The University of Gothenburg is researching digital data and openness in a large international project called Data for All.
Researchers from the Department of Applied IT at the University of Gothenburg are taking part in a project titled Data for all, which aims to work with municipalities and research partners to understand and solve data-related issues experienced by organizations.
Creates opportunities for municipalities and students
The University of Gothenburg project team will lead an academic work package, which will inform the project about current state-of-the-art developments in this area. More specifically, the researchers will focus on questions related to the openness of digital data in this area (open data).
Municipalities hold vast amounts of digital data collected as a part of their normal operations that could be made open to boost service development. For example, open data based services could include openly providing schedules or location data for public transportation to improve route planning. It could also increase the transparency of municipal public spending. The research project will look into providing the required infrastructure for digital service development based on open data sets.
In addition, the University of Gothenburg project team will participate in hands-on service development with Kungsbacka Kommun. This will, apart from research, provide students with opportunities to engage with municipal data-intensive digital service development.
Municipalities need hands-on support
Data-driven services are an important way to move toward the European Union's goal of data sovereignty. However, European municipalities and regions are currently lagging behind national agencies and the private sector in their data intensiveness. The cities need continuous, practical hands-on support, knowledge sharing for their initiatives, and successful use cases that need to be analyzed and promoted.
The Data for All project aims to empower local municipalities and regions to better manage their data and develop their digital services. Nineteen partners from seven countries will come together in the project to jointly develop and test services in mobility, energy, sustainability, tourism, transparency, and economic development.
Data for All is a 39-month Interreg North Sea research project coordinated by Intercommunale Leiedal from Belgium.