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Abstract
From our current vantage point, Michael Goodchild's (Citation1992) game-changing ‘Geographical Information Science’ paper roughly bisects the history of our field from its beginnings in the1960s to the present. This makes it an appropriate landmark around which to organize some reflections on the evolution of geographic information science, and more particularly on Goodchild's role in the developments that have defined it these past 20 years. The focus here is on intellectual leadership rather than on any direct scholarly contributions, though scholarship provides the backbone of the narrative. The clearly spelled out research agenda that lies at the core of the 1992 paper and a handful of subsequent essays greatly facilitate that task. This paper explores different facets of Goodchild's leadership in sections titled ‘Naming’, ‘Adapting’, ‘Accepting’, ‘Persevering’, ‘Educating’, and finally, ‘Leading’, and provides evidence that, like any other science, geographic information science is a social as well as an intellectual enterprise. An aspect of the social function of intellectual leadership is that Goodchild's continuing role as agenda-setter for the diverse field of geographic information science goes well beyond generating disciples and followers; it also stimulates dialectic responses from researchers coming from quite different perspectives, thus contributing to the broadening and deepening of the field.