OGC Spatial Data Infrastructure Modernization Project 2025-2026

Call for Contributions (CFC)

June 05, 2025

Introduction

The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is working collaboratively with the global geospatial community, the United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM), stakeholders at national and sub-national- levels, national geospatial and statistical organizations, and international partners to develop a strategic plan describing a shared national vision, mission, and guiding principles for national and global Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs). This activity builds on previous initiatives and in support of this enterprise, particularly The Modernizing Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) for Cumulative Effects Concept Development Study supported by the Canada Centre for Mapping and Earth Observation Branch (CCMEO) of Natural Resources Canada in 2020 & 2021. OGC has been commissioned by the U.S. Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) to develop new ideas, concepts, and components to fundamentally drive modernization of the SDI in the United States and inform SDI modernization globally.  The tools and capabilities detailed through the Call for Contributions will be applied to create actionable NSDI implementation plans, including scalable technical architectures, governance frameworks, and operational models tailored to national and sub-national needs.

Geospatial data, technologies, and services are critical components of a nation’s digital infrastructure, enabling the integration of disparate information from many sources to drive economic growth and support decision-making across broad sectors of the economy.

An effective SDI enables citizens, commercial entities, and all levels of government to contribute to and use a network of geospatial resources that seamlessly integrates location‐based information to serve national and wider global interests.

OGC is releasing a Call for Contributions (CFC) for a Spatial Data Infrastructure Modernization Project 2025-2026. Our goal is to advance operational SDI exemplars, as well as proof-of-concept applications, for the SDI of the future.  

We welcome contributions from governmental and non-governmental organizations anywhere in the world, at any scale of implementation. The OGC plans to establish an online resource that provides information about sub-national, national, global and other SDIs and demonstrates proof-of-concept applications.

At the same time, this CFC seeks to identify challenges, barriers, gaps and other concerns with existing SDIs, along with challenges anticipated as SDIs evolve due to advances in technology and governance.

In summary, this call provides a unique opportunity to research architectures, standards, and emerging technologies, and demonstrate what works and can serve as a model, providing a path for the future of SDI.

We ask that our members propose demonstrative examples, either currently in production or in development, that represent the best available SDI capabilities in the world today and that indicate where SDIs are headed. New technologies in data collection and processing, along with the use of machine learning, are creating opportunities for SDIs to provide more holistic and actionable insights. As the approach to SDI shifts toward the need for machine-readable and exchangeable data, with localized and fragmented data collection becoming standard, automation will increase, but data must be authenticated and reliable. The abundance of data from new sensors necessitates clear standards and policies to ensure data integrity. Further, there are now many community efforts that resemble SDIs, numerous state and local SDIs, and industry ambitions to create high-quality, open map data that can be used by developers, businesses, and organizations to build mapping and location-based applications.

Examples of aspects of an SDI of the future that might be highlighted in the new online resource being created by the OGC are included later in this CFC.

Submissions should be centered on one or more of three themes: Governance, Data & Technology, and People.

Submitters should draw from their existing body of work or provide new developments on an in-kind basis. After an open review process, selected submitters will then work with the OGC, the project sponsors, and an advisory committee to establish the online resource.

Background

When the concept of an SDI was popularized in the 1990’s, it was intended to promote the sharing of geospatial data across various levels of the government, private, and non-profit sectors. Since then, there have been significant strides in establishing policy and governance frameworks, global standards, the creation of open data portals, and effective data sharing across government. Critically, we have seen an evolution from top-down, federally led infrastructure to a collaborative model involving partnerships with all levels of government, as well as the non-profit and commercial sectors. 

SDI is changing due to rapid advancements in technology, while the increasing use of ever more up-to-date and spatially accurate data necessitates a shift in how data and services are delivered. It is no longer sufficient simply to publish data in catalogs, and top-down data collection approaches will never be cost-effective or rapid enough to meet the increasing needs of the commercial sector. Geospatial data must seamlessly integrate with other applications, including those powered by artificial intelligence (AI), enabling citizens and government agencies to use the data every day in the tools and applications they are already familiar with, such as digital assistants and smartphones.

An SDI of the future will require a robust ecosystem of trusted and curated geospatial data and services, interconnected through location-based attributes to deliver actionable information. This will include broad participation from international, national, state, and local governments, as well as the private sector, academia, and nonprofit organizations. It will also promote interoperability and access to data across distributed sources, ensuring seamless integration and use of geospatial information regardless of origin or format.

