Introduction to the UCGIS Research Agenda

During 1987 the National Science Foundation, recognizing the rapid growth in geographic information systems (GIS), sent out a request for proposals for the creation of a national GIS center. This single action would result in major relocations of GIS personnel, as specialists were heavily recruited at key institutions, the creation of a national research agenda, and numerous inter- and intra-campus professional relationships established across the country. The core activity of the newly established National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA), awarded to a consortium of the University of California at Santa Barbara, the State University of New York at Buffalo, and The University of Maine, was the creation of approximately 20 research initiatives and the NCGIA-sponsored “specialist meetings”, which for a period of over a decade brought together researchers from around the world. As summarized in a 1995 Geo Info Systems paper:.