6 COVER STORIES Building INSPIRE: The Spatial Data Infrastructure for Europe continued from page 5 in catalogues all using the same specifications (OGC Catalog Service for the Web 2.0). The tests identified a number of shortcomings that required the development of an adaptor for each catalogue, which in a European-wide system with thousands of catalogues would obviously not scale. These shortcomings have been put forward to the OGC for consideration (for further details, see inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu/reports/ DistributedCatalogueServices_Report.pdf). In harder cases still, there are no standards available, and, therefore, they have to be created. This applies, for example, to “invoke” services that are needed for service chaining and to the specifications required for the interoperability of spatial datasets and services, which is a central feature of INSPIRE. To understand the context, it is worth reminding readers that each country in Europe has its own heritage and traditions, which include different ways and methods for collecting environmental and geographic data and different traditions on how to analyze and visualize the data, including different coordinate reference systems (sometimes more than one in each country), projections, and vertical reference systems. These different traditions mean that it is not enough for an SDI in Europe to help users find and access data. It is also necessary to understand the meaning of what we are accessing to make appropriate use of it. This means, in turn, that we need to develop not only translation tools to help overcome the language barriers but also agree on reference frameworks, classification systems and ontologies, data models, and schemas for each of the data themes shown in table 1 against which the national data can be transformed or mapped. This is necessary because we cannot ask the Member States and their national and local organizations to reengineer all their databases. Thus, the approach adopted is to develop agreed-upon European models and systems of transformation (on the fly or batch) so that the level of interoperability necessary for key European applications can be achieved. The approach sounds simple, but putting it into practice is very complex, as it has already required three years of work to develop an agreed-upon methodology (the Generic Conceptual Model) and tools; mobilize hundreds of experts in different domains; and deliver and test the first round of specifications for the Annex I data themes, with Annexes II and III to follow in the coming years. A visit to the INSPIRE Web site (inspire.jrc.ec.europa. eu/index.cfm) in the data specifications sections demonstrates the huge amount of work involved. The Organizational Model The organizational model put in place to develop INSPIRE is one of its more interesting features, drawing significant attention from outside Europe. In essence, it is a huge exercise in public participation, the like of which is most unusual in policy making, at least in Europe. From the outset, it was recognized that for INSPIRE to be successful and overcome the barriers to data access and use identified earlier, it was necessary for the legislators, implementers, and practitioners in the Member States to come together and agree on a shared understanding of the problem and possible solutions. Therefore, an expert group with official representatives from all the Member States was established at the beginning of the process in 2001, together with working groups of experts in the fields of environmental policy and geographic information to formulate options and forge consensus. The INSPIRE proposal was subject to an extended impact assessment and cadastral information, most of which have a federal agency that is taking the lead in data collection and management. The implication for the drafting teams is that they have a much more difficult task in collecting and summarizing reference material, seeking common denominators and reference models, and developing recommendations that satisfy user requirements without imposing an undue burden on those organizations that have day-to-day responsibility for data collection and management across Europe. Seeking compromise between different requirements and perspectives is crucial to the work of each drafting team. Last, but not least, it is important to note that the drafting teams have ownership of their work. They make the recommendations and submit them for review to all the registered SDICs and LMOs and the representatives of the Member States. It is only after they have taken on board all the comments received that the Commission takes ownership of the draft implementing rules and submits them for internal consultation. After revision and checking, the draft implementing rules go through the final round of the democratic process before becoming a new legal act. This involves qualified majority voting by the representatives of the Member States and the scrutiny of the European Parliament. The complexity of this participatory approach is certainly innovative not only in relation to the developments of SDIs but also more generally to the formulation of public policy at the European level. The outcome produces both consensus-based policy and the development and maintenance of a network of stakeholders that make it possible to implement more effectively this distributed European SDI. • Develop initiatives for guidance, awareness raising, and training in relation to the INSPIRE implementation. LMOs have similar functions but also play a central role in reviewing and testing the draft implementing rules and in assessing their potential impacts in respect to both costs and benefits. An open call was launched on March 11, 2005, for the registration of interest by SDICs and LMOs that were also asked to put forward experts and reference material to support the preparation of the implementing rules. The response was immediately very good, with more than 200 SDICs and LMOs registering within a month, putting forward some 180 experts (funded by them) from which we have set up drafting teams to help in developing the first batch of technical documents. At the present time, a second call for experts is open on the INSPIRE Web site to support the development of Annex II and III specifications, and an Internet forum (inspire-forum.jrc.ec.europa. eu) has also been set up for Member States to share experiences and tools to help implement INSPIRE. Table 2 shows the extent of the community directly involved in shaping the policy and the technical documents. Three aspects are particularity important in understanding the work and the challenges of the drafting teams: first, each expert represents a community of interest and, therefore, has the responsibility to bring to the table the expertise, expectations, and concerns of this community; secondly, each drafting team has to reach out to all thematic communities that are addressed by INSPIRE. As a matter of comparison, it is worth recalling that the U.S. NSDI defined only seven framework themes: geodetic control, orthoimagery, elevation, transportation, hydrography, governmental units, The Challenges Although a great deal of work has clearly taken place with the support of many stakeholders, there are still several organizational and technical challenges (and opportunities) that need to be addressed. Organizational: The most immediate challenge is to maintain the momentum and the high level of commitment of all stakeholders and the experts contributing to the development of the implementing rules. This is not trivial and requires a notable amount of resources (time, money, expertise, commitment) to ensure that stakeholders feel ownership of the process, which then becomes a prerequisite for more effective implementation. Just to give an example of the scale of the task, the development of the data specifications for Annex I themes involved addressing more than 7,500 comments received from hundreds of stakeholders and organizing some 350 meetings (both physical and virtual) over a two-year period. If you consider that there were 8 themes in Annex I and another 26 to do, in addition to the revisions and maintenance of all guidance documents already created, then you have a sense of this facet of the organizational The Inspire Community in 2009 361 Spatial Data Interest Communities (SDICs) 198 Legally Mandated Organizations (LMOs) 300 experts (drafting teams and working groups) 238 experts for Annex II/III latest call 3,087 user organizations registered on the INSPIRE Web site Table 2: The INSPIRE Community in 2009. (inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu/reports/fds_report. pdf and inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu/reports/ inspire_extended_impact_assessment.pdf) to identify potential costs and benefits before opening for public consultation. The revised proposal was then debated by the Council and European Parliament over a three-year period before final adoption in 2007. This process in itself is a good example in democracy, but the more interesting aspect is the way in which interested stakeholders are continuing to participate in all the ongoing activities required to develop the INSPIRE implementing rules (i.e., the follow-up legal acts and detailed technical guidance documents). To organize this process, two mechanisms have been put in place: the first is to engage the organizations at European national and subnational levels that already have a formal legal mandate for the coordination, production, or use of geographic and environmental information (called Legally Mandated Organizations, or LMOs). The second mechanism aims to facilitate the self-organization of stakeholders, including spatial data providers and users from both the public and private sectors, in Spatial Data Interest Communities (SDICs) by region, societal sector, and thematic issue. The central roles that SDICs play in the development of implementing rules include the following: • Identify and describe user requirements (to be understood as acting in line with environmental policy needs, as opposed to “maximum” requirements beyond the scope of INSPIRE and beyond realistically available resources). • Provide expertise to INSPIRE drafting teams. • Participate in the review process of the draft implementing rules. • Develop, operate, and evaluate the implementation pilots.