National Engineering Research Center of Geographic Information System (hereinafter referred to as NERCGIS) is a public welfare academic research institution engaged in the research and development of geographic information system technologies. It serves as an important GIS base of the key technology research and development, technological achievement transformation, product application promotion and industrial demonstration. NERCGIS was approved to be established by the Ministry of Science and Technology in April 2013. In August 2017, it was checked and accepted, also highly evaluated by the specialists. The current director of the technical committee is Academician Zhou Chenghu of the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS. The director of the NERCGIS is the “Chutian Scholar” Professor Xie Zhong.
NERCGIS is committed to building a domestic international advanced GIS technology innovation platform, researching and developing self-controllable GIS supporting software, so as to establish the national base of GIS technology innovation, open service and industrialization, finally promote the rapid development China's geographic information industry.
Major tasks of NERCGIS includes:
1. GIS architecture, spatio-temporal data management, analysis and simulation are the key common technologies. It focus on the research and develop of self-controllable GIS supporting software to achieve industrialization and provide technical support for the construction of national spacial infrastructure framework and major geographic information services.
2. GIS engineering packaged technology and its supporting environment construction has been paid attention to, including standard research, interface and integration technology research, testing and verification environment construction, open service platform construction, etc.
3. Considering national vital demands, constructing and developing major GIS application and demonstration projects will support the industrial information construction.
Focusing on GIS scientific research, development and transformation, NERCGIS has trained a strong team of 353 fixed personnel, including 86 key technical researchers, 260 product development and application promotion personnel, and 7 management personnel. There are 69 of them with senior titles and 87 PhDs, including the Hubei Provincial Natural Science Foundation Innovation Group, Changjiang Scholar Distinguished Professor, Chutian Scholar, Young Overseas High-Level Talents Introduction Plan of the Central Organization Department, Outstanding Mid-Aged Experts and New Century Excellent Talents from the Ministry of Education. The team is the pioneer in GIS research, development and application in China. It has been ranked among the best in the field of GIS basic research and engineering applications, especially in the field of pan-spatial integrated 3D GIS research.
With years of research, NERCGIS has developed a series of self-controllable domestic GIS software with international competitiveness from it founded: from "China's first practically applied color map editing and publishing system MapCAD ", to "China's total intellectual property geographic information system MapGIS", then to the newly upgraded pan-spatial intelligent GIS platform MapGIS 10.3 published in 2018. NERCGIS has achieved historical leaps in GIS technology innovation, and has won 3 second prizes and 1 third prize for National Scientific and Technological Progress Award, and 6 first prizes for Provincial and Ministerial Scientific and Technological Progress Award. The series of MapGIS software has applied to land resources, real estates, agriculture, forestry, smart cities, communications, water, disasters, geology, mineral resources, public safety, meteorology and other industries. It serves dozens of user units, covers national strategic areas, and promotes the information construction in the fields of resource development, environmental protection and disaster prevention, with excellent economic and social effect.
