The INSPIRE Directive is now well into its implementation phase and an approach to maintaining the various specifications has been agreed. The Commission recognises the need to retain the expertise that has built up within the community in the development phase and to use that expertise to deliver any future updates or changes. The Commission is creating a pool of experts to help with these tasks. Up to now the UK has provided a high level of technical expertise to support INSPIRE and I would hope that this can be continued.
I would like to bring to the attention of the UK data community the call for experts made by the European Commission for the development of a pool of experts to support the continued maintenance of INSPIRE. This pool of experts will act on Implementation and Maintenance issues and any support activities. The call is open-ended and registration will be possible from today (Monday, 8 July 2013).
The call for experts has gone out to the community following the European Commission's standard policies. Experts will be chosen by the Commission through their procedures. I strongly encourage experts in both private and public sector organisations to consider participation.
If members of the community decide to register please inform the UK-INSPIRE Team at Defra so that we can understand the UK's likely participation coverage and consider what support we can provide. In particular, we are keen to continue the well established and successful practice of using the wider UK community to exchange views before any specific participation and to report back after any actions. The UK-INSPIRE team will support and coordinate this.
The UK-INSPIRE Team will nominate formally a representative or representatives on the Maintenance and Implementation Group (MIG - the smaller group described within the call). After experts are formally in place we will look to hold a seminar (potentially a phone-based one) to agree future communication activities through to the INSPIRE coordination and Architecture & Interoperability Board (AIB) here in the UK.
As stated please can you inform us at: UK-INSPIRE-NCP@defra.gsi.gov.uk of any nominations made. Note that you need to make formal nominations direct to the EC but please let us know that you have done so.
More information and the call for experts can be found on the Commissions INSPIRE website http://inspire.ec.europa.eu/mif/
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