In the last years, the need for rational and functional management of geo-information within the European Community, as well as the need for a EU dimension to education and training, have been more than once stressed by the European policies.

On the one hand, the main EU directive concerning spatial information is the INSPIRE Directive. The purpose of this directive is to lay down general rules aimed at the establishment of the Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community, for the purposes of the Community environmental policies and policies or activities which may have an impact on the environment. INSPIRE measures will ensure that the infrastructures for spatial information created by the Member States are compatible and usable within the whole Community and in transboundary contexts. Shifting to more sectoral issues, Member States are asked for example by the Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC and the Habitat Directive 92/43/EEC to provide the Commission with information on the state of the waters and of the sites of Community importance in a GIS-compatible format and submit maps in GIS format.

As stated in several studies, to cope with the new European challenges there is a strong need to build the technological, political and human capacity at all levels necessary for the effective and widespread use of geo-information (e.g. see the European GI strategy of the GINIE project). This is particularly important in the implementation of INSPIRE that implies high profile skills on metadata, interoperability of spatial datasets and services, network services, geo-data sharing 

Hence the need for vocational training in the field of geographic information and management of environmental spatial data. Different training material is available for technicians and officers to improve their knowledge in the field, both “traditional” and on-line material. Nonetheless different approaches and focuses are found, issues can overlap, courses can suffer from scarce visibility and can be difficult to be retrieved.

Community policies stress also the importance for a training action at European level able to assure the fulfilment of the European initiatives and to face trans-boundary issues. Therefore, a European-wide network could cooperate for the collection and production of training material according to the needs required by the EU directives. The network should include partners with both GIS-technical and training skill. 

An assessment survey was undertaken in 2005/2006 to identify the training needs of European GI users (GI-INDEED project - Geo-Information in the Implementation of Net-based Distance Education for Environmental Decision-making). The results showed the administrative level and role of the possible users of the project tools, indicated their GIS skills, the importance and characteristics of GIS use in their daily work and finally provided input for the course content. The used methods and the results can be taken into consideration as the starting point for the analysis of the training offer and demand.