Proposal:Research institution

The original voting for amenity=research_institution, closed with 11:7 against on 5 June 2009.
On 22 February 2010 the proposal box was confusingly changed to research_institution=yes, but has now been changed back. .

Usage development

Please note the original voting was about amenity=research_institution, closing 11:7 against on 5 June 2009. In 2010 the tag was confusingly changed to research_institution=yes. Also see the later proposal for amenity=research_institute.

Please see also a list of candidate institutes in the #Progress section below.

Proposal

This feature should be a node/area tag for research institutions.

Rationale

The main task of research institutions is research and often they are not part of universities. Therefore they shouldn't use the same icon. For example in Germany there are several groups of institutions funded by the government. Only those institutions that are NOT part of universities should be tagged.

Examples

Research institutions in Germany:

• Fraunhofer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraunhofer_Society)
  • 80 research institutions
• Helmholtz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft)
  • 15 Helmholtz Centres
• Max-Planck (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Planck_Society)
  • 76 research institutions
• Leibniz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leibniz-Gemeinschaft)
  • 86 research institutions
• "Bundesforschungsanstalten" and "Bundesforschungsinstitute" (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundesforschungsanstalt)
  • 50 research institutions

Tagging

Nodes, single buildings or areas surrounding one or more buildings can be tagged.

<tag k="research_institution" v="yes"/>
<tag k='building' v='yes'/>
<tag k="name" v="Max-Planck-Institut für Bildungsforschung"/>
<tag k='name:en' v='Max Planck Institute for Human Development'/>
<tag k="member_of" v="Max-Planck-Gesellschaft"/> (shows the affiliation, operator may also be suitable)

Rendering

I would suggest a magnifier, microscope, flask or light bulb.

e.g. or or

Comments

If you understand "amenity" the way Fluffhouse pointed to, it isn't an amenity. But I don't like "building=research_institution" because there may be areas not only consisting of buildings for research institutions. "landuse=research_institution" may be an alternative but I think it doesn't completely suit the other features in this category. --Gkai 21:53, 14 November 2008 (UTC) Alternatives could be "landuse=research" or "landuse=R&D" as they are more general. --Gkai 17:28, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

If building=research_institute isn't possible, what about building=* with a service=research? --Skippern 17:58, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Nothing is impossible. As far as I understand it service=* has up to now only been used for roads. I've seen universities that were surrounded with amenity=university and within these areas there were several building=*. I somehow like this concept. --Gkai 15:51, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

building=* should describe the physical characteristics of a building, not what's in them - that's what amenity=*, shop=*, etc. are for. For example, an amenity=place_of_worship is not necessarily a building=church, or vice versa. Chriscf 13:40, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

That makes sense. Does that mean you would only tag the building and not the estate? --Gkai 11:02, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

It would generally mean tagging the estate and not the building. Ideally, we should tag once and only once. Chriscf 12:22, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

There doesn't seem to be a consensus. And as I don't like amenity=* anymore (see Talk:Key:amenity) I'll start tagging those institutions with research_institution=yes in combination with building=yes and area=yes. --Gkai 13:08, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Maybe universities and research institutions might be categorised as academia=*. Wikipedia says: "Academia has come to connote the cultural accumulation of knowledge, its development and transmission across generations and its practitioners and transmitters."--Gkai 11:19, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

It´s a pity that for such wide spread objects no consensus can be found. Nevertheless, I will tag research institutions as amenity=research_institution, research_institution=yes --Fx99 07:27, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

There is now a new tag office=research ( http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/DE:Map_Features#Amt_.2F_B.C3.BCro_.2F_Dienststelle_.2F_Gesch.C3.A4ftsstelle), but so far it is only used 3 times in Germany. --Fx99 21:05, 26 August 2010 (BST)

Today, I see more than 500 office=research in the world. Adopted by me --NicolasDumoulin 12:21, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Voting

Wiki tip: Type {{vote|yes/no}} to approve/oppose this proposal, type 4 tildes like: ~~~~ to sign your user name & date.

• I approve this proposal. nmixter 19:39, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. Sargas 21:04, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. AlexPleiner 14:51, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. An amenity is a public service - as described on the "key" page for "amenity", they are "useful and important facilities for visitors and residents". Universities are (sort of) facilities, places people can go to get higher education. But research institutions are more like office buildings. I agree they should be rendered differently from universities, but I'd prefer these were tagged with "building=research_institution" or "landuse=research_institution". Fluffhouse 23:09, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal, without prejudice, for the poor choice of tags. Chriscf 11:23, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. Nop --Nop 07:04, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. Research is not an amenity. --Skippern 17:59, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. I'd prefer these were tagged with building=research_institute Look http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/Building --Meme 05:36, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. --Mink 18:49, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. Better building=research_institute or similar. --Vincivis 09:19, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. building=research_institute or similar would be better in my opinion. --@themis 00:39, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. Socks 11:58, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. Better building=research_institute or similar. --Lulu-Ann 09:59, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. Better building=research_institute or similar. --go2sh 12:46, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to congratulate those suggesting "building" on their inability to read. Chriscf 16:03, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

• I oppose this proposal. for the same reasons. Basstoelpel 16:54, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. -- --Sandervalya 04:37, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
• I approve this proposal. If a prison is an amenity I see no reasons why anyone can object to research_institution in the same category. Both might be prominent sites in a locality and are rarely visited by tourists, visitors and residents except in particular circumstances. Most such institutions are closely related to universities and colleges, also tagged with amenity, and like it or not they should retain this association. There are also many commercial research organisations, but as these are less receptive to visitors landuse=commercial is still appropriate. I would agree that amenity is hopelessly overloaded, but I think this is a different discussion. I don't think other proposals really work. Many cannot be usefully described with a building tag (for instance Rothampsted in Hertfordshire or the Helmholtz Zentrum outside Munich currently tagged "landuse=commercial" or Oak Ridge in Tennessee. Akademgorodok is another location where this tag might be useful. The building tag might work for certain types of research institutions, e.g., building=laboratory but as has been suggested earlier many are indistinguishable from offices. Suggestions of landuse conflict with the landuse=farm which is natural for agricultural institutes. Finally, although research_institution=* is clean, a proliferation of top-level tags just makes things much harder to find. SK53 13:51, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
• I oppose this proposal. man_made=research_institute or similar would be better in my opinion. --De muur 11:08, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

11/7, no have it, feature rejected by popular vote --Skippern 11:21, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

• I approve this proposal. let's vote by mapping them --Dieterdreist 18:03, 5 April 2012 (BST)

Progress

Potential information sources:

• http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hochschulen_und_Forschungseinrichtungen_in_Berlin
• https://www.forschungsportal.net/forschungseinrichtungen-in-deutschland/

If you want to join me in my efforts, here is a list starting with Berlin.

Feel free to edit the list...