INDUSTRY NEWS

Australia has a new institution representing professionals in the spatial sciences and providing for their professional development the Spatial Sciences lnstitute (SSI). The establishment of the new body was announced in Canberra today and is the outcome of two years of discussion between the five major professional associations that previously covered the industry. The members of the Institution of Surveyors, Australia (ISA), the Institution of Engineering and Mining Surveyors, Australia (IEMSA), the Mapping Sciences Institute, Australia (MSIA), the Australasian Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (AURISA) and the Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Association of Australasia (RSPAA) voted overwhelmingly to combine those institutions into one body. Interim Chairman o f the new Institute, Mr Graham Baker, said the existing institutions reflected the structure of the industry 20 years ago when the roles of surveyors, cartographers and photogrammetrists were quite distinct. But changing technology had blurred the boundaries between the professions. Young graduates frequently declined to join any of the institutions because none of them adequately addressed the field of activities in which they worked. "We believe that the SSI will be better structured to provide for the cross-disciplinary professional development needs of its members," said Mr Baker.