| Title | INSPIRE Registry – Terms of Reference for the Control body and Submitting organisations |
|---|---|
| Creators | Jordi Escriu, Michael Lutz |
| Date of publication | 2016-12-16 |
| Date of last update | 2023-04-27 |
| Subject | Terms of reference (ToR) for the Control body and Submitting organisations for the INSPIRE Registry |
| Status | Version 3.0 - This document is based on version 2.0, updating the Terms of Reference of the Control body and Submitting organisations to the current INSPIRE Maintenance and Implementation context. Particularly, this version (version 3.0) introduces the necessary adaptations to delegate the functions of the Control Body to the INSPIRE Maintenance and Implementation Group (MIG) in order to reactivate the governance of the INSPIRE Registry while assuring a periodic and more agile collaboration in updating its contents. Consequently, the INSPIRE Registry workflow is also updated accordingly. The original version of the document, version 1.0, was endorsed by the INSPIRE Maintenance and Implementation Group (MIG) in its meeting on 30/11-1/12/2016. |
| Publisher | INSPIRE Maintenance and Implementation Group (MIG) |
| Type | Text |
| Description | This document contains the terms of reference (ToR) for both the Control body and Submitting organisations for the INSPIRE Registry. |
| Format | PDF and MD |
| Identifiere | http://inspire.ec.europa.eu/id/document/tor/registry-control-body-and-submittingorganisations/3.0 |
| Language | EN |
The INSPIRE infrastructure involves several items, which require clear descriptions and the possibility to be referenced through unique identifiers. Registers provide a means to assign identifiers to items and their labels, definitions and descriptions (in different languages).
The INSPIRE Registry provides a central access point to several centrally managed INSPIRE registers based on the ISO 19135-1:2015 standard “Geographic information - Procedures for item registration”. This ISO standard defines a management process to handle change proposals to the registry contents (including registers and register items) involving multiple roles that have different responsibilities in the registers’ lifecycle and register items.
During the 34th MIG-T meeting, the following roles were agreed for the INSPIRE Registry:
- Register owner: EU
- Register & Registry manager: JRC
- Submitting organisations: One or two per country (MIG-T or other nominated representative) and INSPIRE Coordination Team (AGRI, EEA, ENV, ESTAT and JRC)
- Control body: Group of nominated register experts, according the terms of reference in force
- Register user: anyone
This document sets the terms of reference for the Control body and Submitting organisations for the INSPIRE Registry.
There shall be one Submitting organisation per country in addition to the INSPIRE Coordination Team. The Submitting organisation representative submits proposals for changes to the Register manager, who will process them and forward them to the Control body for decision before proceeding to the implementation.
The Control body should be a group of technical experts appointed by the Register owner to decide on the acceptability of proposals for changes to a register’s content. To keep the burden for the Control body to a minimum, it is proposed to only consult it on major issues. Minor issues (such as correction of minor bugs) will be addressed in a more direct manner according to the workflow currently in force, and finally implemented by the Register manager.
All changes are publicly documented. If a Submitting organisation or Control body representative objects to a change made by the Register manager, the issue shall be discussed and resolved in the INSPIRE Registry helpdesk GitHub space.
The Control body may also “escalate” issues that may have far-reaching consequences for INSPIRE implementation in the Member States, informing DG ENV about these issues and requesting to address them as part of the short-term agenda.
- The task of the Control body for the INSPIRE Registry, hereinafter referred to as “the control body”, shall be to review and accept or reject proposals for changes to the content of the central INSPIRE registers. In particular, the control body shall
- review proposals submitted to the control body by the register manager and check whether they are consistent with the INSPIRE rules (e.g. the extensibility specified in the related INSPIRE registers).
- decide on the acceptability of the submitted proposals. The decision shall be one of the following:
- accept the proposal without change
- accept the proposal subject to changes negotiated with the Submitting organisation
- reject the proposal
- revisit, on request of a submitting organisation or a control body representatives, minor changes accepted by the register manager without consulting the control body.
- The control body is expected to be active until 2024-12-31 in alignment with the INSPIRE work programme 2021-24. After this time, its operation shall be reviewed by the MIG and its term may be extended.
- The control body role and related activities are commissioned to the INSPIRE Maintenance and Implementation Group (MIG), which may delegate them to its permanent technical sub-group (MIG-T). The MIG shall monitor the progress of the above-mentioned activities during its regular (either physical or virtual) meetings and provide guidance when needed, particularly for issues, that may have far-reaching consequences for INSPIRE implementation in the Member States. The European Commission shall chair these activities.
- Secretarial services shall be provided by the Joint Research Centre (JRC), who may delegate part of these tasks to the contractors operating the INSPIRE Registry.
- The physical and intellectual products generated by the representatives of the control body under these terms of reference will remain the property of the Commission. Any published deliverable or paper will acknowledge the authorship and other contributions of the control body representatives. Such deliverables or papers will be made available in accordance with the European Commission Decision of 12 December 2011 on re-use of Commission documents, without restrictions on access and re-use for commercial and non-commercial purposes.
- The control body will be using the GitHub platform for discussing issues and the INSPIRE Registry for assessing proposals.
- Representatives of the control body shall not be remunerated for the services they render.
- The tasks of the Submitting organisations for the INSPIRE Registry, hereinafter referred to as “submitting organisations", shall be to
- collect, consolidate and submit proposals for changes to the content of the central INSPIRE registers to the Register manager;
- ensure that proposals are well drafted and complete;
- ensure that proposals have been agreed and consolidated at national level (for MS submitting organisations), inside the thematic communities, inside the Commission (for DG ENV and JRC) or inside the EEA/EIONET network (for EEA);
- provide clarifications about proposals to the Register manager or Register owner, if necessary.
- The submitting organisations are expected to be active until 2024-12-31 in alignment with the INSPIRE work programme 2021-24. After this time, its operation shall be reviewed by the MIG and its term may be extended.
- Each country represented in the MIG shall nominate a submitting organisation, typically an organisation representing the country in the MIG / MIG-T or another organisation involved in the coordination of the INSPIRE implementation in that country. In addition, the members of the INSPIRE Coordination Team (Directorates General AGRI, ENV, ESTAT, JRC, and the EEA) shall be submitting organisations.
- MIG representatives shall regularly (e.g. once a year) update the list of representatives for their appointed submitting organization.
- Representatives for the submitting organisation can be proposed by using the dedicated issue template on the related GitHub space. The list of representatives will be maintained on GitHub.
- The submitting organisation representatives will be using the GitHub platform for discussions and the INSPIRE Registry for proposing change proposals. Personal data in these systems will be collected in accordance with the GDPR (GitHub's privacy policy) and Regulation 2018/1725 (INSPIRE's privacy policy).
- Representatives of the submitting organisations shall not be remunerated for the services they render.