WIKIAlps: the entire Alps at the click of a mouse

Researchers at EURAC describe www.wikialps.eu, a Wikipedia-style portal intended to facilitate access to the results of research projects in the Alpine Space, as “a search engine for finding shared solutions to common problems”.

The portal is now online, providing information and practical tools for administrators, public officials, researchers and the interested public involved in spatial development. Just as with Wikipedia, pages can be created and modified by individual users.

The project, co-ordinated by researchers from the EURAC Institutes for Alpine Environment and Regional Development & Location Management, has highly concrete objectives. The portal allows users to search for project results and other information about spatial development in various ways. It is possible to access all projects relating to a specific topic, consult them in detail and see how the results have been implemented in various regions of the Alpine Space.

The aim is to offer practical help to those working in the area of sustainable development of Alpine territories by providing structured access to methods, guidelines, data, tools and other outputs of Alpine Space projects. This means for example that, if a municipality in South Tyrol is facing problems related to mobility or the protection of natural resources, it can check on WIKIAlps if other Alpine countries have found workable solutions.

Very often, in fact, neighbouring regions experience similar problems but approach them differently, giving rise to conflict situations and hampering the efficient use of available resources. The idea behind the portal is to offer clear, organised access to project outputs related to sustainable development in the Alps. Thus helping administrators, politicians or researchers with an interest in this subject area to avoid getting lost in the vast amount of information available. On the other hand, WIKIAlps offers research projects the opportunity to “spread the word” about their valuable results and thus share their experiences across the Alpine Space.

The wiki was presented to public administrators, local development experts and researchers at two working tables held in Innsbruck and Courmayeur. The participants, from different Alpine countries, made valuable contributions on how to make the wiki both more intuitive and also richer in terms of useful information in order to best meet the expectations of the various interest groups.

The WIKIAlps project is co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund via the Alpine Space programme, the EU’s territorial co-operation programme (www.alpine-space.eu).

http://www.wikialps.eu – wikialps Portal