Submitter:

Name:Owen Ambur

Email:Owen.Ambur@verizon.net

Organization:

Name:ENGAGE Project

Acronym:ENGAGE

Stakeholder(s):

• ENGAGE Community: ENGAGE will provide enhanced services in the data e-Infrastructure layer while on the other hand building a community that can exploit the e-Infrastructure services.


• Research Community


• Industry


• Business


• Policy Makers


• Citizens


• Educators


• ENGAGE Project Consortium Partners: The project consortium consists of 9 partners from 6 different countries, bringing together the innovative know how of research institutions and universities and the technological expertise of a well know IT company. Consortium members are also strongly connected with research centres, networks and organisations like ERINA, GIC and NESSI. Participants include Academic and Research Centers as well as ICT industries with a proven track record in public administration research and practice. Apart from the core consortium, several public sector organisations at National and Local level, (e.g. statistical offices, observatories, ministries, prefectures, municipalities) have a longstanding collaboration with ENGAGE partners and have expressed their intention to provide public sector information. Furthermore, an extensive network of research communities representing a wide spectrum of stakeholders has already been identified.


• National Technical University of Athens: (Project Coordinator) -- Decision Support Systems Laboratory (DSSL) -- The National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) is the foremost technical education academic institution in Greece. The Decision Support Systems Laboratory (DSSL) is a multidisciplinary scientific unit within the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering that offers research and development, consulting and training services addressing a wide range of complex research and application problems. Operating for more than 25 years, the lab has acquired international experience in the following domains: Information Technology and Decision Support Systems with a specialisation in e-Business and e-Government, Management Information Systems, Program & Project Management, Monitoring and Evaluation, Training and Human Resource Development, Information Dissemination and Promotion. In the scientific area of Electronic Government and Electronic Business, the lab pursues research and development of novel methods and tools, for boosting productivity of public administrations and businesses through the use of information and communication technologies. In this context, there is a strong and lasting collaboration with public sector organisations and businesses, academic and research institutions, from Europe, Africa, Asia and US. Acquired knowhow is channelled in the creation of vocational and academic training material, and the implementation of high quality academic work in the e-Government and e-Business domain. Through the DSS Laboratory, the NTUA has implemented more than 30 technical assistance / consulting projects, on behalf of the Greek Government (in more than 10 different ministries). Finally, it will assist in researching, gathering and mapping of public data that comes from the public sector organisations collaborating with ENGAGE partners. The NTUA is the coordinator of the ENGAGE project, and as such, it will be leading WP1 (Project Management). It will also lead the main development work of the ENGAGE project, i.e. WP5 (ENGAGE Services Realisation and Deployment).


• Professor John Psarras: National Technical University of Athens


• Delft University of Technology: * Overview of the current use of Open data by research communities. * Engagement and Mobilization of the User Community: Demonstrate the ENGAGE platform during special workshops organized in the countries to engage stakeholders (policy makers, implementers and project managers etc.) involved in public data in the respective countries. * Evaluation of the Services used for data Utilisation from Scientific Communities.


• Dr. Marijn Janssen: Delft University of Technology


• Microsoft Innovation Centre: (Greece) The Microsoft Innovation Center - Greece is a non-for profit civil-law company established by Microsoft Hellas and the New Economy Development Fund (TANEO.gr) in 2009. In an effort to help transform Greece into a frontrunner on technological innovation and entrepreneurship, its main mission is “to lay the foundation that will facilitate and enable the full realisation of innovative ideas”. In order to reveal the strengths and skills of its human potential, and for the related Greek IT market to become competitive, MIC-GR performs a series of catalytic actions including hosting competitions and workshops triggering and disseminating novel ideas, while leveraging appropriate sources of capital for funding such ideas. MIC-GR promotes research and innovation, as well as supports the development of pioneering e-Government services. This is realised by facilitating the Greek Research and Academic community, the public sector, software companies and Small & Medium Enterprises to test, deploy and integrate the latest technologies and software solutions in their environment and products. MIC-GR is also active in education and training, both in the area of IT programming and technology uptake, as well as in the area of management and business administration. MIC-GR cooperates with research and academic labs, catalyses the cooperation among local and major international software stakeholders, implements and offers for free the use of “software labs” facilities and related expertise for testing and promoting innovative services for the citizens, provides seed funding or acts as an intermediate to venture capitals, and hosts a series of competitions, seminars, workshops, trainings and meetings for pupils, students, entrepreneurs, professionals, government experts and the general public to advance research and innovation. MIC-GR has also established cooperation with Microsoft Research in Cambridge and the European Microsoft Innovation Center in Aachen, cooperating in EC-funded projects, as well as promoting new prototype products. MIC-GR is a founding and key partner in the VENUS-C Cloud e-Infrastructure project aiming at delivering an operational Cloud computing infrastructure for research, academia and innovation. Furthermore MIC-GR collaborates with MSR in the Virtual Fire project aiming at developing a web GIS platform for forest fire management based on Microsoft® Virtual Earth™ (now Bing maps) acting as an early warning and real-time monitoring and propagation prediction prototype system. MIC-GR is also active in the areas of High Performance and Cloud computing including MS HPC and Azure, Bing maps and well as mobile devices and windows mobile applications.


