Today's information technology eradicates the concept of distant locations. Nowadays a location is not distant as long as there is an Internet connection. Research on the security problems of Malaysia, for example, can be conducted from an office on Greenland if the information is available on-line. Regional networks of cooperation are therefore an essential part of our daily work. Regional networks, in their cooperative approach, do away with work duplication and coordinate resources in the most efficient way.
Regional networks are a major element of transparency in the study of regional problems.
We need a concept and a policy to establish our own structure before economic or other structures are taking our place. Many institutes are only now starting with their electronic publishing business. Commercialization of our information at this point, by the way, is most questionable because users from countries in the developing world or the new evolving democracies in Central and Eastern Europe, for example, who are in the greatest need of this information, would be excluded sisnce they cannot afford it. The rapidly growing Internet hosts more and more servers everyday and is becoming an impenetrable jungle. If we don't succeed in sticking out as the highest trees in this jungle we are going to be lost and invisible.