European Commission: Data must be sustainable, open, and free in future

From the perspective of the European Commission, data in the future must be sustainable, open, and free, Tom De Groeve, Head of the Disaster Risk Management Unit at the European Commission Joint Research Centre, said during the session held within the World Urban Forum (WUF13) in Baku, Report informs.

According to Tom De Groeve, in this context, the Copernicus Program, managed by the European Commission and the European Space Agency, is of particular importance:

"The program's goal is to provide services for public use based on satellite data. At the Joint Research Centre, which is part of the European Commission, we implement one of these services – the Emergency Management Service in the context of disasters. The work on urban data discussed here falls within this framework, and we strive to ensure that once the data matures and a strong user community emerges, it is provided as a sustainable service under Copernicus. We carefully observe what works and what is essential, because this represents the ultimate goal of quality work, after which we can advance the idea to the operational level. For policy-making, understanding the context and operational aspects of data is crucial."

He added that data plays a key role in decision-making: "For us, this is of fundamental importance, because as a research organization we do not only produce data, but we also have the mandate to make it useful for policy-making. Science for policy and data for policy form the core of our mission."