INSPIRE Conference 2012: "Sharing environmental information, sharing innovation"

The INSPIRE Conference 2012 will take place from Saturday 23rd – Wednesday 27th June 2012 in Istanbul, Turkey. The theme of this year's edition is "Sharing environmental information, sharing innovation".

The outline programme of the INSPIRE Conference 2012, Istanbul, 23 - 27th June 2012 has been published on the INSPIRE Conference site. With 20 dedicated workshop, 48 parallel sessions, and more than 200 presenters the INSPIRE Conference 2012 promises to be the biggest event to date relating to the INSPIRE Directive.

Take advantage of the early registration, which has been extended until the 18th May.
http://inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu/events/conferences/inspire_2012/

With the introduction of the INSPIRE Directive 2007/2, the policy landscape for sharing environmental information has changed drastically. The Commission Communication on the Shared Environmental Information System (SEIS 2008) and follow-up activities at national and European levels have further helped to cultivate a new vision for a coordinated framework for the implementation and monitoring of environmental policies. The governance, content, and supporting technologies are the three pillars with which this vision can be consolidated and implemented.

The aim of this year's INSPIRE Conference is therefore to look at how innovations in these three areas have further shaped the landscape of sharing environmental information. The technical program will feature keynote addresses, workshops, panels in addition to presentations and posters. The call for contributions reflects the three pillars: Governance, Content and Technologies. In particular, as 2012 is the European Year for Water, we are interested in receiving submissions relating to Water (Water Framework Directive, Plan Bleu, EEA Water Watch, Blue Carbon…)

The full list of topics is available on the Conference website: http://inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu/events/conferences/inspire_2012/

The call for papers reflects the three pillars: Governance, Content and Technologies.

Topics for which contributions are sought include, but are not limited to,

Governance

• INSPIRE Implementation: Legislative measures, coordination and organisational models, data policy
• Inspire and SEIS linked to other international/global  initiatives
• Licensing frameworks
• Social, economic and environmental impact
• Regional and Local SDIs
• Importance of SDI for spatial planning
• Trans-national SDI projects (including EU (co-)funded projects)
• Regional cooperation: building SDIs to produce  and share Environmental Information
• Building dialogue between environment and human settlements via SDI
• Public private partnerships creating SDIs
• Capacity building
• Innovative data sharing approaches

Content

• Environmental Thematic communities and applications (The Marine Environment, Biodiversity, agriculture and environment, human health and environment, water, energy resources, cross thematic applications, waste management,...)
• New policies, new requirements
• The role of SDI to integrate Environmental Impact Assessment tools into spatial planning
• Exchange of spatial data to support sustainable environment
• Capacity building for sharing environmental data 
• Challenges in creating spatial environmental (reference) data sets
• Citizen participation and crowd sourcing for spatial environmental data
• Indicator based environmental information systems – and their spatial components

Technology

• GeoPortals and registries
• Education and awareness raising, capacity building – Building SDIs
• New policies, new requirements, new stakeholders
• Environmental Modeling (sensor web….)
• Regional cooperation on building common SDIs
• Regional cooperation on innovation and research
• INSPIRE  as a transnational tool for sharing environmental information
• Citizen science approaches to environmental information exchange
• Linked data approaches to bridge spatial and non-spatial data and information

In particular, as 2012 is the European Year for Water, we are interested in receiving submissions relating to Water (Water Framework Directive, Plan Bleu, EEA Water Watch, Blue Carbon…)

We are interested in accounts of what works, and what does not work, what are perceived benefits for policy, public administration, citizens and the private sector. The programme committee will evaluate the proposals and those accepted will be included in programme and published in the on-line conference proceedings.