on October 1, 2026 14:00 - 18:00 at BOKU, Ilse-Wallentin-Haus (ILWA), seminar room 29

Join us for this special data science event which emerged from a collaboration with the cross-institutional BOKU project “Our Mission: Healthy Soils and Waters” as well as Core Facilities Bioinformatics and the Research Data Management unit of Research Support, Innovation & Technology Transfer (FIS-RDM).

How to sign up?

Are you working at BOKU and want to participate? Please register by Monday 29 September with your name and your BOKU standard e-mail address by filling in this form.

Context

Much of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems are analyzed and visualized using geographic information systems (GIS) and remote sensing methods (RS). Often, these data are created and managed within projects and stay invisible for colleagues of other institutes, departments and the wider public. It takes a lot of effort to unlock these valuable knowledge hubs, unless research data management infrastructures and practices are in place to ease collaboration for data sharing in and outside of the University.

A pre-workshop has been held in April 2026 to get a generic overview of needs from different key GIS users at BOKU.

Aim

In this symposium we gather to share and discuss existing solutions for geo-spatial research data management at BOKU University and best practices from other organizations.

A dedicated workshop will be held in autumn to discuss open challenges that have been identified earlier. The ultimate goal of the initiative is to identify and suggest pathways for advancing geo-spatial research data management at BOKU.

Program

14:00 - Opening 

  • Welcome - Theresa Scharl (Data Science Initiative)
  • Fritz Leisch Award - Leon Hohenstein: "Hydrological drought forecasting and event-based model evaluation"
  • Introduction by the co-organizers:  
    • Anna Hikl & Gabriela Miechtner (Research Support, Innovation & Technology Transfer - FIS- Research Data Management (RDM))
    • Luca Zoccarato (Core Facility Bioinformatics)
    • Matthias Schlögl (Institute of Mountain Risk Engineering & GeoSphere Austria)
    • Christine Ornethsmüller (Institute of Aquatic Ecosystem Management & Institute of Soil Science) 

14:40 - Session 1: Geospatial Insights on Mission Water and Soil

  • Carina Seliger (Institute of Hydrobiology and Aquatic Ecosystem Management)
    Balancing use and protection of riverine ecosystems: one map to show it all? And then what? The afterlife and exchange of (intermediate) GIS outputs.
  • Luca Bernardini (Soil Research)
    From map to mission: Insights on soil health unlocked using GIS

15:15 - Break

15:25 - Session 2: Training, Tools, and Standards for FAIR Metadata in GIS

  • Thomas Schauppenlehner (Institute of Landscape Development, Recreation and Conservation Planning)
    Learning from previous experiences, failures and barriers to metadata
  • Matthias Schlögl (Institute of Mountain Risk Engineering & GeoSphere Austria)    
    Guiding principles and implementation strategies for reproducible geoscientific data analysis
  • Francesco Vuolo (Insitute of Geomatics)    
    Fair or not fair? Teaching on how to make geospatial data truly FAIR
  • Max Mehofer (Experimental Farm Groß-Enzersdorf)    
    Tool for plot recognition and clipping of drone data including metadata   
  • Discussion of potential for the BOKU GIS community    

16:10 - Coffee break and networking

16:40 - Session 3: Storage, Computing, and FAIR Geospatial Data by Design

  • Andrei Hornoiu (BOKU-IT)    
    Overview of existing solutions by BOKU-IT
  • Karl Bittner, Thomas Schauppenlehner (Landscape Innovation Lab)    
    Data management at LILA: Our philosophy of processes & simplicity
  • Tim Ritter (Institute for Forest Growth)    
    Small institute, big data – storage, HPC and FAIR data sharing with limited resources. Not best practice. Just what works for us.
  • Podium discussion & summary of current strengths of existing solutions, current barriers and potential for innovation

17:45 - Wrap up

18:00 - After-work Drinks and Networking
 

We look forward to a lively and rich exchange! Please sign up here.

The organizers

Christine Ornetsmüller - Institute of Aquatic Ecosystem Management & Institute of Soil Science

Theresa Scharl - Data Science @ BOKU

Mattias Schlögl - Institute of Mountain Risk Engineering & GeoSphere Austria

Anna Hikl & Gabriela Miechtner - Research Support, Innovation & Technology Transfer - FIS-RDM Research Data Management

Luca Zoccarato - Core Facilities Bioinformatics