The meeting focused on important elements related to the establishment of the International Network of Soil Information Institutions (INSII), the GSP data policy and Arrangement.  Representatives from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belorussia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Moscow Forest University and Moscow Timiryazev Agricultural Academy (RSAU – MTAA) met during the workshop to discuss practical ways of developing soil information institutions as part of the INSII network.

Mr. Pavel Krasilnikov, representative of the Eurasian Soil Partnership Secretariat, opened the meeting and welcomed the participants, followed by a presentation on theoretical and practical training information by the Information Technology (IT) coordinator of the MSU Soil Data Center, Mr. Oleg Golozubov. Participants shared their experiences in the creation of soil databases and use of GIS and expressed specific conditions and expected results in relation to the creation of Soil Data Centers in their countries.

In order to facilitate the discussions and exercises, participants were given a starter package of system and applied software (soil data center in the form of Virtual Machine with client-server architecture) that provides basic infrastructure and functionality for the full life cycle of soil data. Participants implemented all data management steps using prepared sample data sets, as well as their own data where available. The sessions were held with support from the IT facilities of the Soil Science Department using data servers from the Soil-Geographic Data Base of Russia. Examples of practical software applications on agricultural technologies, land resources assessment and the Global Soil Organic Carbon map project implementation were presented. In order to determine the way forward, the organization of interaction for the creation and further technical support of the soil data centers was discussed individually with each participant.