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Interoperability has become an issue in many areas of information technology in the last decade. Computers are used everywhere and there is an increasing need to share various types of resources such as data and services. This is especially true in the context of spatial information. Spatial data have been collected, digitized and stored in many different and differing repositories. Computer software has been developed to manage, analyse and visualize spatial information. Producing such data and software has become an important business opportunity. In everyday spatial information handling in many organisations and offices, however, interoperability is far from being a matter of fact. Incompatibilities in data formats, software products, spatial conceptions, quality standards, and models of the world continue to create a-synchronicity among constituent parts of operating spatial systems. This reality prompted a NCGIA research initiative launched by the 1st International Conference on Interoperating Geographic Information Systems, Interop'97, at the University of California, Santa Barbara last year. It is an effort being continued every other year, this time in a European setting.