• Dr. Fotis Draganidis: Microsoft Innovation Centre


• IBM Research Israel: Haifa Research Lab (IBMIL) -- IBM Israel Science and Technology Limited is better known as IBM Research - Haifa. Since it first opened as the IBM Scientific Center in 1972, the Haifa lab has conducted decades of research that have proved vital to IBM's success. The lab is one of five research laboratories located outside of the United States, and has close working relationships with IBM Israel and its twin research laboratory in Zurich. In Haifa, 25 percent of the technical staff has doctorate degrees in computer science, electrical engineering, mathematics, or related fields. Employees are actively involved in teaching in Israeli higher education institutions and in supervising postgraduate theses. R&D projects are being executed today in areas such as storage systems, cloud computing, healthcare and life sciences, verification technologies, business transformation, information retrieval, programming environments, optimisation technologies, and analytics. The IBM Research - Haifa lab has the following departments: The Software and Services department develops software technologies to exploit advances in computing infrastructure that benefit both traditional IT businesses as well as the system engineering and embedded software development space. The department's technology areas include: application development tools, new design, programming languages and models for business architects and embedded software development, software lifecycle management, product line engineering, software evolution via refactoring and reverse engineering of complex systems, and governance of software development. Additional areas of activity include complex event-based systems and solutions, distributed middleware with a focus on high availability solutions, high throughput low latency messaging technologies, and new technology and business models such as SaaS (Software as a Service). The department also has a strong focus on business optimisation, workforce management, business transformation and optimisation, and business transformation targeting various business design methodologies. The Governance Science group focuses on tools and methodologies for governance structures and mechanisms in various domains of organisational governance such as software development and IT governance. The group developed a domain-neutral metamodel for governance and Web 2.0/REST based technologies to support specification of governance structure and enactment of the governance specifications in collaborative development and management platforms. The Simplified Middleware and Tools group is focused on simplified middleware and tools, targeted at business users and developers for next generation web 2.0, visual analytics, SaaS, virtual worlds and cloud computing platforms. Since FP4, IBM HRL has participated and led numerous EU-funded projects and is considered an Israeli leader in FP participation. Five projects are currently coordinated by IBM: RESERVOIR and VISION Cloud (FP7 IP projects), +Spaces, ACSI and PINCETTE (FP7 STRePs).This is in addition to PROSYD, SAPIR SHADOWS and Modelware, FP6 projects successfully concluded in the last few years. IBM is also an important contributor to many consortiums.


• Avi Yaeli: IBM Research Israel


• INTRASOFT International: Research and Innovation Development Group -- INTRASOFT International S.A., is a leading European, ISO 9001-certified company in the area of Information Technology and Communication services provision. It has a broad portfolio of business activities addressing a wide range of international and national public and private organisations. As a subsidiary of INTRACOM IT SERVICES, a member of INTRACOM HOLDINGS Group that employees some 6,200 people in 21 countries around the world, INTRASOFT International was established in October 1996 to better serve public and private sector clients throughout Western Europe with a particular focus in European Union bodies and agencies. Since then INTRASOFT International has achieved impressive organic growth. Consolidated organic revenue in 2009 reached € 82,8 million (2008: € 71,6 million). Despite the prevailing market conditions, we expect 2010 to represent yet another year of considerable growth. At the end of 2009, INTRASOFT International employed over 700 professionals working in Belgium, Luxembourg, Athens-Greece and Romania, 20% of which have postgraduate degrees, representing 17 different nationalities and mastering more than 15 languages. Through its continuous investment over the years it has earned a place among the primary IT services suppliers for EU institutions and bodies (Commission, EU Parliament, European Investment Bank etc.). INTRASOFT International possesses a successful track record of delivering very large and complex IT systems, especially for the public sector. INTRASOFT International realises that research in ICT business is one of the critical factors in a company's growth, as it transforms knowledge and ideas into services and products. Through the Research and Innovation Development Group, INTRASOFT International has participated in several research projects in the FP5, FP6 and FP7 Programmes in areas such as e-government, software engineering, development and integration, e-business, knowledge and content management and other innovative specialised areas. INTRASOFT International has gained significant knowledge and experience related to ENGAGE project objectives from current and past participation in the following (among others) projects: COCKPIT (FP7-ICT-2009-248222) Citizens Collaboration and Co-Creation in Public Service Delivery, ENSEMBLE (FP7-ICT-2010-257548) Envisioning, Supporting and Promoting Future Internet Enterprise Systems Research through Scientific Collaboration, iWebCare (FP6-2005-IST-028055) Integrated Web Services Platform for the facilitation of fraud detection in health care e-government services, ELLECTRAWeB (FP6-2006-IST-045153) European Electronic Public Procurement Application Framework in the Western Balkan Region, RAC-WeB (FP6-2006-IST- 045101) Risk Assessment for Customs in Western Balkans, TEAM (FP6-2006-IST-35111) Tightening knowledge sharing in distributed software communities by applying semantic technologies, eMage (eContent-11152) Exploitation of European databases of images protected by IPR.


