Strategic review of geographical information systems (GIS) research and development
A strategic review of geographical information systems (GIS) research and technology development for Europe, conducted by an expert panel on behalf of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre, has recently been published. The review looks at the significance of the GIS market for European industry, with projections of ECU 10 billion in existing users of geographic information. Whilst GIS technologies are not yet developed enough to serve anything like the whole of this market, on-going development work is producing entirely new products and extending the market. The European experts were concerned, however, that the dominant force in developing GIS is the USA. European companies currently have a very low market share of GIS products worldwide and there is a danger that issues related to standards and interoperability will be settled by US vendors and manufacturers, without taking into account the interests of the European GIS sector, if Europe does not make coordinated and vigorous efforts to avoid this. The report calls on the Commission to: - Encourage the increased participation of European organizations in standards development, including the adoption of a standard conceptual data model; - Assist in improving user participation in the R&D process; - Support projects in priority R&D areas; - Establish an EC demonstration/evaluation laboratory and other practical actions.