Opportunities and Challenges for the Next Generation of Cartographers: An Inclusive Workshop Study with Early-Career Cartography Professionals

Abstract

Here, we introduce Next Generation Cartographers, a Working Group of the International Cartographic Association (ICA) Students and early-career professionals today learn cartographic design alongside a diverse array of conceptual and technical competencies and, therefore, are working at the forefront of the discipline. However, they typically are not among the leading voices within the cartography community simply due to experience. To this end, we organized a Next Generation Cartographers (NGC) workshop at EuroCarto 2022 to identify opportunities and challenges for the next generation of cartographers. During our discussions, advocacy, peer support, mentorship, and outreach emerged as key needs of next generation cartographers and, ultimately, the need for NGC to have a voice in ICA planning. Inclusion became a core value of NGC to promote safety and diversity across the cartography community. NGC opened to global membership in August 2023 at the International Cartographic Conference in Cape Town, South Africa, and became a Working Group in autumn 2023.