Data space for smart communities (deployment)

Outcomes and deliverables

• An innovative and federated smart communities’ dataspace, including a large number of EU communities, supported by middleware service solutions.
• 10 to 12 cross-sector data pilots covering the whole EU by making use of common data sets. These will validate and contribute to the refinement of the blueprint, as well as the refinement of its long-term (economic) sustainability plan.

Activities in this topic will pilot and apply the principles of the data space for smart communities defined in the blueprint, on a large scale and with good geographical coverage, to build EU capacity for connecting data from all relevant domains, following their specific legislation. They will also contribute to the fine-tuning and improving the blueprint via a continuous feedback loop to the project. This Data Space will be controlled by public data holders, using open standard based tools and supported by the common middleware platform. It should also create synergies with the project.

The action will fund a consortium of relevant supply and demand-side stakeholders to foster innovation among a large number of EU cities and communities, without prejudice to sector legislation. The pilots will comply with the smart communities’ data space blueprint principles and when appropriate use existing standards and follow sectorial legislation. Pilots should cooperate in their impact assessment and generate a common understanding of progress towards the Green transition. In addition, the pilots should ensure compatibility with the principles of the New European Bauhaus and liaise with the project implementing Digital Solutions in support of the New European Bauhaus when relevant.

The action will then support, through cascading grants to third party consortia, pilots, using data available from the data space for smart communities, which should create added value by combining data from at least two of the areas specified below (but can also include other related domains):

• predictive traffic management/sustainable mobility planning, exploiting synergies with the data available on the mobility data space and with the data available on transport National Access Points and making use of the Sustainable Urban Mobility Indicators;
• data-services related to extreme weather events to facilitate climate change adaptation, risk prevention and disaster resilience;
• management of energy flows in a city/community specific context and in conjunction with other sectors;
• targeting zero pollution (e.g. air, water, soil pollution or waste).

In order to increase the impact and exploit synergies with the Testing and Experimentation Facilities (TEFs), these pilots would be required to minimise investment in infrastructure by executing their activities as much as possible on the available TEFs infrastructure and make any newly created AI service available via trusted application catalogues and marketplace(s). The action should also address rules for ethical AI-enabled solutions at the local level, create AI algorithm registries and define sets of rules that the services should comply with.

The action should also establish links to those Horizon Europe missions that work with communities and cities as key implementing partners (e.g. Mission on Climate Neutral and Smart Cities and Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change), which would provide significant opportunities to test, experiment and up-scale the input to and use of the data space with local partners.

The awarded consortium will work in partnership with the Data Spaces Support Centre in order to ensure alignment with Smart Middleware Platform and the rest of the ecosystem of data spaces:

• The data space reference architecture, building blocks and common toolboxes to be used;
• The common standards, including semantic standards and interoperability protocols, both domain-specific and crosscutting;
• The data governance models, business models and strategies for running data spaces.