HERODOT Network for Geography: poster competition 2008

The HERODOT Network’s poster competition of 2008 remains a small but instructive episode in the history of European geography education. Run in partnership with EGEA — the European Geography Student Association — it invited students to communicate geographical ideas visually, and it rewarded the winners not only with recognition but with access to a professional conference. For anyone involved in curriculum design, assessment, or student engagement today, the competition is worth revisiting as a case study in how to run a low-cost, high-impact student activity that bridges the classroom and the professional world.

Key Takeaways

• The 2008 HERODOT–EGEA Poster Competition awarded first prize to Justin Stock and Chiron Dijkstra of the University of Utrecht for their poster on extending the old A68 highway.
• The prize included attendance at the ESRI User Conference (Europe and Middle East) in London in October 2008 — a tangible link between student work and professional GIS practice.
• The competition was sponsored by ESRI Europe and ESRI-UK and promoted by EGEA, illustrating a partnership model between a subject association, a student association, and an industry vendor.
• Poster-based assessment rewards visual communication, synthesis, and design skills that conventional essays often miss — but it requires clear, transparent judging criteria to be fair.
• The 2008 results show a spread of commended work across cartography, local geography, and remote-sensing-derived elevation modelling, reflecting the breadth of the discipline.

What the 2008 Competition Was

HERODOT — the Thematic Network for Geography in Higher Education — has long functioned as a hub for European geography departments, teacher trainers, and education researchers. Its activities have spanned curriculum development, the sharing of teaching resources, and the promotion of fieldwork and spatial literacy. The poster competition was one strand of that wider mission: a way of getting students to think about how geography is communicated, not just how it is researched.

The 2008 edition was delivered jointly with EGEA, the European Geography Student Association, which has represented geography students across the continent since the early 1990s and runs its own congresses and exchanges. EGEA’s role was promotional — reaching students directly through its networks — while HERODOT provided the academic framing and the link to sponsors.

The results were as follows:

• Winner: Justin Stock and Chiron Dijkstra (University of Utrecht, Netherlands) — Extending the old A68 highway (PDF, 3.2 Mb)
• Highly Commended: Bart van Impelen — Connecting Alkmaar to Hoorn (PDF, 1.5 Mb)
• Commended: Alena Vondráková — Explosion — extra portion of local Geography
• Commended: Martin Warmer and Pascale Scheijen — Creating an elevation model using aerial photographs

The winner’s prize was attendance at the ESRI User Conference (Europe and Middle East) in London in October 2008. Justin Stock attended, met Frank Holmuler of ESRI Europe, and — as the original report notes — was photographed near the London Eye with delegates from Angola and Italy. The competition’s sponsors were ESRI Europe and ESRI-UK, with EGEA promoting the activity.

Two things stand out about this list. First, the topics are strikingly varied: a transport-infrastructure case, a regional connectivity study, a piece of local geography, and a technical remote-sensing workflow. Second, the geographic spread — Utrecht in the Netherlands and a Czech entrant in Alena Vondráková — reflects HERODOT’s pan-European reach rather than a single national tradition.

Why Poster Competitions Matter in Geography Education

Posters occupy an unusual position in higher education. They are simultaneously a research output, a design artefact, and a performance of synthesis. In geography specifically, they align closely with the discipline’s long tradition of cartographic and visual communication — from Alexander von Humboldt’s cross-sectional diagrams to the thematic atlases that remain a staple of national mapping agencies such as the British Ordnance Survey or Germany’s BKG.

For teaching-focused academics, posters offer several pedagogical advantages over the traditional essay:

• Compression. A poster forces students to decide what is essential. That editorial judgement is itself a higher-order skill.
• Visual literacy. Students must choose appropriate map projections, colour ramps, and figure hierarchies — decisions that carry real cartographic consequences.
• Audience awareness. A poster is read at a distance, in fragments, and out of order. Writing for that reader is a distinct discipline.
• Peer visibility. Unlike a marked essay, a poster can be displayed, discussed, and compared — turning assessment into a shared departmental event.

The trade-offs are equally real. Posters can reward design polish over analytical depth; they are harder to mark consistently than essays; and they can disadvantage students with less prior experience of graphic software. The 2008 competition’s use of tiered awards — Winner, Highly Commended, Commended — is one way of mitigating the all-or-nothing problem, since it recognises a spread of strong work rather than crowning a single entrant.

How the 2008 Entries Reflect the Discipline

Reading the 2008 results as a snapshot of student interests is revealing.

Transport and infrastructure. Both the winning entry (Extending the old A68 highway) and the Highly Commended entry (Connecting Alkmaar to Hoorn) deal with road connections. The A68 is a real trunk road running through the Scottish Borders and northern England, while Alkmaar and Hoorn are historic towns in North Holland. That two of the four recognised entries concern road links suggests that transport geography — and the planning controversies that surround new or upgraded routes — was a live concern for students at the time. It also reflects a broader European reality: infrastructure decisions are among the most visible ways geography touches public life.

Local geography. Alena Vondráková’s Explosion — extra portion of local Geography points to a different tradition: the close study of a specific place, often at a scale small enough to walk. Local geography has deep roots in European pedagogy, from French géographie régionale to the German Heimatkunde tradition, and it remains a powerful way of connecting students to fieldwork.

Technical methods. Martin Warmer and Pascale Scheijen’s Creating an elevation model using aerial photographs sits at the technical end of the spectrum. Generating a digital elevation model (DEM) from aerial imagery involves photogrammetric principles — stereo-pair matching, ground control points, and interpolation — that were, in 2008, moving rapidly from specialist labs into mainstream GIS teaching. The entry is a reminder that geography students have long been expected to be numerically and computationally competent, not merely descriptive.

