Education For a third perspective on GIScience grand challenges, let's look at the U.S. National Research Council (NRC) March 2010 report entitled Understanding the Changing Planet: Strategic Directions for the Geographical Sciences. The report focuses on societal benefit areas, or what we might call big-picture problem areas, similar to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. The NRCcommissioned panel that drafted the report summarized the goals for the coming decade in terms of 11 strategic questions that were grouped in four areas: How to understand and respond to environmental change 1. How are we changing the physical environment of earth's surface? 2. How can we best preserve biological diversity and protect endangered ecosystems? 3. How are climate and other environmental changes affecting the vulnerabilities of coupled human-environment systems? 4. Where and how will 10 billion people live? 5. How will we sustainably feed everyone in the coming decade and beyond? 6. How does where we live affect our health? 7. How is the movement of people, goods, and ideas changing the world? 8. How is economic globalization affecting inequality? 9. How are geopolitical shifts influencing peace and stability? 10. How might we better observe, analyze, and visualize a changing world? 11. What are the societal implications of citizen mapping and mapping citizens? How to promote sustainability How to recognize and cope with the rapid spatial reorganization of the economy and society How to leverage technological change for the benefit of society and environment Eleven challenges from the U.S. National Research Council (NRC) report Understanding the Changing Planet: Strategic Directions for the Geographical Sciences About the Author Dr. Michael Gould studied GIScience at the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis, University at Buffalo, then taught in Spain and was principal investigator on several European Unionfunded research projects between 1991 and 2008. He was a member and the chair of the management board of AGILE and cofounder of the Vespucci Institute for GIScience and related summer schools. He now directs the Esri education industry team and oversees global education projects and strategy. Strategic Directions for the Geographical Sciences It is interesting to consider these big-picture problems and the extent to which GIS technology and GIScience research can contribute to viable, tractable solutions. Esri has been active in supporting GIScience initiatives, looking at these and related areas. In February 2010, the first Redlands GIS Week was celebrated at Esri's headquarters and brought 150 researchers together to discuss advances in space-time modeling and analysis. The second Redlands GIS Week, in February 2011, will focus on the impact of collecting and processing VGI especially for real-time and emergency management scenarios. Esri organizes a special GIScience track at the annual User Conference in San Diego. Papers accepted for that track are published in the peer-reviewed journal Transactions in GIS. And Esri has for more than a decade sponsored and participated in the Association of Geographic Information Laboratories in Europe (AGILE) and GIScience international conference series, including GIScience 2010, right back in Zurich. www.esri.com ArcUser Fall 2010 65