General presentation of the study programme
The vision of Digital Earth was proposed by Al
Gore in 1998 as a multi-dimensional and multi-
resolution model of the planet to contextualize
the huge amount of spatial information relating
to the physical and socio-economic environment.
Every day humans generate quintillions (1018) of
bytes of data: 80% of them are spatial data. Such
School of Civil, Environmental and a massive flow generates new challenges since
Land Management Engineering stored data have to be analyzed and processed.
Therefore a new scientific and technical figure
School of Industrial and Information who combines expertizes of Computer Science,
Engineering Environmental Engineering and Geomatics is
needed.
LandSat multispectral image (Como lake)
Geoinformatics Engineers are high level experts
Geoinformatics in technologies for measuring, georeferencing, and multidisciplinary experts highly requested by
Engineering managing, analyzing, visualizing and publishing
spatial and time varying information, with a
both private and public sectors.
Master of Science particular concern to environmental data. Study organization
Urban and agricultural land planning, monitoring The Master of Science in Geoinformatics
and management, infrastructure design, Engineering is a two years international master
transport and traffic monitoring and course taught in English for Italian and foreign
management, environmental modeling, students.
geography and Earth sciences are the main Students with academic background in
application fields of Geoinformatics Engineering. environmental science will find an introductory
All those fields attain to the general context of course in computer science, while those with a
sustainable management of environment and computer oriented first level degree will follow a
land. basic course on geomatics and environmental
issues.
Geoinformatics Engineers will thus be involved in The mandatory courses cover topics such as
the design, implementation and operation of Geospatial data analysis, Geographical
geodata projects to support the new paradigms Information Systems (GIS), Positioning and
of Participative Digital Earth, Smart City and location based services, Pollution measurement
Smart Society as well as a variety of decisions at and management on the Geomatics /
regional, country and global level. Environmental side as well as Databases,
Software engineering, Computer Infrastructures,
Politecnico di Milano is starting in 2016 / 2017 Formal languages in the Computer Science area.
the first Italian Master of Science in Eligible courses will allow students to deepen
Geoinformatics Engineering: this MSc exploits our their expertise either in computer programming
long lasting experience in both Environmental, and computer systems design, dealing for
Geomatics and Computer science to form new instance with multidimensional and mobile
Geoinformatics Engineers find a placement in all with a different background (for example other
the branches that use and develop environmental Engineering programmes, Geography, Land
and spatial information: GIS companies, planning, Natural Sciences, and Physics) will be
Computer Science industry, national and local taken into consideration individually.
Agencies for the production of data relevant to
cadaster, cartography and land management. Tuition fees
Furthermore, nowadays spatial information is
everywhere: therefore, Geoinformatics Engineers For EU students fees are based on students’
find job also in big companies or agencies that family income and on the presented study plan.
need and use spatial information. They range from about €900 to €3,500 per year.
For Non-EU students fees are equal to about
In summary, Geoinformatics engineers find €3,500 per year.
employment in:
• Small and medium-sized companies Contacts
working in the field of GIS development and
management, of Computer Science applied to Webpage
4D environmental analysis (Mediterranean sea) territorial data-base management, to logistics www.geoinformatics.polimi.it
and land planning
applications; or in geomatics and environmental • Public and private, national and local Contact
issues dealing for instance with Earth companies working on territorial mapping, on Prof. Ludovico Biagi, ludovico.biagi@polimi.it
observation, geophysical data processing or cadaster, on spatial data infrastructure, on
hydrogeological risk. territorial data collection, on environmental data
A research on an original scientific topic closes management and analysis
the path of the student and constitutes his MSc • Big industry (e.g., for telecommunications)
thesis. and big companies which needs experts for GPS III satellite (United States Government)
spatial information
Careers options and profiles • Companies developing systems for the
analysis and management of networks of
Geoinformatics Engineers play an active role in environmental sensors
the evolution of spatial information. Their • Companies developing hardware and
expertizes can be summarized as follows. software for environmental applications
1. Management of spatial information in the • Advanced research institutes or
processes of acquisition and georeferencing, companies working on the Internet of Places, Big
analysis, classification and processing, GEOdata, Sensor Enablement, Urban Data City
archiving, representation, publication and Analytics, Earth Observations.
distribution.
2. Design and implementation of infrastructures These are clearly critical sectors for the scientific,
to acquire, model and analyze spatial data technological and social development, both at the
and phenomena, manage, publish and share national and global scale.
the spatial information.
3. Advanced technologies for Big Geodata and Admission Requirements
internet of Places.
4. Participation to the evolution process of Students with a Bachelor degree in Computer
Geoinformatics Engineering. Science or Environmental / Geodetic / Geomatics
Engineering are eligible for application. Students
