Welcome to the International Cartographic Association
Welcome to the website of the International Cartographic AssociationGet to know the new ICA Executive Committee for the term 2023-2027
Welcome to the website of the International Cartographic Association
Get to know the new ICA Executive Committee for the term 2023-2027

President’s Blog: Introducing Regional Cartographic Conferences (RCC)

The ICA Executive Committee at its latest meeting in Budapest, Hungary

The ICA Executive Committee at its latest meeting in Budapest, Hungary

Twice a year ICA’s Executive Committee meets to discuss current affairs and strategic issues. Last February we were hosted by the Secretary-General’s university in Budapest.

Current affairs are related to the day-to-day running of ICA. These can include membership, the activities of the commissions and working groups, our website, relations with sister organization, our financial situation, our next ICC, prepare the (Extraordinary) General Assembly, etc.

The strategic issues we discussed are related to more long term issues. These are managed by the vice-presidents and include our organization (is our structure future proof?), our publication policy (can we improve/upgrade/unify the publication created during conferences and commission and working groups activities?), conference policy (how do we organize our meetings?), capacity building (how do we involve industry?), membership (do we need individual membership?), research (how to update and further develop of our research agenda?), our specific relation to other organizations (what can we do for the UN-GGIM?).

In future blogs we will report in more detail about these strategic issues. However, as a result of our deliberation on our conference policy we have decided to start a series of Regional Cartographic Conferences (RCC). The first call for these conferences can be found here.

Our aim is that RCCs will complement ICCs by providing a regional forum for presentation and exchange of new ideas and approaches to cartography and geographic information science through a mixture of keynote, plenary, technical and poster sessions, as well as workshops and map exhibitions.

– Menno-Jan Kraak
President of the International Cartographic Association

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