Geographic Information Science (GIScience) as an interdisciplinary field seeks to understand the nature of geographic phenomena and of geographic information. This doctoral college (DK for the German abbreviation used by the Austrian Science fund) advances formalized doctoral education and research training in GIScience at the University of Salzburg by integrating PhD students with focused research clusters. The DK seeks to conceptualize spatial principles and to explore scientific, educational, and policy-related uses of geographic information in order to analyze the complex relationships between individuals and society. It provides a framework for explicitly spatial scientific studies of physical and social phenomena. Three interconnected, interdisciplinary, research clusters have been defined. Representations and Data Models is focused on research into the conceptual modelling of space, spatial features and phenomena, and provides a spatial view of various categories of physical and abstract information objects in order to reveal the potential power of the ’spatial perspective’. Time and Process research will leverage the increasing availability of real-time sensor data, the importance of process-oriented modelling, and will address the need for temporal modelling beyond simple discrete time slices. Spatialization, Media and Society considers user perspectives and utilizes geospatial communication as a hypotheses generator for geospatial research: cognitive processes lead to mental maps which are highly relevant for actions, which in turn modify physical and societal spaces.
Concepts of spatial thinking and spatial theory are the lynchpin of this innovative cross-cutting field of research. The research clusters are logically linked, provide structure and direction for the research topics addressed, and define operational working groups for collaboration across PhD topics. Research clusters are critically important building blocks for workflows and information processing chains based on geospatially referenced information. Salzburg is an established hotspot for GIScience research and a well-known trademark in research and education, and combines University (Dept. of Geography and Geology) with non-university research (collaborating with the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Salzburg Research and research studio iSPACE). The Centre for Geoinformatics Salzburg (Z_GIS) is a flagship institution dedicated to research and postgraduate education. Since 1994, more than 750 students have graduated from the successful MSc program UNIGIS GIScience, the basis of a strong alumni culture.
