amenity=research_institute

[danstowell]

The amenity=research_institute tag is fairly new (122 uses at time of writing EDIT: More than 2000 uses worldwide now), but seems uncontroversial and has been used all over the world (overpass link).

Today I "fixed" a research institute that had been tagged as amenity=university (changeset). Of course this kinda removed its status in the osm-carto rendering.

Research institutes are fairly similar to universities, so may I suggest that they could be rendered in the same way? This would be useful to incentivise mappers to tag them less ambiguously. I know the tag is not yet massive, but I'd like to see what you think. Cheers.

[AgusQui]

It already has more than 2000 uses https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/tags/amenity=research_institute#overview, How many do you need to decide to render?

[velikodsky]

It should be rendered.

[vachan-maker]

Hi Research Institute is still not rendered Example: https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/1033208665

[matkoniecz]

Research Institute is still not rendered

Yes, which is already indicated by fact that this issue is open.

[vachan-maker]

haha😁 I thought this issue is declined because of the decline tag on this issue

[matkoniecz]

Oh, good point! It was not removed on reopening it

[bgo-eiu]

I support this!

[BryannaM]

Use continues to grow it is well above 3,000 and it drives me nuts facilities like NBAF don't render. NBAF is a very significant facility. There might not be a huge number in total of these types of facilities because the ones there are are significant.

[nc011]

We are now at >3,600 uses of this tag and it has an iD editor preset. The wiki page documents this tag as de facto (though that was a fairly recent edit). It seems to me this is distinct enough from office=research (e.g., you wouldn't tag NASA GSFC as an office).

I support rendering. Suggest rendering in the same fashion as a university.

[maro-21]

4599 uses (2024-05-05)

This is one of the few commonly used tags for which I miss the rendering. Since such institutes often cover large areas, people purposely use other tags just to make them appear on the map. Frequently used substitutes are amenity=university or landuse=commercial. Many research instututes in my city don't have this tag, precisely for this reason - because they have amenity=university. Is there anything preventing you from adding this rendering?

[imagico]

Is there anything preventing you from adding this rendering?

Views of OSM-Carto maintainers have been explained in:

https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues/2077#issuecomment-587386908 https://github.com/gravitystorm/openstreetmap-carto/issues/2077#issuecomment-770464009

If anything of substance has changed in mapping practice since then please present that here.

The key research=* has been introduced and is used 773 times now but it only provides thematic differentiation, meaning it provides information on the topic of research, not the type of research activity practiced (i.e. it does not allow distinguishing between farmland used for agricultural research, a research lab doing analytics and a bunch of offices).

office=research is used 12.5k times - no clear semantic delineation seems to exist in either practical use or documentation between that and amenity=research_institute.

[scaidermern]

office=research is used 12.5k times - no clear semantic delineation seems to exist in either practical use or documentation between that and amenity=research_institute.

Usually research institutes - at least the ones that I know - consist of many different offices and often contain related facilities (laboratories, sometimes smaller lecture halls, common areas like dining rooms used by different research groups together etc). There is no other known tag to me that would fit here.

[novolife]

I'm shocked that this repo guys can refuse to such an important feature because of some insignificant "problems", and even consider that they are protecting justice and we're the evil guy who want to destroy the "beautiful" carto. Honestly I won't give a shit on this style if it's not the default rendering of osm.

[dreua]

@novolife I've been thinking about a fork recently, there is a handful of issues very similar to this where I feel very similar to what you said. We should probably find a different space to discuss this further and not hijack this issue here.

[TonyJC99]

I tagged multiple campuses as being government-owned research institutes and was shocked to see that they've yet to be given the yellow "education" render on the OSM map. This is now an 8 year old issue apparently! Yes, these campuses exist and hold multiple buildings in them with differing purposes. No, they're not universities nor owned by them. In the case of my use for them, these are owned by government ministries, and I'm sure that there are a variety of them that can vary from the public and private sector.

I do believe that this tag, as a landuse and amenity, is justified in being rendered, not only because of its nature, but also because its use is still increasing year by year. It now has 4.5k uses, and still shows robust growth, despite the fact that some people apparently wish to undervalue its use despite the fact that it's not buildings we're talking about here, but whole plots of land!

[dch0ph]

office=research is used 12.5k times - no clear semantic delineation seems to exist in either practical use or documentation between that and amenity=research_institute.

Usually research institutes - at least the ones that I know - consist of many different offices and often contain related facilities (laboratories, sometimes smaller lecture halls, common areas like dining rooms used by different research groups together etc). There is no other known tag to me that would fit here.

I agree with the argument here. There are lot of research institutes of all shapes and sizes, but the merit of using the same area (but not building) rendering as education-focussed organisations is that it focusses on the larger better-defined institutes.

I think the office=research tag is much more confused. It seems to be used for individual laboratories or departments within something bigger:

[Here the Kroto Research Institute has been tagged as office=university, probably to get a name rendered. ]

Hence it is not surprising that there are lots of office=research, but frankly these are much less interesting / important than research institutes.

I have reviewed the comments made by Carto maintainers above, but I don't find the arguments convincing against the specific proposal of rendering in the same way as educational institution, not least because it is irrelevant whether a particular entity does research and/or teaching.

The objection that farmland can be part of a research institute is also unconvincing. If you have an enclosed land parcel that is part of a "campus", then it is part of the institute. If it is some random field operated by a research institute, then it is not.