Page History

Context

Central INSPIRE components such as This is a continuation of the work under Action 2.3 and Action 2.4 that were initiated within the MIWP 2021-2024. The central INSPIRE components - the Geoportal, Validator, Registry, Forum and INSPIRE Knowledge Base , (IKB) and their helpdesks and community fora - are essential for the implementation and evolution of the INSPIRE infrastructure. All of those components were developed separately and under different contexts, which has led to the use of different technologies, establishment of individual helpdesks, highly customised systems. In addition, the tools are at present tightly coupled with the JRC infrastructure. At present, the JRC is mainly involved with the evolution of the central components. Such an approach is not sustainable in the long term. Establishing adequate governance mechanisms, creating communities and establishment of strategic partnerships within the INSPIRE community and with other stakeholders, e.g. open source communities would ensure smooth and shared evolution of the components. In addition most, if not all of the tools, can be reused in other contexts which in turn creates multiple opportunities for their long-term maintenance and evolution.

Proposed action

During the former MIWP, the JRC has considerably streamlined the operation and evolution of the components by revamping the Geoportal backend through the GeoNetwork open source software, redesigning the IKB, creating communities around the open source Re3gistry and ETF, moving all components to the cloud, migrating/integrating all helpdesks on GitHub. This has made it possible to decouple the INSPIRE components from the JRC infrastructure and create a sustainable path for the future operation.

In parallel, and following the Amendment of the Implementing Rules on the interoperability of spatial datasets and services, important work has been done to push for the simplification of INSPIRE implementation, by e.g. co-creating a good practice on the simplification of data-service linking (afterwards implemented in the Geoportal and Validator) and introducing a governance approach to manage the evolution of the INSPIRE artefacts - Technical Guidelines, XML application schemas, UML models and Registry content, which were also moved to GitHub for easier management.

Proposed action

First, the action will continue ensuring the operation and maintenance of the central components (including for the needs of the annual INSPIRE Monitoring and Reporting) and the provision of support to the community of implementers through the helpdesks. Evolution of the artefacts will also be ensured through the existing governance mechanism. Second, in preparation of the revision of the Directive, the action will evaluate appropriate ways to further streamline the underlying software and systems in view of the options The goal of this action is twofold. Firstly, it will cover the operation of the central components, incl. for the needs of the annual monitoring and reporting. Secondly, the action will come up with practical solutions for the evolution of those key infrastructure components and come up with adequate governance models for the components and related artefacts which do not only rely on the work of the JRC. In doing so, the action will focus on streamlining the underlying software and systems, based on a proposal to phase out, consolidate and/or move them to EC corporate solutions, in order to simplify long-term maintenance.

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Outcomes

Sustainable central INSPIRE components and artefacts that are reusable within the context of the European Green Deal data space.