What is the main role of UPM in the USAGE project?

UPM acts as project coordinator, hence overlooking most of the activities that are done in the project. Besides that, we are working on the homogeneisation of the different data assets that are being used or generated in the context of the pilot use cases, paying special attention to decision-ready information.

How does your expertise contribute to the main goals of the USAGE project?

Our research group at UPM has been actively working on the development of ontologies in many different domains, including those related to urban environments and climate. Hence we are bringing this expertise to the project. Furthermore, we have been collaborating on data governance aspects, with a special focus on open data, with the city of Zaragoza, among others.

What were the primary considerations while designing the USAGE project?

We wanted to have a project that is not only driven by technical decisions on data management or on the application of Artificial Intelligence techniques, but also considers policy making and stakeholder engagement as a key pieces to understand the requirements of urban ecosystems. At the same time, we were aware of the ongoing and upcoming developments on European data spaces and, in general, on the European Strategy for Data, and we wanted to bring them in into the project as well.