• Dr. Antonis Ramfos


• Science and Technology Facilities Council: R&D and services provision on research information (including scientific datasets and software); advanced information systems, semantic web, linked data, open access to publicly-funded research information, open government data. Particular expertise in metadata for these purposes including (with euroCRIS) CERIF.


• Prof Keith G Jeffery: (Director International Relations) Science and Technology Facilities Council


• University of the Aegean: Information Systems Laboratory, Information and Communication Systems Department, University of Aegean -- The University of the Aegean (UoA) is an international, research-oriented university. Being one of the most dynamic universities in Greece, UoA is an inspiring, innovative, socially committed institution, embodying the concept of a ‘university- network' operating in Samos, Lesvos, Chios, Rhodes, Syros, Limnos and Athens. The Information Systems Laboratory (ISL) of the Department of Information and Communication Systems Engineering is a multi-disciplinary research unit conducting technology policy, research and prototyping, evaluation and life-cycle management over a wide range of application areas within the public and private sectors, at an international scale. ISL pursues a strong and lasting collaboration with academic and research institutions, public sector organisations and innovation-oriented enterprises from Greece, Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas. Members of the laboratory are actively participating in ICT policy, research and standardisation in European Union and internationally (EU/EC, FP6/FP7, CIP/PSP, CEN-ISSS, SEMIC.EU, W3C, IFIP, AIS). Acquired knowhow is channelled in the creation of vocational and academic training material, and the implementation of high quality academic work in the domain of information systems. Recent projects of University of Aegean, involving more than 50 partners, in 15 countries, include: * VENUS-C: e-Infrastructures project on cloud-based provisioning of electronic services to scientific communities. * PADGETS (FP7 - Coordinated by ISL): Policy support through Web 2.0 social media interoperability - (www.padgets.eu) * FEED (FP7): Federated e-Participation Systems for Cross-Societal Deliberation on Environmental and Energy Issues, heavily utilizing GIS services (www.feed-project.eu) * LEXIS (FP7): Enabling the Public Debate of Legislation among Parliaments and Citizens in the European Union (www.lex-is.eu) * eGIF-GR (National Project): The Greek National e-Government Interoperability Framework (www.e-gif.gov.gr) * ICTE-PAN (FP6): Methodologies and Tools for Building Intelligent Collaboration and Transaction Environments in Public Administration Networks (www.ist-world.org) * e-VOTE (FP6): Internet and collaborative systems, for supporting on-line voting ΕRΜΙΟΝΕ (FP6): E-learning Resource Management Service for Interoperability in the European Cultural Heritage Domain


• Dr. Yannis Charalabidis: University of the Aegean


• Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems: FOKUS -- The role of Fraunhofer FOKUS in the ENGAGE project will be to bring in the government point of view, facilitate the development and implementation of the virtual research infrastructure architecture as well as provide solutions for data mining, curation, visualisation and provision. With its extensive involvement in the German government transformation activities with the help of IT Fraunhofer FOKUS will include the opportunities and roadblocks seen by public bodies in Germany in developing and implementing the describe data infrastructure. The FOKUS eGovernment laboratory has major experience with service oriented architectures and thus will provide valuable input in developing and implementing the data research infrastructure. Information gathering and enhancing of data plays a major role in many eGovernment projects. For the proposed data infrastructure FOKUS will develop mechanisms for continuous data sourcing from existing repositories and databases.


• Yuri Glickman: FOKUS


• EUROCRIS: euroCRIS is a not-for-profit organization, dedicated to the development of Current Research Information Systems (CRIS) and their interoperability and the custodian of CERIF, the EC recommended data standard for CRIS. A Current Research Information System is any informational tool dedicated to provide access to and disseminate research information. It consists of a data model describing objects of interest to R&D and a tool or set of tools to manage the data. A CRIS aims at assisting the users in their recording, reporting and decision-making concerning the research process, whether they are developing programmes, allocating funding, assessing projects, executing projects, generating results, assessing results or transferring technology. A CERIF-based CRIS captures the relationships between research output (e.g., publications) with the research context (e.g., project, persons, organizational units, funding, events, facilities, equipment) and also links together publications with products such as datasets or software. CERIF has currently been adopted and is being used across Europe in many institutional CRIS, in regional and nationwide infrastructures and in systems of funding bodies like the European Research Council (ERC). euroCRIS currently (June 2011) has 86 institutional members, mainly from Europe. However, there are members from 41 countries, including Australia, Canada, South Korea and the USA.


• Harrie Lalieu: euroCRIS