Date: November 2024

Venue: University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Civil and Geodetic Engineering, Jamova cesta 2, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Introduction to the topic

Geospatial skills are essential to meet the challenges of the ecological and digital transition. These refer to common skills for citizens and more specific capacities for industries as well as academic communities. Europe is experiencing serious challenges concerning recruitment and capacity development in the geospatial domain. On the one hand, we see a very high demand for geospatial information experts. On the other hand, we observe that universities and other educational institutions are not being supported at the national level to meet this high demand or support the industry with life-long learning opportunities/capacity development. Moreover, the geospatial sector may seem less attractive to students and less trendy than others. One of the consequences is that the geospatial information industry is underperforming, becoming less innovative, and facing serious staffing shortfalls in the short- to medium-term. This situation is not only a European-wide phenomenon but is being experienced further afield, for example, in North America and Australia.

To address these challenges, EuroSDR, in collaboration with the Faculty of Civil and Geodetic Engineering at the University of Ljubljana and Slovenian Surveying and Mapping Authority, organised a joint workshop focusing on the question of how to achieve a better match between this high demand for, and a rather poor supply of geospatial professionals. The main objective of the event was to have a better understanding of the current recruitment and capacity development challenges in the geospatial domain at the European level and to discuss potential solutions to tackle these challenges. 

This one-day event started with invited presentations, with associated follow-up discussions, dealing with the human capacity building and recruitment challenges across Europe – viewed from both the demand as well as supply side. Through these presentations, we gained better insights into the issue and identify the key challenges. In turn, these identified key challenges were discussed in more detail in follow-up break-out sessions. In particular, we aimed:

• To discuss how could the geospatial profession be made more attractive to young people;
• To discuss how we could raise the profile of the geospatial profession nationally and internationally;
• To discuss what are the future development trends of higher education in the geospatial domain,
• To look at examples of best-practice life-long learning approaches in the geospatial domain and to explore how these innovations can brought into practice, particularly in the context of national mapping (including geospatial data acquisition and processing, geospatial data infrastructures, and land administration). 

The presentations and break-sessions were focused on two topics:

• Topic 1: Capacity development challenges in the geospatial domain, including challenges in education to enable and encourage life-long learning, in particular with regard to the needs of NSMAs, industry and public services
• Topic 2: Promotion of the geospatial information domain, including recruitment, student pipeline, and information data tools and services offered by national surveying and mapping agencies (NSMA) and others for education and training

Workshop Programme and Presentations

Programme Committee

Anka Lisec, Erna Flogie Dolinar, Bénédicte Bucher, Conor Cahalane, Frédéric Cantat, Joep Crompvoets, Claire Ellul, Audrey Martin, Markéta Potůčková, Jantien Stoter and Mateja Urbančič

Programme (pdf)

The event was financially supported by the: 

• EuroSDR and  
• Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency (ARIS) and Slovenian Surveying and Mapping authority within the project “Integration of geoinformation and geodetic knowledge with innovative solutions into the broader digital ecosystem” coordinated by the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Civil and Geodetic Engineering.