FIG Working Week 2008 – Integrating Generationswill be held in Stockholm, Sweden, in June 2008, the week before Sweden’s most traditional celebration, the Midsummer. This conference is hosted jointly by the International Federation of Surveyors (FIG) and the Swedish Association of Chartered Surveyors (Sveriges Lantmätareförening, SLF) which at the same time celebrates its centenary.

This Working Week is for FIG the main event in 2008 and at the same time the mid-term conference for the current Council. The General Assembly will elect new FIG vice-presidents and chairs-elect for all Commissions, thus adding some special excitement to the meeting’s normal mix of topics for decision making.

The theme of the Working Week addresses many issues that will face surveyors over coming years. These include questions concerning the need to get young people interested in surveying and geomatics, how to keep our professional qualifica­tions up to date, and the need for capacity building – all issues of great interest to FIG and the conference organisers. The theme can also be read more closely as relating to the profession itself: what is the role of modern technology in GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System), geoinformatics, laser scanning etc? This fast growing technology will change the path taken by our profession.

The prevention of slums, which represent an all too big part of housing globally, is an important part of reaching the Millennium Development Goals. Having no security of tenure and no access to functioning financial mechanisms, one billion people are kept from achieving an acceptable standard of housing. Surveyors play a key role in establishing rights, and in linking functioning markets for housing and finance. During two days of the 2008 Working Week special attention will be paid to this in a series of sessions jointly organised by FIG and UN-Habitat. Here the main focus will be the possibilities open to the surveying world and the financial sector in changing this situation. What are the pro-poor tools that can be used in formalising informal rights and where have they been used successfully? What innovative financial solutions may be used to liberate capital for housing improvements, and what do these require in the form of land administration systems? These are some of the questions to which we will seek answers during what aims to be a dialogue between professionals working within this broad spectrum of activities.

FIG is grateful to the National Land Survey of Sweden (Lantmäteriet) and Swedesurvey, the main sponsors of this conference, who are offering this platform for leaders of national cadastral organisations to meet during a FIG event. I look forward to seeing you in Stockholm.