In Europe a major recent development has been the entering in force of the INSPIRE Directive in May 2007, establishing an infrastructure for spatial information in Europe to support Community environmental policies, and policies or activities which may have an impact on the environment. This meeting will present the INSPIRE European Directive (http://inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu) and the opportunities raised by it for the geosciences Community. In fact, the next INSPIRE data specification phase will cover data and products tightly connected to the geosciences research, such as: Meteorology, Oceanography, Biodiversity, Earth Observation, and Natural Risks. The aim of this townhall meeting is to mobilise the geosciences community, and specifically the Earth scientists, to contribute to this specification activity either as experts or stakeholders. The INSPIRE directive invites interested Communities to be involved in the specification process forming and registering as a Spatial Data Interest Community (SDIC).