INSPIRE Conference held in Denmark

Central INSPIRE community event, the annual conference was held from 16 – 20th of June 2014 in Aalborg, Denmark. INSPIRE Conference is a unique event that brings together the coordinators, users, developers, data providers and policy makers in the field of spatial data for the entire European Union and beyond.
 
The conference was attended by about 500 participants. Thematic plenary sessions were focused on the contributions, challenges and opportunities of INSPIRE in relation to the availability of information as a basis for good governance and economic development. As INSPIRE ended one period in its development, the European Commission conducted a public consultation on the subject of the implementation of the INSPIRE directive, to make a decision  in which direction INSPIRE will develop in the incoming period, and one of the plenary session was devoted to the evaluation of the results of consultation.

In the remaining part of the conference the whole series of parallel sessions took place, from the INSPIRE training organized by the JRC to sessions on topics related to network services, sharing, access and use of data, the quality of web services, education and awareness raising, INSPIRE in spatial planning, health and environmental protection etc. During this year's conference, titled "INSPIRE for management" there were held 30 workshops, five plenary sessions and about 200 presentations in parallel sessions, poster sessions and exhibitions.

Within the session, „INSPIRE Tales from Implementation: From plan to practice“, on behalf of the National Contact Point for the NSDI and INSPIRE it was presented a paper on topic “Recent NSDI Capacity building and awareness raising measures in Croatia” co-authored by Tomislav Ciceli, Ljerka Marić, Zeljko Hećimović and Danko Markovinović.
 
The conclusion at the end of the conference is that Croatia regarding NSDI establishment and implementation of the INSPIRE directive during the last years has nevertheless made ​​a major breakthrough approaching the other member states of the European Union.
 
At the end of the conference it has been announced the next INSPIRE Conference which will be held for the first time together with GeoSpatial World Forum in Lisbon.