GISRUK 2012 at Lancaster University

Over 160 delegates from 14 countries including the USA, China, Japan and New Zealand attended the 20th annual GIS Research UK (GISRUK) conference held at Lancaster University between 11th and 13th April 2012.

Keynote presentations were given by Pete Atkinson (University of Southampton, UK) on space-time modelling of environmental data and Tyler Mitchell (Action, USA) on open source geospatial software. Delegates were also privileged to hear Mike Goodchild (University of Santa Barbara) deliver a humorous but thought-provoking retrospective on ‘GISRUK at 20’ at the conference dinner in Lancaster House Hotel.

A total of 54 papers were presented in parallel sessions in established themes (e.g., urban GIS, landscape visualisation) and emerging themes (e.g., mining social media, qualitative GIS) with over 30 of these being given by young researchers. Selected papers from these sessions will appear in a special issue of Transactions in GIS to be published in 2013.

The conference ended with a special session to mark the work of Stan Openshaw, a pioneer in geocomputation. The session was chaired by David Rhind, former Director General of the Ordnance Survey, and included contributions from leading figures in the field of GIS including Paul Longley, Mike Batty and Steve Carver.

The 21st GISRUK conference will be held at Liverpool University from 3rd to 5th April 2013.

Click here to see photos of the event.

Duncan Whyatt, LEC, May 2012

Conference Themes

GISRUK 2012 will host session from across the range of GIS research including:

  • Environmental Geoinformatics
  • Open GIS
  • Urban GIS
  • Mining Social Media
  • Qualitative GIS
  • Spatial Ecology
  • Spatial Statistics
  • Social and Historic
  • Landscape Visibility and Visualisation
  • Geospatial Distribution and Forecasting
  • Location-Based Services
  • Remote Sensing
  • Terrestrial LiDAR

The GISRUK Conference Series

Established in 1993, the GISRUK conference series is the UK's national GIS research conference and is primarily aimed at the academic community. Each annual conference attracts delegates from all parts of the world from disciplines including geography, computer science, planning, archaeology, geology, geomatics and engineering. The GISRUK conferences aim to act as a focus for GIS research in the UK and provide a mechanism for the announcement and publication of GIS research. They also provide a forum for the discussion of research ideas, promote collaboration amongst researchers from diverse disciplines and offer postgraduate students the opportunity to showcase their work in an international context. So if you supervise research by PhD students or researchers please persuade them to contribute; if you are a postgraduate in a field relating to GIS you are most welcome to present at GISRUK 2012.