1. Governance. As SDIs evolve and increasingly integrate datasets from disparate sources, questions of data governance and data standards become critical. Examples of governance structures that include all levels of government, as well as the private sector, contribute to the SDI. Examples might include, but are not limited to:
   
   
   • Pragmatic governance as opposed to traditional top-down approaches;
   • Public/private approaches to SDI development and maintenance;
   • Integration of public and private datasets to create new data products;
   • Harmonized data models to facilitate easy conflation of data at various levels from local to national; and
   • National datasets created by aggregation of local data and demonstrating interoperability while allowing local particularities.
     
     CONTRIBUTION GUIDANCE:
     We request policy or strategic documents demonstrating best practice, innovative institutional and financial arrangements leading to successful SDI implementation.
     
     
2. Data and Technology. Technology is rapidly evolving, and examples of how to ensure data is kept up to date, is available, and leverages innovative approaches while adhering to standards are of interest.
   
   
   • Data Access. There are many portals, hubs, catalogs, tools, and websites in today’s geospatial ecosystem. Some examples include international, national, state, and federal agencies, open and commercial solutions.
     
     
   • Technical Innovation
     • Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Driven Action;
     • Self-updating maps;
     • Immersive visualization;
     • Integration of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (for a range of purposes, with discovery via analytics to result in representation as a critical first step);
     • Unique IDs for all real-world assets, etc.; and
     • Intelligent search and discovery.
     • Automated data quality/validation tagging
     • Plug and play interoperability (i.e. auto transform a source dataset into a content standard)
       
       
   • Standards
     • Global interoperability; and
     • Standards and Web-APIs with custom-made products.
       
       CONTRIBUTION GUIDANCE: 
       We request contributions on this theme to demonstrate how existing portals, hubs, catalogs, tools, websites, and activities can be utilized. This may include the demonstration of methods for seamless integration of data services from various levels of administration:
       • How a user searches, queries, visualizes, downloads, contributes to, or accesses the NSDI.;
       • Development of publication engines to help provide data where resources are lacking;
       • Linked open data approaches to connect disparate datasets;
       • Micro-service architecture examples; and
       • Crowd-sourced yet harmonized data collection.
         
         
3. People. As SDIs evolve and increasingly integrate datasets from disparate sources, questions of data governance, data standards, and the methods for educating a broader set of data contributors and users become critical. Examples of successful or planned education may include, but are not limited to:
   • Pragmatic governance as opposed to traditional top-down approaches;
   • Learning modules about SDIs in general; and
   • Public/private approaches to SDI development and maintenance.
     
     CONTRIBUTION GUIDANCE: 
     
     We request examples of educational or training content that demonstrate the value of capacity building that targets future SDI Professionals including examples of certification, credentialing and professional development across sectors and academia.
     
     The examples noted above are merely meant to be representative, and we welcome additional creative submissions.

Technical Requirements

The OGC Collaborative Solutions and Innovation (COSI) Program supports open geospatial web service standards prototyping and testing, specification, interoperability, outreach, and community adoption programs for SDI modernization to support this activity and international stakeholder efforts.

The technical requirements for this call are limited to available demonstrators, success stories, best practices, or descriptions of challenges on the internet. All demonstrators requested in this call must have a public URL and be available without restriction. The new OGC SDI online resource will describe and reference all demonstrators. 

They can be of different types, and we encourage all bidders to contribute ideas. These can be running applications that fit the aspects mentioned in the “Objectives & Scope” section above, and that will shape the SDI of the future. The task of this initiative is to describe these applications in sufficient detail so that a user understands what is happening in the application and what it has to do with the NSDI, and can actively try it out.

Learning modules can also serve as demonstrators. Here too, the aim is to implement the aspects from “Objectives & Scope” and to raise user awareness about the available material.

Master Schedule

Deliverables

This CFC seeks demonstrations of successful SDIs aligned to the three pillars above.  Responders to this call are largely free in the definition of their deliverables, as long as they meet the technical requirements listed.

Guidelines

Submission Guidelines

• “Proposals must be submitted by 11:59 p.m. EDT on July 7, 2025..
• Proposals from non-OGC members will not be considered. For further information on OGC membership, contact us here.   
• Each selected proposing organization will be required to enter into a Participant Agreement (PA) contract with OGC.
• Proposals should be submitted in MS Word or as PDFs and should contain an overview of the planned contribution. No specific format is required. Please do not use more than two pages to describe your demonstrator. Please provide point-of-contact details as part of your proposal.

There is no funding associated with this Call for Contributions; we are soliciting inputs from members to demonstrate existing or planned work that highlights impact of SDIs.

How to Submit

Email your proposal before the submission deadline to nsdi-modernization-initiative@ogc.org.