Geospatial data are widely needed in the services of society and companies every day. Geospatial data and their availability also play an important role in scientific research. One indication of this is Geoportti, an open geospatial data research infrastructure. It is a set of services coordinated by the Finnish Geospatial Research Institute (FGI) of the National Land Survey of Finland (NLS), which as its most significant service makes easy-to-use geospatial datasets as well as a group of processing and analysis tools directly available to researchers in CSC’s high-performance computing environments.
The Research Council of Finland’s research infrastructure committee selected Geoportti to join 21 national research infrastructures in the roadmap for 2025–2028. In addition, the position in the roadmap ensures funding for the development of services until 2029. The roadmap aims to promote research and development by acting as a tool for research communities, decision-makers and funding providers in steering investments and supporting research, development and innovation. The vision is that high-quality research infrastructures lay the foundation of RDI activities.
‘Being selected in the roadmap for Finnish research infrastructures is a magnificent achievement for Geoportti. This is not the first time we have been selected in the roadmap, as we were part of it in 2014–2020 with the status of a promising infrastructure. Since then, our operations have taken significant leaps forward, and based on the most recent impact analysis, we have found up to 160 scientific annually published articles in which the services of our research infrastructure have been used. The well-earned place in the roadmap tells us that our incredibly hard work produces results, and now the importance of this work has also been nationally recognised,’ says Professor Juha Oksanen, Head of the Department of Geoinformatics and Cartography.
With Geoportti, geospatial datasets are extensively available in science and research
The research infrastructures selected in the roadmap for 2025–2028 provide key technologies, geospatial datasets, as well as high-performance computing and cloud services to address significant environmental and health issues, and to support geosciences, marine ecosystems, synthetic biology, and bioproduction research. Geoportti’s development areas will include the georeferencing and publication of the National Archives of Finland’s historical maps, making the Natural Resources Institute Finland’s long forest time series easier to find and better available, taking care of the geospatial data capabilities of CSC’s new Roihu and LUMI2 high-performance computers, developing the geospatial data capabilities of the national Fairdata services, and automating the georeferencing of the NLS’s historical aerial photos.
In addition to the NLS, members of the Geoportti consortium are the Natural Resources Institute Finland, the Finnish Environment Institute, the National Archives of Finland, Aalto University, the University of Helsinki, the University of Turku, the University of Eastern Finland, and the CSC – IT Center for Science.
Further information
Juha Oksanen, Professor, Head of Department, +358 29 531 4861, firstname.lastname@nls.fi