Governance of national spatial data infrastructures in Europe

The effective development and implementation of spatial data infrastructures (SDIs) requires governance in order to avoid gaps, duplications, contradictions and missed opportunities in the implementation of different SDI components. Therefore, appropriate governance instruments should be established to coordinate the activities and contributions of different stakeholders. This article reviews the governance of national SDIs in Europe before, during and after the adoption of the European INSPIRE Directive, which aimed to establish an infrastructure for spatial information in the European community building on Member States national SDIs. The analysis is based on a governance instruments approach as introduced by public administration researchers to analyse coordination and governance in the public sector (as SDIs are still mainly governed by public authorities). Evidence was found for the adoption and use of each of the six sets of governance instruments in the governance of national SDIs in Europe: collective decisionmaking structures, strategic management, allocation of tasks and responsibilities, creation of markets, inter-organizational culture and knowledge management, and regulation and formalization of the infrastructure. This study also demonstrates how an instruments-based approach can be a useful tool for analysing governance in the context of SDIs and can contribute to a structured way of understanding the mechanics of SDI governance