Award for Euro INSPIRE Geoportal

Planetek Italia is starting the activities to set up the INSPIRE Geoportal, the central portal for environmental information in the European Union. The company has been awarded the tender for the 'Development of the technical components of the INSPIRE Geoportal at European Level', of the Joint Research Centre (JRC) - Institute for Environment and Sustainability. This version will substitute at operational level the current prototype developed by the JRC.

The INSPIRE Geoportal will be the unique access point to global European environment geoinformation resources shared and made available by all member states within the framework of the "Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community" (INSPIRE) Directive. The main objective of this project is to provide the operational version of the INSPIRE Geoportal at European level, including integration interfaces for discovery and view services from member state portals and thus to foster the harmonisation of member states' national Geoportals implementations through the adoption of open standards and open-source products.

Expectations towards usability and innovation are high, as confirmed by this statement from JRC: "In the context of the development of the Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE), the JRC, as the technical coordinator, developed the prototype of the INSPIRE Geoportal. Based on the experience gained in the development and operation of this prototype, the JRC issued a call for tender for the development of the operational version of this Geoportal at Union level.

Compliance to JRC's and wider European Commission's detailed functional and non-functional requirements formed the basis for this call for tender. Taking due consideration of the critical nature of the Geoportal as the European entry point to access the European Union geospatial resources, the JRC expects the successful proposal to be transformed in an innovative, reliable and performing INSPIRE Geoportal that will be a central element in fulfilling the goals of the infrastructure."

The proposal of Planetek Italia, prime contractor of the temporary consortium with the German company lat/lon, has been awarded amongst seventeen proposals from biggest European GeoSpatial operators.

The technical proposal is entirely based on Open Source technologies and OGC standards, which Planetek Italia and lat/lon already adopt and even implement.

The project will be realised in eighteen months utilising the Design Thinking paradigm, the working philosophy adopted by Planetek Italia for its activities.