Educated in geography and town planning at Liverpool University, Professor Ian Masser has been involved with the INSPIRE Directive since its beginning. He was founder chairman of the Association of Geographic Information Laboratories in Europe (AGILE) and president of both the European Umbrella Organisation for Geographic Information (EUROGI) and the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Association (GSDI). His publications include 18 books and more than 300 published papers and conference presentations. He authored the first and second editions of Building European Spatial Data Infrastructures (Esri Press 2007, 2010).