Preface: Proceedings Of The Foss4g 2023 Academic Track – Prizren, Future Nostalgia

In this volume of The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, we are honoured to present the proceedings of the 2023 Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial international conference (FOSS4G 2023, https://2023.foss4g.org), which was jointly organised by the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) and the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS). Since the first edition in Thailand in 2004, every year the FOSS4G conference has been held in a different location across the world. 2023 is the year of Kosovo, a first-time host of the conference. FOSS4G is a well-established conference that is annually hosted by OSGeo and focused on building awareness and collaborations in the use and development of open source geospatial software, cementing existing bonds and creating new ones to address the ever-increasing challenges our society has to face. After the Covid-19 crisis, only in 2022 the FOSS4G conference came back as a face-to-face event happening in Florence, Italy, with a massive participation from a community that was so much willing to meet again after some years. As an established tradition within the international FOSS4G conferences, the Academic Track has transformed the annual conference into a well-known appointment also for academics, researchers, scientists and community members that leverage open source geospatial technologies in their day-to-day scientific activities. The research topics presented at FOSS4G events have become, year after year, more varied and interesting, showing that FOSS4G is trans-disciplinary by nature, fosters collaborations and stimulates innovation. This preface presents and introduces the proceedings.