REPORT ON CAMBRIDGE CONFERENCE 16-20 JULY 2007 AT ST JOHN'S COLLEGE

Abstract

The Cambridge Conference originated as the Empire Survey Officers’ Conference, first held in St John’s College, Cambridge in 1928, thereafter repeated quadrennially from 1931. It mutated to the Cambridge Conference in 1995, when heads of national mapping and cadastral agencies from throughout the world (not just the Commonwealth) were invited. A resolution from the 1928 conference – that a learned journal be set up – led to the creation of Survey Review in 1931, and the journal has been published quarterly since that time. The Conference has several key differences from the multitude of other conferences in the annual calendar. Firstly, attendance is by invitation – each head of national mapping and cadastral agency is able to bring one other senior manager of the organisation, and other leading figures in the community are invited. Secondly, the four-yearly nature of the gathering makes it a ‘special event’ in everyone’s diary, as does the smaller size of the event – approximately 220 people from 70 countries this year. Thirdly, holding it in a Cambridge college – with most delegates staying on site – gives it a more reflective setting than most conferences. For all those reasons, debate and networking are a high priority of the gathering – assisted by keeping the plenary session speakers to about half of the time allotted to the session, with the remainder allowed for open debate. This year, plenary sessions filled the mornings, with the afternoons used for five parallel workshops, allowing further opportunity for debate on subjects ranging from ‘the business of SDI’ to ‘disaster mapping’.