrella Organisation for Geographic Information, Netherlands (EUROGI)
9. Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, Germany (FHG-IGD und FOKUS
10. Geographical Information Systems International Group, Italy (GISIG)
11. Hungarian Association for Geo-information (HUNAGI)
12. Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence "Institutul De Cercetari Pentru Inteligenta Artificiala, Academia Romana", Romania (ICIA)
13. Intergraph CR spol. s r.o., Czech Republic (INGR)
14. Kuovola Region Federation of Municipalities, Finland (KRF)
15. Linköpings Universitet, Department of Computer and Information Science, Sweden (LIU-IDA)
16. Regione Piemonte, Italy (PIEMONTE)
17. Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium (K.U.Leuven R&D)
18. The South East European Research Centre, Greece (SEERC)
19. The University “Jaume I” (King James I), Spain (UJI)
20. University of Rome “La Sapienza”, Italy (URS)
21. Università TELMA, Italy (TELMA)

 

eSDI-NETplus and GISIG

Within eSDI-Netplus the interest of GISIG is mainly addressed to the assessment of common problems as well as to the transfer of project results toward the User Communities, also with the support of eSDI-Netplus Guidelines and through best practice exchange.

GISIG also supports the network enlargement process.