AGILE: it’s aims, status, and activities 5th EC GIS Workshop “GIS of Tomorrow” Fred Toppen (University of Utrecht, The Netherlands) June 30, 1999 Stresa, Italy

Aim Organisational structure (membership) Partnerships Research initiatives Conferences

Official launch in April 1998 at the 1st AGILE conference in Enschede, Netherlands Mission: to promote academic teaching and research on GIS at the European level to facilitate networking activities between geographic information laboratories at the European level

Why? – To c ontinue the networking activities that have emerged as a result of several (past) European activities (like the EGIS/JEC conferences, GISDATA programme); and – To create a forum representing the European research community How? By way of creating a permanent scientific forum where researchers/teachers can meet

Association as legal form About members : – research groups (laboratories), not individuals – 50 founder members (1998) – 10 new members (1999) – 21 (European) countries Affiliated members : – non-academic research groups (e.g. private sector); same rights but no voting right

How to become a member? Fill in the form Pay the yearly fee of EURO 150 (+ an introductory fee of EURO 100) How to become an affiliated member? Contact AGILE secretariat for a special form Pay the yearly fee of EURO 150 (+ an introductory fee of EURO 100)

Why should you become a member? Reduced fees at conferences Nominate council members Actively participate in research networks that has been built up over the years Join AGILE working groups Influence the European geographic information research agenda

The AGILE Council, members (1/6/99): Ian Masser (ITC, Netherlands) (chairman until July 1st) Mauro Salvemini (Univ. of Rome La Sapienze, Italy) (chairman from July 1st) Max Craglia (Univ. of Sheffield, U.K.) (research agenda) Michael Gould (Univ. Jaume I, Valencia, Spain) (web-editor) Werner Kuhn (Univ. of Muenster, Germany) (research agenda) Anders Ostman (Lulea Univ. of Technology, Sweden) (conference programme committee) Tapani Sarkakoski (Finnish Geodetic Inst., Masala, Finland) (2000 conference) Fred Toppen (Univ. of Utrecht, Netherlands) (secretary/treasurer)

MOU’s with other organisations (connecting networks) – January 1999 UCGIS MOU – April 1999 UNIGIS MOU – July 1999 GISIG MOU – others to be negotiated European GI debate – Participation in EU- DGIII and DGXIII meetings – AGILE response with respect to Green Paper on Public participation

European research activities Members involved in more than 100 EU projects Accompanying measures ETeMII proposal within 5FP (European Territorial Management Information Infrastructure) Working groups four established working groups; several in process relates to AGILE research agenda

What is the AGILE Research Agenda ? an evolving structure (not a one time shot) an agenda that is pursued a common effort of all AGILE members for public use and comment a European tool for research and debating

Research Map of Europe Directory of Research themes and topics Some information about labs Research Agenda status :

Interactive research map

Info from members on research

AGILE CONFERENES Enschede, 1st Conference, the “foundation” (themes: dynamic modelling; data quality; GI- infrastructures; interoperability) Rome, 2nd Conference (theme: userfriendly information) Helsinki, 3rd Conference several offers to choose from General format: plenary sessions limited number of parallel sessions young researchers forum

AGILE 2000 conference May 25th-27th, Helsinki/Espoo, Finland

AGILE 2000 conference Time schedule: September 1999: call for papers end November: abstracts to be sent in early January: abstracts reviewed mid April: abstracts ready for printing 27th-27th May: conference End June: full papers on Web Organized by: Finnish Geodetic Institute website:

Major theme is GI research: Bringing together the European GI research community Subthemes will partly relate to working group themes; such as: environmental modelling and planning GI education interoperability data usability and to other themes on the AGILE research agenda

To conclude AGILE is developing No. of membership will (and should) grow Organisational structure will mature Research agenda will be a prime tool for networking Yearly conference is only one way to meet; other options (dedicated meetings; via Internet/ ) are possible as well More information: contact AGILE secretariat or the web-site ( will change into soon)