At the 8th May 2007 joint AGILE-EuroSDR-OGC Workshop on Persistent Geospatial Test-beds it was proposed that a persistent geospatial test-bed be established within the European research community. This testbed acts as a research test-bed for collaborative European research in geospatial interoperability:

• To aid the assessment of current standards for geospatial interoperability in terms of research compatibility, completeness, consistency and ease of use and extensibility,

• To provide an environment for teaching standards and techniques for geospatial interoperability,

• To provide a resource to AGILE/EuroSDR/OGC for the coordination of research requirements as well as definition, testing, validation and development of open standards.

The test-bed will be distributed and comprise data, web services, hardware, software, tools and human resources. It will be based upon both ISO/OGC geospatial standards and appropriate IT standards (e.g. from W3C and OASIS).

The management currently consists of:

• Lars Bernard, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany (for the AGILE Council),
• Chris Higgins, EDINA, University of Edinburgh, U.K. (for OGC),
• Mike Jackson, CGS, University of Nottingham, U.K. (for EuroSDR),
• Johannes Brauner, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany (as PTB Facilitator).

Find more information in the Documents section, especially in this document.