GEOFORUM’2005 in Lviv, Ukraine, April 7-9, 2005
The Ukrainian Society of Geodesy and Cartography organized the 10th International Scientific Conference “Modern Progresses of Geodetic Sciences and Industry” also known as GEOFORUM’2005 in Lviv-Yavoriv, Ukraine 7-9 April 2005. The conference was also the celebration of the 60th Anniversary of the Institute of Geodesy of the National University “Lviv Polytechnic” and the 10th Anniversary of the Ukrainian Society of Geodesy and Cartography. Traditionally this international conference is organized in conjunction to the National Day of Geodesy and Geology held on the first Sunday of April each year. The conference was held at the Polygon military camp outside Lviv and it was attended by 170 geodesists and surveyors. FIG was invited to attend the conference for the first time. The purpose of the visit was also to discuss the co-operation between FIG and the Ukrainian Society of Geodesy and Cartography after the society was re-organised some years ago. The society celebrates its 10th anniversary also this year becoming member of FIG in 1994. The conference was organized by the Western Geodetic Society of Ukraine and sponsored by the National University Lviv Polytechnic and State Service of Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre Ukraine. The Lviv Polytechnic was one of the three universities providing education in geodesy in the former USSR (the others being Moscow and Novosibirsk). Even today most of Ukrainian surveyors are educated in Lviv that takes about 100 students for surveying education every year. Some disciplines are also taught in Kiev. In Lviv the education is joint for all students for two years after which they can select between geodesy, photogrammetry and land management. It was positive to see the also geodesy and photogrammetry are doing well in Ukraine and that there are no problems in finding work after graduation (contrary to many western European countries). The total number of surveyors in Ukraine is about 5,000 out of which 2,000 are working in the government and 1,500 have the license to practice private companies. The current problems include challenges to revise the legislation to fit the requirements of the EU when Ukraine is considering to become a member of the European Union. This also means that there is lot of work to do with the cadastre and land ownership. The start of a big World Bank financed surveying/land management project has been delayed from the original schedules. The GEOFORUM’2005 was running for 3 days including plenary sessions and parallel sessions. Most of the papers were about geodesy and photogrammetry and only few about land administration. The quality of technical papers was very high and many of them were of scientific character. International contributions came from 10 countries including Russian Federation, Armenia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Latvia, Poland, Moldova, Germany and Israel. The FIG Director had the opportunity – in addition to the conference – to visit the Institute of Geodesy and have meetings with the leaders of the Ukrainian Society of Geodesy and Cartography, its President Igor Trehovo, Secretary General Stepan Savchuk and the former Director General of the State Service of Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre, Anatoly Bondar, who brought Ukraine to FIG in 1994. In the discussions both support in administrative issues – strengthening the status of surveyors – legislation and joint events in the future were discussed, including the idea of having a conference for the countries in the region that are considering to apply the EU membership.
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