Geoportti

Open Geospatial Information Infrastructure for Research

Geoportti – Open Geospatial Information Infrastructure for Research is a unique virtual research infrastructure (RI) enabling easy access to geospatial and geocomputing solutions for various disciplines by offering services to manage, process and analyse geospatial data. Geoportti RI brings together massive geospatial datasets, high-performance geocomputing and virtualization environments, and aids researchers struggling with poor data usability and scarce computing resources. Geoportti RI supports the location innovation system in societal and business challenges that require spatial data solutions, and feedback from customer projects has shows the RI’s importance in increasing quality, renewal and competitiveness of research, and fostering national and international scientific collaboration.

Geoportti RI is in the operational phase and consists of seven categories of core services:

1. Geodata and metadata services
2. Research data and source code storing and sharing services
3. Emerging technology laboratories and tools services
4. High- performance geoprocessing and geoanalytics services
5. Virtualization services
6. Skills development and innovation services
7. Community services.

Most of the services are free and open for all scientific use in Finland. The main entrance to all services is the Geoportti Hub, where details and terms of use of all services are available. Geoportti RI gathers all Finnish key academic and research institutions in the geospatial data science landscape, including CSC – IT Center for Science Ltd, to develop, construct and use the RI. In 2022–2024, Geoportti RI will progress to the expansion phase with an emphasis on research competence, innovation, and excellence development, alongside creating and making a significant upgrade of a number of services fostering digitalization and the green transition.

CSC’s role relates mainly to following tasks:

• Streamlining researcher’s spatial data sharing in Fairdata services and Paituli
• New geocomputing tools (LUMI)
• Significant improvement of usability and ease of access of Geoportti geocomputing environment in HPC Puhti
• Designing the e-learning service environment
• Production and piloting of e-learning materials and online courses
• Designing, piloting and securing an innovation-driven cooperation model for Geospatial Challenge Camps
• Geoportti Support Services

This project has received funding from the Research Council of Finland​​​​​​​ under funding decision No 345580.