Author: Juliette Davret

From 21 to 23 May, the annual French conference SAGEO (Spatial Analysis and Geomatics) took place in the historic city of Avignon, France. Juliette Davret, the French touch of our team, attended to present our research.

Day 1 – Supporting Early-Career Researchers 

The conference began with a workshop aimed at early-career researchers, focusing on the transition from academia to the public or private sector. It was a valuable and honest discussion, offering practical advice and personal experiences to help guide young researchers in shaping their future paths.

To wrap up the day, attendees enjoyed a guided tour of Avignon’s historic center, exploring the medieval architecture, narrow streets, and cultural landmarks like the Papal Palace. It was a great way to discover the city.

Day 2 – Parallel sessions and a taste of local life

The second day of SAGEO featured two sets of parallel sessions. In the morning, participants chose between Image Processing and Spatial Metrics, Graphs, Relation and Scales. Both offering in-depth presentations and new insights.

In the afternoon, attention shifted to sessions on Artificial Intelligence in Geomatics and Mapping, Spatialisation, and Geovisualisation, showcasing creative approaches to geographic data and emerging technologies.

That evening everyone gathered for a dinner at a “Guinguette” – a traditional, laid-back riverside restaurant typical of the region. It was the perfect setting to relax and connect with fellow researchers over good food and conversation.

Day 3 – Presenting on Digital Data

On the final day, Juliette presented our team’s recent work in the Digital Data session. This panel featured seven presentations exploring a wide range of topics: from digital globes and emotional cartography to coastal risk analysis and educational mapping tools. The room was full, and the discussions were lively and thoughtful.

Juliette presented the following paper:

Kitchin R., Davret J., Kayanan C. M. & Mutter S. (2025). Data mobilities: rethinking the movement and circulation of digital data. Mobilities, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450101.2025.2481309

At the same time, another session focused on Mobilities was held. In the afternoon the conference concluded with two final parallel sessions on Climate and Biodiversity, bringing ecological themes to the forefront.

The full program of the conference is available here: SAGEO 2025 Program

A successful event

SAGEO 2025 stood out for its high-quality presentations, interdisciplinary themes, and engaged audience. Juliette was grateful for the opportunity to take part and to share our team’s research in such a dynamic environment.

Her participation was supported by Maynooth University Social Sciences Institute (MUSSI) through their Small Grants Scheme, which helped make the trip to Avignon possible.

This edition of SAGEO was not just about research, it was also about the community, collaboration, and celebrating the role of data and spatial analysis in tackling complex challenges.

 

Since January, our project has entered a new phase, launching a fresh series of case studies. While most of these are based in Ireland, we’ve broadened our scope to examine data practices at the European level. Given that Ireland must comply with EU data collection standards, we wanted to explore how European harmonisation shapes data production in Ireland, how data flows across borders, and the political and critical issues surrounding data practices. 

To investigate these questions, Juliette Davret travelled to Luxembourg in late April to meet with representatives from Eurostat and ESPON. At Eurostat, she met with the team responsible for short-term business statistics, and at ESPON, she connected with the team working on the Housing4All project. 

Before these meetings, she also spoke with representatives from Ireland’s Central Statistics Office (CSO). These initial conversations helped her understand how Irish statisticians prepare and submit data to Eurostat and highlighted potential areas of friction or challenge in meeting EU requirements. These insights proved valuable in framing the discussions in Luxembourg.

Meeting with Eurostat representatives shed light on the complexities of data processing and standardisation across EU member states. They discussed the challenges of aligning timelines, addressing national data specificities, and creating entirely new datasets. These obstacles reflect broader tensions between Eurostat’s centralised data strategy and the diverse realities of data production in different countries, in line with what we have observed within Ireland’s own data ecosystem. 

At ESPON, the focus shifted to the topic of housing affordability and the difficulties of developing coherent data narratives at the European scale. Juliette met with both a project manager and a data manager, which offered complementary perspectives. A key challenge discussed was the lack of harmonised datasets, particularly concerning issues like housing vacancies and income. These data gaps make comparisons more difficult and challenge the development of evidence-based policies. The urgency of improving housing data was a recurring theme, especially given the strong role that data-driven narratives play in planning and housing policy across Europe.

This field visit deepened our understanding of the broader European data landscape and how national and EU-level priorities overlap. It also emphasised the importance – and the difficulty – of building comprehensive, harmonised datasets to support effective and equitable policymaking.

On November 8, 2023, to mark the occasion of the 74th World Town Planning Day, the Irish Planning Institute (IPI) hosted the themed webinar ‘Learn Globally, Apply Locally’. The theme focused on the value of learning about planning systems and cultures around the world, fostering innovative, sustainable and equitable solutions to global challenges.

The Data Stories team used this opportunity to present work carried out during the summer of 2023 on the Irish planning data ecosystem. We were joined by Claragh Mulhern, from the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, with a presentation titled ‘Planning Action for a Just Transition to a Net Zero Climate Resilient World’ and Sinéad O’Donoghue, from the Land Development Agency, with a presentation titled ‘From Depots to Duplexes – Reimagining Public Land’. Over 100 people registered for the event and many represented international backgrounds. 

The work presented by the Data Stories team identified and mapped the numerous data systems and flows across different planning stages and clients. These mappings were derived from analysis of documentation and system demos received from, and interviews conducted with, a sample of Local Authority planners and other stakeholders involved in producing and managing planning data in Ireland.  

The presentation sought to communicate something of the complexity of the data ecosystem, as well as the extent of variation and drift between different systems, properties which make it difficult to produce reliable and comparable official statistics. The presentation concluded with a set of high-level observations and recommendations, with a hope that the improved understanding of the ecosystem provided by this project can help in working towards a greater degree of standardisation across systems, and in turn to more accurate, detailed information for informing transparent and coherent planning decisions.
 

You can find further information, including a recording of the webinar as well as our presentation slides, on the Irish Planning Institute website. 

We would like to thank and acknowledge the various consultees who took the time to meet with us and supply data as requested. 

Last week the Data Stories team attended the 54th annual Conference of Irish Geographers (CIG) in Wexford. Members of the team presented in three sessions related to planning and housing over the course of the conference.

Dr. Samuel Mutter and Dr. Carla Maria Kayanan kicked us off with  a paper that used concepts from critical data studies to query the resilience of Dublin’s housing data system, warning of the pitfalls of data being deployed without theory. This paper was part of the session “Questioning the resilience of neoliberal urbanism: Empirical memories, plans, and glitchy urban resilience”.

Next up, Prof. Rob Kitchin presented a paper on charting the Irish housing data ecosystem and building an open knowledge hub in the session “Social movement and research: Housing”. This paper highlighted the value of looking at the data ecosystem to understand and address the housing crisis in Ireland.

Finally, Creative Technologist Oliver Dawkins presented a paper on social housing data and contested data narratives in the Dublin housing data system for the session “Housing for whom? The future of social housing”. Oliver’s presentation developed the theme of ‘care through data’ focusing on the growing use of data stories in the communication of housing and planning issues.

Team members Lorena Borges Dias, Dr. Jennie Day and Dr. Juliette Davret also contributed work and ideas for the papers and cheered on the presenters throughout the conference. This was the first time the entire team travelled together to present their work and meet with other geographers from across Ireland and beyond. We would like to thank our session convenors and the wider Geographical Society of Ireland for the success of the CIG conference.