SDI Research and Strategies towards 2030: Renewing the SDI Research Agenda

Abstract

In the past 30 years, public administrations in Europe and worldwide have invested considerable resources in the development and implementation of Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs) for promoting, facilitating and coordinating the exchange and sharing of geographic data. SDI research has been an important driver and enabler for SDI development and implementation. Researchers across the world have been exploring various issues around the development and implementation of SDIs. While over the last decade SDIs significantly matured, new research challenges emerged and new researchers and research disciplines entered the domain of SDI research. There is, however, a risk of SDI research becoming more fragmented into separate – disciplinary, organizational and geographic – silos, due to a lack of initiatives enabling and facilitating collaboration and exchange of knowledge and experiences among SDI researchers. The ‘SDI Research and Strategies towards 2030’ workshop wanted to build further and continue the work done in past initiatives to promote knowledge sharing and collaboration among SDI researchers. In 2009 and 2010 two SDI research workshops were held at the GSDI Conferences in Rotterdam (the Netherlands) and Singapore, allowing especially early stage researchers in the domain of SDI to present their ongoing research and exchange views and ideas on new research challenges. One of the last attempts to develop an SDI research agenda already dates from 2005, when Bernard et al. drafted their proposal for an SDI research agenda, identifying several key research issues raised by the transition from GIS to SDIs. The ‘SDI Research and Strategies towards 2030’ workshop aimed to initiate the definition of a renewed Spatial Data Infrastructure Research Agenda. This report summarizes the presentations and discussions held during the workshop.