The Centre for Geospatial Science (CGS)
Establishment
CGS is a major cross-disciplinary research centre, established in April 2005 under the Directorship of Professor Mike Jackson and originally housed in the School of Geography on University Park. Director Mike Jackson's previous experience spans digital mapping and modelling software (as CEO of Laser-Scan Holdings plc), location-based services (LBS) on 3G location platforms (with Hutchinson 3G – ‘3’) and satellite systems and services (as Director of Space at QinetiQ).
The Centre’s formation can be seen as a key part of the University of Nottingham's strategic investment in innovative research, with CGS members undertaking pioneering research in geospatial techniques, developing and using information science infrastructure to address the problems of the geosciences and related branches of the humanities and engineering. Please see our research pages for more details.
More broadly, the Centre’s establishment was reflective of the numerous geospatial technological innovations that had occurred in preceding years (satellites, CCTV, navigation tools like Global Positioning Systems (GPS), mobile phones with positioning technology, digital mapping developments including Google Earth, and the rapidly expanding usage and application of the World Wide Web). The rapidity of these innovations, all of which can be described as being ‘geospatial’ (the term used to describe the combination of spatial software and analysis with geographic datasets giving rise to data which is accurately referenced to a precise location on the earth’s surface), has only increased since the Centre’s formation. Traditionally these innovations had evolved separately from one another and within a number of different and distinct academic disciplines (principally geography, computer science, and engineering). Yet, together they represent a set of interconnected technologies which have significantly changed our ability to process, model and capture geographical information.
Geospatial data is already used for a wide range of purposes, it can take the form of printed maps, charts and written documents, digital databases, photographic forms or digitized maps, charts and data. These powerful developments in technology, alongside greater access to information, can thus be seen both as highly empowering to the general public and research community, whilst also holding the potential to disrupt the most sensitive activities of the state and private institutions. CGS aims to bring together researchers with a wide variety of expertise to fully unlock the potential of these new technologies for the global research community.
Nottingham Geospatial Building (NGB), home of CGS
Interior of Nottingham Geospatial Building
Researchers
CGS now has 12 full-time members of staff, including a Deputy Director, Jeremy Morley, who joined the Centre in September 2009. The multidisciplinary research centre is global in scope — with staff from nine countries and five continents. Centre members are encouraged to work collaboratively with other institutions, and with different University Schools and Departments as well as working with each other – something that is evident from the large number of jointly authored conference papers and published research emanating from CGS.
CGS researchers have attracted funding from a wide range of sources (including the European Union, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Ordnance Survey, Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), the Technology Strategy Board (TSB), and Yonsei University, South Korea), much of which has served to increase the number of Centre members through doctoral and post-doctoral research positions. The Centre thus has a vibrant and growing postgraduate research community studying for doctorates and Masters degrees. CGS is also a member of the Horizon Digital Economy Research Institute, a £5m Doctoral Training Centre which is funding over 50 PhD studentships in Location-Aware Ubiquitous Computing for the Digital Economy at the University of Nottingham. Please see the courses and Horizon project page for more details.
Events, International Representation and Measures of Esteem
CGS has now hosted a number of high profile conference and workshop events in the geospatial field, most notably the annual Open Source GIS UK (OSGIS UK) Conference in 2009 and 2010, and the 6th International Symposium on Location Based Services (LBS) and TeleCartography in September 2009, the first time the event had been held in the UK. A series of Ordnance Survey (OS) one day Think-Tanks have been held at the Centre over the last eighteen months, after the OS awarded a research contract to CGS to investigate future data and data management developments that might impact on OS’s operations and services. CGS has also hosted more specialist events that have focused on drawing links between researchers in CGS and other Schools and Departments within the University of Nottingham. Many of the presentations given at CGS events are available to watch or listen to online, with the OS Geo Geospatial Web Services workshop (June 2008) setting a precedent as one of the first GIS conferences to have whole sessions webcasted live. CGS jointly organised the Erasmus IP funded GIS OPENSOURCE Summer School from the 28th June to 9th July 2010 held in Girona, Spain.
The Centre has also been well represented at national (GISRUK and Royal Geographical Society annual conferences) and international (Association for Geographic Information (AGI) Annual Conference series, the International Conferences on Hydroscience and Engineering (ICHE), International Conferences on Information Visualisation (IV), Open Grid Forum (OGF), Association of Geographic Information Laboratories in Europe (AGILE) conferences, Auto Carto, Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Association (GDSI) events, and the European Geosciences Union workshops) geospatial events, and has supported travel to certain events by staff and students through bursary schemes.
