Discontinuation of the INSPIRE Reference Validator

After almost ten years since its introduction, the INSPIRE Reference Validator was discontinued on April 1^st, 2026. The Validator has been a crucial tool for INSPIRE implementers to test the compliance of their metadata, spatial datasets, and services with the requirements of the INSPIRE Technical Guidelines, thereby enabling them to make progress in enhancing EU geospatial interoperability. Since 2019, the Validator has also been used to measure some of the INSPIRE Monitoring indicators and has served as a key reference tool for institutional actors at both the EU and national levels to assess the degree of INSPIRE implementation and monitor its evolution over time.

Over the years, the Validator has progressively incorporated tests to validate resources against all the INSPIRE Technical Guidelines, including Data Specifications for all themes under Annex I, II, and III, as well as several infrastructural and technical enhancements, such as cloud deployment, a redesigned, user-friendly UI, the inclusion of a captcha and an API Gateway. In parallel, an active community of users has formed around the Validator, which has not only led to the refinement of tests based on feedback received via the helpdesk but also to the widespread reuse of the tool at the national level.

Following a comprehensive transition of the INSPIRE infrastructure planned for 2026 (see this presentation given to the INSPIRE MIG-T), the central instance of the Validator was discontinued. The source code and deployment instructions will remain available to assist INSPIRE data providers and implementers in deploying it locally and continuing to improve the conformity of their resources. The underlying open source tool, ETF, will also remain available, including under the umbrella of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) as an OSGeo Community Project; similarly, the Abstract Test Suites (ATS), Executable Test Suites (ETS) and the Validator User Interface will remain available for the benefit of the community, supporting the further evolution of INSPIRE.