Work Plan 2019-2022

Original work plan in .pdf-format

Terms of Reference

• Professional practice, legal aspects and organisational structures;
• Codes of ethics and applications;
• Changes to society and ways of working and the corresponding impacts on professional practice;
• Community perceptions and understanding about the surveying profession, in particular on gender issues;

Mission Statement

The mission of Commission 1 is to:

• Establish a set of ethics principals that fits the surveying profession
• build the capacity of professionals to adapt to changing circumstances. Changes are affecting the operation of surveying practices, their management and their professional structures under the challenges of widening professional activities and a changing world;
• create a community of practice to share knowledge about professional standards and practice challenges and responses by surveying professions;
• build links to regional and world structures for surveying professionals that focus on issues around professional standards and practice;
• support professional surveyors by providing tools and approaches to dealing with common practice issues;
• develop individuals as professional surveyors and provide opportunities for them to continue to develop as part of the surveying community.

General

Commission 1 will continue the work carried forward from the last term on international boundaries, implement the International Ethics Standards in the international context and to set up Women in Surveying Network.

The Commission will liaise with the FIG Standards Network, the Young Surveyors Network and other Commissions as required in order to continue the work of those groups.

Working Groups

Working Group 1.1 - International Ethics Standards

Background

This Working Group was formed in 2015, subsequent updates of the progress of the work had been reported at the FIG Working Weeks / Congress since 2016. A publication of International Ethics Standards (IES) by International Ethics Standards Coalition (IESC), which was established in the United Nations in 2014, was published in Dec 2016. More than 120 professional institutes, including FIG, have joined the IESC as members.

Policy issues

•  To study ethics within the surveying profession and prepare proposals how to respond to the competition to market the profession as ethical for current and future generations;
• Surveying professionals practice in a variety of work environments increasingly internationally and are required to respond to constant changes ethically in how they deliver services. This creates challenges to them in how they practice and challenges on how to adapt to change; and
• Identifying and sharing new ethical ways of working from around the world will provide practical examples of ways others have successfully adapted and will build a set of case studies of change.

Chair:

Mr. Timothy Burch, United States
NSPS
tim.burch [at] nsps.us.com

Working Group 1.2 - Women in Surveying

Background

During the period from 2015-2018, the WG asked the question: Are women still underrepresented in the surveying industry? The results of our research have indicated that this is still the case.

The outcome from the study showed that there has been little change in the participation of women in the surveying profession and that there is some resistance to changing the ratio of male to female representation in certain areas of the profession, for example, in the makeup of panels of keynote speakers at conferences and seminars.

The Working Group confirmed in the 2018 Working Week in Istanbul that there is a need and/or demand for a Women in Surveying Network and the Working Group on Women in Surveying will look into how to implement this.

Policy Issues

Therefore we have concluded that a policy is required to ensure that there is equal representation of females and males in all FIG arenas. The WG proposal is to present a policy statement to the FIG council to ensure a series of recommendations that came out of the previous WG are applied in FIG.

Chair

Ms. Robyn McCutcheon, Australia
Data Manager, SIBA
robyn.mccutcheon [at] gmail.com

Working Group 1.3 - International Boundary Settlement and Demarcation

Background

The Working Group will continue the work of Working Group 1.4 initiated and led by Haim Srebo, in the 2011-14 Work Plan, which led to the FIG Publication 59: “International Boundary Making”, and will continue the work of Working Group 1.3 led by Don Grant in the 2015-18 Work Plan to publish a supplementary to FIG Publication 59 dealing with international boundaries on unstable ground.

Policy issues

• To deal with theoretical, methodological, legal aspects and analysis of practical cases in international and national boundaries;
• To investigate and report on the long-term definition, delineation, demarcation, documentation, maintenance, recovery and stability of international land and maritime boundaries;
• To liaise with FIG Commissions 4 and 7 on matters of common interest

Chair

Dr. Haim Srebro, Israel
Director Mapping & Boundaries, Israel-Jordan Joint Boundary Commission
haim.srebro [at] gmail.com