The value of the European data economy has been assessed to be €739 billion, and highly likely to grow significantly in the coming years. Especially when data is shared openly with the public, more value is expected to be created. However, current developments in the field of open data are characterised as highly fragmented. The TU Delft project ‘Towards a sustainable Open Data ECOsystem’ (ODECO) has been granted as one of the 147 projects funding by the H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie action Innovative Training Networks.
Different and isolated domains
Open data systems are often developed in different domains in isolation of each other and with little involvement of potential users, resulting in approaches that significantly limit open data reusability for users. This reduces innovation and the ability to create new valued added goods and services. Isolated domains also undermine interoperability for users acting as a barrier to data sharing. Efforts are also uncoordinated in open data training and research, where multidisciplinary approaches are scant. Bringing together different sectors (research, private sector, government, non-profit) and different perspectives (public administration, law, business, engineering), ODECO aims to address the central challenge of realising a user driven, circular and inclusive open data ecosystem.
Granted for H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie action Innovative Training Networks
The H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie action Innovative Training Networks funds the ODECO project with a total of almost 4 million Euro. The ODECO project is a 4-year collaborative research and training network comprising nine leading international universities, research centres and sixteen partners from industry and the public sector. Together they bring multidisciplinary expertise from multiple domains and actor perspectives to train the next generation of creative and innovative early-stage open data researchers, to unlock their creative and innovative potential to address current and future challenges in the creation of user driven, circular and inclusive open data ecosystems.
H2020 Marie Curie Innovative Training Networks
The H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions (MSCA) aim to support the career development and training of researchers – with a focus on innovation skills – in all scientific disciplines through international and intersectoral mobility. A specific objective of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Networks (ITN) is to train a new generation of creative, entrepreneurial and innovative early stage researchers able to face current and future challenges and to convert knowledge and ideas into products and services for economic and social benefit.
More information
ODECO is a collaboration of TU Delft (Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Faculty of Industrial Design and Engineering, and Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management), KU Leuven (Belgium), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (France), University of Zaragoza (Spain), University of the Aegean (Greece), Aalborg University (Denmark), University of Camerino (Italy) and Huffington Post (Greece).
Researcher Bastiaan van Loenen (A+BE, Urbanism, Urban Data Science) coordinates the ODECO project. For more information contact Bastiaan van Loenen.
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