Shawn Otto, CEO and cofounder of ScienceDebate.org recently pointed out: “We are poised over the next 40 years to create as much new knowledge as we have in the past 400 years. At the same time, our major unresolved policy problems, from climate change to science education to biodiversity loss, increasingly revolve around science….” Indeed, Jack Dangermond has pointed out that science underpins just about everything that we do at Esri, and is certainly at the core of many of the GIS problems, workflows, results, and apps of our users. GIS is transforming both our understanding of the world, as well as our behavior, through scientific information delivered as maps. A recent Esri Insider blog post summarizes Esri’s perspective on science, how Esri is working toward contributing as a MEMBER of the scientific community (not just a software vendor), and the many projects and initiatives in place to support the science community. In the post, science community refers to researchers and practitioners within universities, research institutes, government agencies, NGOs, and more, and thus points the reader to several of the ArcGIS Resource Center Communities, as well as to the new ArcGIS for Professionals site.
See the post at esriurl.com/scicomm. A list at the bottom informs as to the many ways for users to keep abreast of science developments at Esri.