Support to Facilitate Collaboration of U.S. Scientists with European Scientists Participating in the European Science Foundation's GISDATA Programme

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9321119 GOODCHILD The development and use of geographic information systems (GISs) for the collection, storage, analysis, and presentation of spatial data has had powerful and productive impacts on geography and related disciplines in recent decades. The importance of this new technology and the advancement of analytic methods that employ GISs has been given considerable attention within the private and public sectors. In 1988, the National Science Foundation (NSF) provided support that led to the establishment of the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA), a consortium dedicated to research, education, and outreach with respect to the advancement of geographic information science. Although the United States initially was the locus of activity regarding GISs, scientists and practitioners from other nations increasingly have engaged in activities aimed at advancing the capabilities and uses of GISs. In 1993, the European Science Foundation (ESF) started a scientific program in Geographic Information Systems Data Integration and Data Base Design (GISDATA). This program is designed to foster international collaborative research. In order to integrate the efforts of scientists from the U.S. with the developing network of European scientists, this award will support the efforts of the NCGIA to coordinate research activities in the U.S. with those taking place in Europe. In particular, the participation of U.S. scientists in crucial GISDATA meetings will be supported, as will the involvement of more than a dozen early-career researchers in a summer institute to be held in Europe in 1996. These activities will be matched by the ESF, which will send leading European scientists to important U.S. meetings and funds participation of younger European scientists at a 1995 summer institute sponsored by the NCGIA in the U.S. Other federal agencies and private-sector firms are expected to complement NSF's support of this project. Throu gh this award, the NCGIA will involve more U.S. scientists in activities that will understand and remove impediments to integration of geographic information from different disciplines and from multiple national and regional sources. These activities also will develop improved methods for database design, especially those currently inhibited by problems in data integration. The award also will facilitate collaborations among U.S. and European scientists in a partnership that is more than the sum of its parts, and it will test new forms of mutual support between NSF and a major European counterpart.