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EUROGI/eSDI-Net : At a glance

 

The EUROGI/eSDI-Net initiative is a Thematic Network formerly co-founded by the EC and now advanced by EUROGI from its own resources. The initiative aims to foster the dialogue between European sub-national SDI stakeholders by providing a platform so that knowledge and Best Practises’ experiences are being shared.

In 2010, EUROGI took over the legacy of the eSDINetplus project, a thematic Network confounded by the eContentplusprogramme. 

EUROGI supports the sustainability of this Thematic network and ensures the continuation of the initiative and efforts of the project:

- The SDI best practices database (2009 - 2011)

- The SDI self-assessment framework (SDI-SAF). The main objective is to help SDIs to characterize and describe themselves. A clear understanding of its own strengths and weaknesses is needed to identify and follow a successfully implementation path. Comparisons with other SDIs is a useful exercise: SDI-SAF is intended for this. It provides a checklist useful to better focus on key issues in developing an SDI. 

The main public activity of the eSDI-Netplus Project was the international Conference “European SDI Best Practice Awards 2009. Learning from Best Practices” in Turin, Italy, November 2009, where twelve outstanding SDIs were awarded. The Conference was the provisional conclusion of a process that started in 2008 with the identification of promising SDIs in more than 20 European countries and the definition of a methodology to analyse SDIs: more than 200 sub-national or thematic SDIs were evaluated.

EUROGI organised the second sub-national SDIs Best Practices' Awards Conference and Ceremony in October 12th2011 in Brussels and was sponsored by ESRI and CONTERRA

SDIs wanting to participate had to conform to two main criteria: in operation for at least 12 months, and web-based. 46 SDIs completed their submissions, coming from 13 different European countries, with most of them coming from regional or municipal bodies, although there were also thematic SDIs.

"Each spatial data infrastructure is a special case": with this assumption in mind, the Jury decided not to allocate an overall Best Sub-national SDI award but for various SDIs that were excellent in different aspects (6 categories and 7 Award winners).