ENC Conferences and RIN

Posted By John Pottle, 01 November 2023

A report on the 2023 European Navigation Conference and plans for ENC2024

By John Pottle, RIN Director

First published in Navigation News Sept/Oct 2023 edition

In this article I shall aim to provide a flavour of the very successful 2023 European Navigation Conference (ENC), share how the ENC is evolving (spoiler alert = quite a lot!) and, with that, how the RIN sees the ENC series going forwards as part of delivering its own objectives and impact.

The 2023 European Navigation Conference attracted over 300 participants and was, literally, a sell-out success. Why was this? Part of the success was the location – ENC2023 was held in the European Space Agency’s ESTEC facility (European Space Research and Technology Centre). Many positioning and timing-related businesses in Europe will have active links to ESA and ESTEC, be they as customer, supplier or collaborator.

Part of the success was accessibility, in that ESTEC is easy to access and it’s convenient (though generally blustery!) to stay in the one of the adjacent coastal towns. Thirdly, ENC2023 was run by a professional conference organiser (PCO) which helped to shape a positive delegate experience overall.

The ENC series is owned by the European Group of Institutes of Navigation (EUGIN). The RIN has always been active and a supporter of EUGIN.

Professor Terry Moore is the current chair, with Bart Banning, President of the Netherlands Institute of Navigation (NIN) serving as vice-chair. The NIN led the organisation of ENC2023, whose overall theme was resilient navigation (see www.enc2023.eu).