EGIS (1994), copyright EGIS Foundation.
Next year, three major GIS-related European conferences, among them EGIS, will amalgamate into one new Joint European Conference on Geographical Information (JEC-GI). This event will be organized in cooperation with the new European umbrella organization EUROGI. This last EGIS conference in Paris, will be characterized by a geographic as well as thematic, balanced participation from all over Europe. A relatively large number of papers and posters will be presented in the French language. The organization of the EGIS/MARI event in Paris has a number of new elements: a commercially organized exhibition and a bilingual conference. These changes from previous EGIS events can be regarded as first steps towards the new Joint Conference. The aims and format of the JEC-GI will allow for different streams where persons with a common professional background can meet in a familiar setting. However, the format should also facilitate easy exchange between professional groups. The new conference can play an important role in the communication between EUROGI, its members and the European GI-community at large: all persons, public organizations and private businesses interested in geographical information handling in Europe.
As announced last year, this fifth EGIS event will be the last one in the familiar format. The format has proven to be very successful. At the time of writing of this introductory essay, it is already certain that the EGIS/MARI conference and exhibition in Paris will feature the largest number of presentations, the most registered delegates and the largest show of all EGIS events so far. At first sight, there seems to be little inducement to change things. Nevertheless, the EGIS Executive and Steering Committees have chosen to join the initiatives for closer European coordination and cooperation in the field of geographical information. As a consequence, the EGIS activities will be continued within the framework of the new Joint European Conference on Geographical Information (JEC-GI). Already here in Paris, some organizational adaptations can be observed. The major one is the cooperation with ORTECH. This Paris based firm has set up the successful series of yearly MARI events and is the organizer of the combined MARI/EGIS exhibition at the CNIT Congress Centre. It is a step towards a more professional organization of the event. The cooperation with ORTECH has worked very well and has shown that it is sensible to enlist the services of experienced congress organizing firms for a large manifestation like EGIS. Further, a significant part of the conference sessions will be in French and the plenary sessions will be simultaneously translated into either French or
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English. Together with the excellent promotional and supportive work done by the French Scientific Committee, this really has opened the EGIS conference for the French speaking GIS community. Finally, the geographical and professional background of the EGIS delegates has clearly broadened. The share of attenders affiliated with university institutes has shrunk to less than 50 percent, the Dutch-British dominance is over and delegates from the Central and East European countries will be present in Paris in large numbers. Many of them succeed in coming to France although only one third of the close to one hundred applications for a grant could be honoured. After a short overview of the presentations at this EGIS/MARI '94 conference, this paper will elaborate the inducements for and the aims and format of the new joint European GI event. Next, the possible functions of this event for the activities envisaged in the EUROGI working programme will be shortly discussed.
The geography of EGIS participation is changing (Figures 1 and 2). The first three years, most presentation proposals were received from persons working in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Belgium and Italy were two countries that also participated quite strongly right from the beginning.
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This was further stimulated when Brussels and Genoa became venues for EGIS conferences. Only in 1992, when the conference was organized in Munich, there was a sizeable number of German presenters. The last years, the number of presentation proposals from Germany is only modest. This has also been true for the participation from France. However, this year the French will form the largest national group among the speakers at EGIS. Over the years, most small and medium sized countries in Europe participated more or less according to their population size. The share of the Central and East European presenters has steadily increased, especially after the grant programme had been established. This year, 30 grant requests could be honoured, but eighty to hundred delegates from the former East Block countries are expected to attend. Although in general the possibilities for funding scientific visits to Western Europe have improved, still many individual delegates experience severe problems in finding financial sources.
For the EGIS/MARI'94 conference the geographical distribution of presentation proposals is well-balanced. There is a strong interest in presenting at the EGIS conference in Paris from countries like Portugal, Tunisia, the Czech Republic, Lithuania and the Ukraine. The interest from Tunisia is striking and, of course, a result of the sizable French content of this year's event. On the other hand, from the Scandinavian countries, Spain and again Germany relatively few proposals were received.
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The total number of presentation proposals is remarkably high (over 450). With respect to papers and posters presented, EGIS is now comparable in size to the largest North American GIS events. Nine parallel streams are necessary to accommodate them all. This despite the fact that quite a number of application oriented presentations have been referred to the poster sessions.
Compared to last year's conference, the increased interest in research and development related issues is the most striking trend. It indicates the still relatively early phase of diffusion and the immature state of geographical information technology. As a consequence, fundamental research is still an important element of many scientific research programmes. The share of presentations addressing awareness issues dropped slightly, while applications oriented papers and posters retained their share of about 40 percent. There are no major differences between the groups of countries with respect to the topics covered in the presentations (Figure 3). The South European countries (excluding Italy) show a stronger emphasis on applications and have sent in only few proposals in the awareness categories. The new group of French presenters show a clear preference for technology issues.
