The minutes summarise the main conclusions and actions from the meeting. Actions are indicated by using check boxes and are tracked in the dedicated "Actions" section below.
The meeting was chaired by the EC (JRC) and attended by experts from BE, BG, CZ, DK, DE, EE, FI, IT, IS, MT, NL, NO, SI, SE, ES, PT, PL, RO, FR, NO, CH, HR, LI, LU, the European Commission (ENV, AGRI, ESTAT), and the EEA.
Welcome and approval of the agenda
The agenda of the 76th MIG-T meeting was approved without changes.
Actions from the previous meeting (for discussion and agreement)
Actions from the 75th MIG-T meeting were reviewed and their current status is reflected in the dedicated wiki page.
MIWP Action updates
1.1 Towards a Digital Ecosystem for the Environment and Sustainability (I/D)
Good practices status update 5'
2.3.1 Governance of INSPIRE artefacts (I/D)
Update on TG conversion to asciidoc and INSPIRE artefact governance (JRC & Contractors) 5'
Presentation, discussion and voting on new change proposals (JRC & Contractors) 15'
Action 1.1
An approach for validation of GPKG data was presented that provides a pragmatic and workable solution for ensuring conformance for alternative/additional encodings of INSPIRE data.
Following the endorsment during the 18th MIG meeting, the GeoJSON good practice is now under legal scrutiny with DG ENV.
JRC to inform MS on the outcomes of the legal scruting of the GeoJSON GP in the next MIG-T meeting.
Action 2.3.1 Governance of INSPIRE Artefacts
All the TGs whose conversion to AsciiDoc was scheduled for December 2023 (according to the releaseplan) are available in the GitHub branch corresponding to the next release (v.2024.1) scheduled for .
The next release of artefacts (TGs, schemas and UML models) will include: i) the changes derived from the recently adopted Regulation amending the IR on interoperability of spatial data sets and services; and ii) the changes endorsed by the MIG-T and MIG during this meeting, including those implementing the good practice on simplified data–service linking approach (see below).
The sub-group 2.3.1 advanced on the following change proposals:
TG change proposal #72: the contactInstructions metadata element is proposed as alternative to onlineResource
MIG-T members to provide feedback on the proposed solution for issue #72 on GitHub
TG change proposal #84: the proposal is rejected for the reasons explained.
TG change proposals #82, #105, #108, #110, #112 are briefly presented. MIG-T and MIG approve all these proposals (see Poll results), only pending a clarification of a comment from FI about proposal #108 (see here).
Debriefing, Part 1 of the 76th MIG-T meeting
TG change proposal #108 is further analysed: the decision (also confirmed by FI) is to go ahead with the change. A separate action (to be started if there is appetite in the MIG-T) is to evaluate a possible revision of INSPIRE Metadata TG in light of the new ISO standard ISO/TS 19139-1:2019.
MIG-T members to share interest in a possible revision of INSPIRE Metadata TG based on ISO/TS 19139-1:2019.
MIWP Action updates
2.4 Central INSPIRE Components (I/D)
ETF and INSPIRE Reference Validator (JRC) 10'
Re3gistry software and INSPIRE Registry (JRC) 10'
Presentation, discussion and voting on new change proposals (JRC & Contractors) 10'
INSPIRE Geoportal (JRC) 10'
New INSPIRE Knowledge Base 5'
Action 2.4 Central INSPIRE Components
ETF and INSPIRE Reference Validator
The September release (v.2023.3) of the Validator will be used for validating metadata within the 2023 INSPIRE Monitoring and Reporting, while the next release (v.2024.0) is postponed to to allow the Validator to include the changes (e.g. the simplification of data-service linking) brought by the new release of TGs planned for .
A new Conformance Class checking the implementation of the data-service linking simplification approach is available in the staging instance of the Validator; the corresponding ATS is available here. More information is available in this GitHub discussion; testing from the community is welcome in view of the inclusion in the production instance with the next release (v.2024.0). Updated ATS/ETS for network services will be also made available before the next release.
The Validator has an API Gateway to allow users to perform automated tests using the Validator (more information here); to check the remaining available quota, users can refer to ths instructions here.
Release v.2024.0 will still be based on ETF v.2.0, but will feature an architectural redesign in terms of Operating Systems and underlying libraries.
The helpdesk of the INSPIRE Reference Validator has reached 1000 issues; there are less issues about bugs and more about deployment; there has been little community activity in the last months.
Re3gistry software and INSPIRE Registry
Latest releases of the Re3gistry software were v2.5.0 (June) and v2.5.1 (September); the next release v2.5.2 is expected in December and will include solutions to the issues listed here.
The latest release of the INSPIRE Registry (v.2023.2) happened in September, the next one (v.2024.1) is scheduled on . The changes to be included in the release are listed here.
Change proposals #6, #14, #75, #76, #77, #78, #79, #80, #81 to the INSPIRE Registry are briefly presented. The MIG-T approves all change proposals (see Poll results). The 2-week scrutiny period (until ) for possible MIG comments is open; in the absence of opinions against any of the proposals, they will be considered endorsed.
INSPIRE Geoportal
The revamped INSPIRE Geoportal was released just before the INSPIRE Conference. It provides access to high-value datasets in the scope of INSPIRE.
The Geoportal is hosted on the cloud and the backend is based on the open source GeoNetwork software (v.4.2.6).
To prepare the new Geoportal for the INSPIRE Monitoring and Reporting 2023, the harvest console will remain closed in the coming days (i.e. harvests will be launched by the JRC).
JRC to evaluate a solution to allow country representatives to run harvests (e.g. in a cloned instance).
JRC to investigate the technical details on the exposure through the Geoportal of datasets tagged in accordance with the guidelines for IACS data sharing.
Future enhancements may include an improved dataset accessibility analysis, the inclusion of Good Practices (support for OGC API-Features and the data-service linking simplification approach) and the automatic calculation of Monitoring indicators.
A new collaborative agreement is signed between the OGC and JRC that formalises the collaboration until August 2026. Regular (bi-monthly) coordination meetings are organised. This can also be used for discussing topics raised by MS.
MIG-T meetings in 2024
Meetings are planned for 2024 and will take place on the following dates: