Open framework for boosting EU High Value Datasets from Public Sector - BeOpen

In the last decade, open data production related to Public Sector is quickly increased due to different factors, in particular: EU Open Data Directive fostered the openness of specific typology of datasets from the Public Sector (i.e. HVDs); the improvement of the smart city paradigms (e.g. IoT deployments, digital twins) has dramatically improved the production of city-related data accessible by citizens; private companies are more and more contributing to public sector/utilities data availability used by citizens in their everyday life. Anyway, actual data use by third-party services still remains a challenge; a lot of data produced by public authorities, even “officially open”, is still not discoverable or is accessible only by humans, in a heterogeneous format not machine-readable. Moreover, there is no quality control of the data that prevents its use in value-added services, particularly those AI enhanced. In this context, BeOpen aims at providing a holistic framework to support open data and metadata life cycle management pipelines aimed at accessing, curating and publishing HVDs, based on the FAIR principles, to be made available for future Data Spaces supporting sustainable city domain. The framework will include open source tools, replicable pipeline and ontologies, and best practices to perform data collection, curation, semantic annotation, data and metadata harmonization, improve quality and publish in machine-readable format (in bulk or via APIs) HVDs, particularly related to: statistics, mobility, environmental, earth observation and geo-spatial. Also, legal interoperability is considered. The framework will be deployed and evaluated within several pilots from 6 different countries (Germany, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Portugal, and Spain). For potential future replications, lessons learned and good practices will be shared thanks to relevant networks of cities: Open and Agile Smart Cities, FIWARE city community and Living-in.eu community.