Together, these four entries map onto four durable pillars of the discipline: human geography and planning, regional and local study, cartographic communication, and geospatial technique.

Running a Poster Competition: Practical Guidance

If you are considering reviving or launching a similar competition in your own department or network, the 2008 model offers a workable template. The key decisions are these:

1. Define the judging criteria before you advertise. Ambiguity here is the most common source of grievance. A defensible rubric might weight:

Criterion	What it rewards	Typical weight
Geographical content	Accuracy, depth, relevance of the subject matter	High
Visual communication	Layout, legibility, use of maps and figures	High
Originality	Novel topic, method, or framing	Medium
Clarity of argument	Does the poster make a claim and support it?	Medium
Technical execution	Correct use of data, projections, or software	Variable

2. Decide the format precisely. A0 is the conventional conference size, but for a student competition A1 or even A2 reduces printing costs and is easier to display. Specify orientation, whether digital submission is acceptable, and the file format and resolution required.

3. Recruit a mixed judging panel. Combining academic staff, a practising professional (a planner, cartographer, or GIS specialist), and a student representative tends to produce more credible outcomes than an all-staff panel. It also mirrors the mixed audience a real poster faces.

4. Attach a prize that opens a door. The 2008 prize — a place at the ESRI User Conference — was clever because it was experiential rather than financial. Conference attendance gives students access to professional networks, exposure to current practice, and a line on a CV. Alternatives include a place at a national geography conference, a short internship, or a subscription to a professional body.

5. Publish the results and the entries. HERODOT made the winning and commended PDFs available, which turned a one-off event into a reusable teaching resource. Archiving entries — with student permission — creates a benchmark for future cohorts.

6. Secure sponsorship early, and be transparent about it. Industry sponsorship (ESRI in this case) funds prizes and printing, but it should be disclosed and should not determine the outcome. A clear separation between sponsor and judging panel protects the competition’s credibility.

The Partnership Model: Associations, Students, and Industry

The 2008 competition is a neat illustration of a three-way partnership that is worth understanding as a model.

• The subject association (HERODOT) supplied academic legitimacy, the network of departments, and continuity across years.
• The student association (EGEA) supplied reach — direct access to motivated students who were already engaged in the discipline beyond their own institutions.
• The industry sponsor (ESRI) supplied resources and, crucially, a professional destination for the prize.

Each party gained something. HERODOT advanced its mission of promoting geography in higher education. EGEA offered its members a concrete opportunity. ESRI connected with the next generation of GIS users. This kind of alignment is not automatic — it requires someone to coordinate, to chase sponsors, and to handle the administrative load — but it is replicable.

For departments, the lesson is that you do not need to build everything yourself. Partnering with a national geographical association, a student society, or a professional body can extend your reach well beyond your own cohort.

From 2008 to Today: What Has Changed

The 2008 competition took place in a recognisably different technological landscape. Posters were designed in desktop publishing and GIS software, printed on large-format plotters, and physically transported to events. The ESRI User Conference was a major in-person gathering.

Several things have shifted since:

• Digital-first posters. Online poster galleries and virtual conferences mean entries can be submitted, judged, and displayed without printing. This lowers cost and widens participation, but it changes how posters are read — often on a laptop screen rather than a wall.
• Open geospatial tools. The dominance of any single commercial GIS vendor has been diluted by open-source alternatives such as QGIS and by open data portals. A competition today might reasonably accept work produced in any of them.
• Data availability. Satellite imagery, open elevation datasets, and national mapping APIs are now far more accessible than in 2008, lowering the barrier to technically ambitious entries.
• Assessment literacy. There is now a much richer literature on authentic assessment and on assessing visual and digital outputs, which can inform a modern rubric.

What has not changed is the underlying value proposition: a well-run poster competition gives students a reason to synthesise, to design, and to present — and gives departments a visible, low-cost way to celebrate good work.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who won the HERODOT–EGEA Poster Competition in 2008?

First prize went to Justin Stock and Chiron Dijkstra from the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, for their poster titled Extending the old A68 highway. Bart van Impelen was Highly Commended, and Alena Vondráková and the team of Martin Warmer and Pascale Scheijen were both Commended.

What was the prize for winning?

The winner attended the ESRI User Conference (Europe and Middle East) in London in October 2008. The prize was therefore experiential — access to a major professional gathering — rather than a cash award, and it included the opportunity to meet industry figures such as Frank Holmuler of ESRI Europe.

Who organised and sponsored the competition?

It was organised by the HERODOT Network, the Thematic Network for Geography in Higher Education, in partnership with EGEA, the European Geography Student Association, which promoted the activity to students. ESRI Europe and ESRI-UK sponsored the competition.

Why use a poster rather than an essay for assessment?

Posters assess skills that essays do not: visual communication, spatial design, and the ability to compress an argument for a browsing audience. They also make student work publicly visible, which can raise motivation. The trade-off is that posters are harder to mark consistently, so a clear rubric is essential.

Can a competition like this still be run today?

Yes, and arguably more easily. Digital submission and online galleries remove printing costs, open-source GIS tools widen access, and open data makes ambitious entries more feasible. The core requirements remain the same: clear criteria, a credible judging panel, a meaningful prize, and a partner or sponsor to extend reach.

What topics did the 2008 entries cover?

The recognised entries spanned transport infrastructure (the A68 highway and the Alkmaar–Hoorn connection), local geography (Alena Vondráková’s entry), and technical geospatial method (creating an elevation model from aerial photographs). This spread reflects the breadth of geography as a discipline, from planning and regional study to cartography and remote sensing.