At EGIS conferences there is still a majority of presenters working in university environments. Their share has however gradually decreased to about half of all presentations (Figure 4). Among the British and East European presenters, academics are still very dominant. There are two other large professional groups of active delegates: persons working in international and national research institutes and employees of research and development departments of GIS system houses (software developers, application developers, consultants, etc. ). Even among the presenters from the former East Block countries, persons affiliated with GIS businesses are quite well represented. Few casual GIS end-users will participate in the paper and poster sessions in Paris with a presentation. Together with GIS managers, they undoubtedly will form one of the largest groups among the non-presenting visitors to the EGIS/MARI-event.
In the conference bag, a brochure of the new Joint European GI conference to be held in The Hague in 1995 is inserted. The EGIS Executive Committee hopes that many delegates will decide to witness the birth of this new exciting event in the friendly Dutch city that combines the profile of a national and international governmental centre with that of a major and elegant North Sea resort.
The preparations for a European Umbrella Organization for Geographical Information (EUROGI) have been the main incentive for EGIS, AM/FM and UDMS to start negotiations aimed at a close cooperation with respect to European GIS conferences. A second important reason was the growing consciousness that the large
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number of European GIS events began to become a burden for the delegates and the industry. An efficient and effective communication on GIS in Europe would be greatly enhanced by integrating a number of events into one large conference and exhibition.
Last November, EUROGI was officially established in Luxembourg. It has been promised an encouraging initial support by the Commission of the European Union. It is the intention of the new Conference Committee to coordinate its activities as closely as possible with those of EUROGI. The EGIS representatives in the various committees will do their best to serve the interests of our prime target groups - the GIS educators, researchers and developers in Europe - as good as possible. However, the benefits for the GIS sector in Europe as a whole, and the importance of supporting and promoting an useful application of the technology in society should be taken into consideration as well. As a consequence of all these developments, many new or newly organized European GIS initiatives, activities and projects can be expected in the coming years.
The conference and exhibition will be professionally organized. AKM Congress Service in Basel will be responsible for all organizational and financial matters. AKM will closely cooperate with the Conference Committee formed by AM/FM, EGIS and UDMS. Special Interest Conference Committees will be formed and sufficiently funded to take care of generating and processing presentations in each of the streams and to prepare the publication of the conference proceedings.
One of the streams to be organized will be a 'national stream' in the language of the host country. For this stream cooperation is sought with national professional organizations in the field. It is hoped that the future Joint GI Conferences can be made more attractive for casual GIS users to present and discuss results of and experiences from their work.
The theme for the first three Joint Conferences will be 'From Research to Application through Cooperation'. With the choice for this theme, the Conference Committee wants to highlight the broad scope of the event and its intention to serve all persons and organizations with an interest in geographical information. But it also indicates the aim to facilitate and promote the meeting, exchange, cooperation and integration of members of the European GIS community and their overseas relations.
The Conference committee realizes that big does not necessarily automatically mean beautiful. Therefore, efforts will be made to retain the valuable elements of the three events that are replaced and to make sure that the regular delegates of the AM/FM, EGIS and UDMS meetings will also feel at home and familiar at the new conference. The conference will be made up of plenary events and thematic streams. This will allow delegates to meet easily with persons they know and that share their prime interests. But it also makes possible shopping around sessions that might offer completely new insights, opportunities and personal relations. Besides the sessions, workshops and tours, the exhibition, where the latest in GI technology will be on
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display, will surely suit all delegates.
Early this year, the final report of the desirability and feasibility study for a European Umbrella Organization for Geographical Information was published by the European Commission (Brand et al., 1994). The discussion of the draft version of this report on 25 and 26 November 1993 in Luxembourg, resulted in the inauguration of EUROGI, the European Association for Geographic Information. EUROGI has 17 founding members, 13 of which are national GIS organizations and 4 are European GI organisations. AM/FM/GIS International European Division, EGIS and UDMS are among the founding members.
At the strategic level, the goals formulated for EUROGI are broad and ambitious. Three, partly overlapping, groups of activities can be distinguished:
At the operational level, a work plan is being prepared by the Executive Committee. The provisional plan for activities to be started by EUROGI in the first two years included the following projects:
- Compilation and publication of European GI Directories on persons, organizations, data and projects.
The Luxembourg meeting added the following activities to this list:
The Joint European GI Conference can be used to support the EUROGI activities in a number of ways:
The relationship between the Conference Committee and EUROGI should be formalized in an official agreement. The Conference Committee seeks the status of an EUROGI Working Party for the next three years. After this period, when both EUROGI and the conference will have matured, the relationship should be
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reconsidered.
Brand, M., P.A. Burrough, F. Salge & K. Schuler (1994), Setting up EUROGI: Final Report of the Committee for Investigating the Feasibility of Creating a European Umbrella Organization for Geographical Information. Luxembourg: Commission of the European Communities, DG XIII-E2 (Information Technology).
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