Since establishment, CGS Director Professor Jackson has been invited to give approximately thirty keynote talks at international events in which he has promoted the activities of the centre as well as speaking on his own research projects and interests.
Meeting with OSGeo Board of Directors 2010
OSGIS UK 2010 workshop session
OSGIS UK 2010 presentation by Dr. Suchith Anand
CGS has experienced strong growth since its launch and has built an international reputation for research excellence. In late 2009 CGS was designated an 'Oracle Spatial Centre of Excellence', the only one of its kind in Europe, and one of just three worldwide. Oracle is the world leader in integrated information management, and the designation enables CGS to benefit from access to the company’s latest software and technological solutions, training and support network, and thus to remain at the forefront of geospatial data management. CGS also receives free software from Intergraph, Snowflake, ITT (International Telephone and Telegraph), Safesoft and data from various sources. Both CGS and Oracle are members of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). CGS was selected for the OGC Interoperability Program Pool in August 2008, and is one of the few GIS research centres having representation in both the OGC and the ISO/TC 211 committee (in the form of Special Lecturer Dr. Jinsoo You as liaison representative), a group that is working to establish a structured set of standards for digital geographic information. In September 2010 CGS signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) for the establishment of an Open Source Geospatial Lab (OSGL) and to develop collaboration opportunities for academia, industry and government organisations in open source GIS software and data in the UK. In February 2011 CGS accepted an invitation to become the first UK-based honorary member of the gvSIG Association, an international non-profit organisation whose mission is to promote the use of technologies based on the FOSS principles as defined by the Free Software Foundation, for GIS applications.
Professor Jackson sits on two University Strategy Committees: Information, Communications and Modelling, and Knowledge Transfer and Innovation. Externally, he sits on the Board of Directors, Executive Committee, and China Forum of OGC (having been Chairman of the OGC UK-Ireland Forum 2006-2009), and the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) GI Board. He was a GEO Architecture and Data Committee Member on behalf of OGC 2006-8. He is a member of the GEOSS Common Infrastructure Coordination Team, sits on the AGILE Council and was appointed Chairman of EuroSDR’s Commission 5 (Integration and delivery of data and services) for a second term of three years at the 112th EuroSDR Annual General Meeting in May 2008. He is the EuroSDR lead on the European Persistent Interoperability Test-bed Programme. He is part of the Advisory Board of Oracle’s TeleAtlas European Centre for Geospatial and Location Based Services, and was an invited technical expert to the European Community 6th Framework Specific Support Action Programme in 2006. Additionally he has sundry involvement with the UN SDI Working Group, was a member of the Expert Advisory Group to the EU GMES Project – Cyclops which reached completion in November 2008, and was part of a review workshop for the Irish National StratAG Programme in November 2008.
Jeremy Morley is a member of the UK Location Council User Group, and Mike Jackson a member of their Interoperability Board.
Kristin Stock is Editor for the INSPIRE Protected Sites Thematic Working Group, and is also involved in the EU Motive Project as part of her consulting work.
Jerry Swan was selected for the drafting team for writing the service description specifications to redevelop the WebGen services as an OGC standard at the First Workshop on Generalisation web services at Ordnance Survey in November 2007.
Gobe Hobona is part of the OGC Consultancy to GEOSS.
Nottingham Geospatial Building (NGB)
CGS has recently relocated to the purpose-built and sustainable Nottingham Geospatial Building (NGB), built at a cost of £9m (combining a £3.4m grant from the East Midlands Development Agency with university investment).
Officially opened on 25th March 2010 by David Lammy MP (at the time Minister for Higher Education), and the site selected by Prime Minister Gordon Brown to formerly unveil Labour’s five key pledges ahead of the election, the building was singled out as an excellent example of sustainable architecture by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors earlier this year.
Located on Innovation Park, a 12-acre site adjacent to Jubilee Campus, the Nottingham Geospatial Building is the latest contribution to the regeneration of this brown-field site formerly occupied by the Raleigh bicycle factory, and stands opposite the tallest free-standing sculpture in the UK - Aspire. CGS shares its new home with the Global Navigation and Satellite Systems (GNSS) Research and Applications Centre of Excellence (GRACE), and the Institute of Engineering, Surveying and Space Geodesy (IESSG).
The building also offers high quality incubation space for small and medium-sized businesses from the GNSS and geospatial industries, and access, facilities and support for University researchers and visitors.