1. OVERVIEW of HOMER Project
“Harmonising Open Data in the Mediterranean
through Better Access and Re-use of Public Sector
Information”
Road to Hack4MED!
Smart City Exhibition - 16/10/2013
Massimo Fustini
Regione Emilia-Romagna

2. The Project Topic:
The theme is Open Data policy, aiming to make available and exploitable Public
Sector Information.
The benefits:
transparency: publishing data of common interests enables citizens to be
better informed and participate in the decision making process of their
governments.
economic value: PSI can be aggregated and enriched directly by private
companies to offer new digital services generating economic returns

3. The Mediterranean situation and
HOMER Relevance for MED
EU is witnessing the spreading of several OD initiatives, mostly in Northern
Europe, but MED?
Mediterranean is less advanced and Open Data Good Practices are fragmented
HOMER purpose to:
stimulate Open Data policies in Med area, through the adoption of tailored
ICT/legal and political standards towards the MED cultural and economic
framework

4. Main Features of the Project

HOMER is a project funded under the European Territorial Cooperation
Programme MED 2007-2013

The Programme aims to support a sustainable growth and employment in the
MED area, through a transnational cooperation approach

HOMER overall Budget: 3,666,437.50 EUR
Implementation starting date
Implementation end date
4 April 2012
31 March 2015

5. HOMER Objectives
Overall goal:
to contribute to unlock the full potential of the Public Sector Information in the
Mediterranean space
Specific objectives:
 to aggregate and capitalise all the relevant MED Open Data initiatives;
 to set up an effective strategy to harmonise Open data policy and
portals across the MED area;
 to ensure that the Open Data strategy is transferable and re-usable by a
large number of public administrations in the MED area;
 to set up the basis for a transnational digital market in the Mediterranean
area, setting up MED PSI Federation thus promoting interoperable and
multilingual solutions;

6. The partnership
7 Regional Governments: Piedmont, Veneto, Sardinia, Emilia Romagna,
Andalucía, Crete, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur;
5 Public agencies and public service providers: Sewerage Board of
Limassol, Geodetic Institute of Slovenia, the Local Council Association of Malta,
GFOSS, SARGA;
6 ICT agencies and ICT academic experts: CSI-Piemonte, FING, Institut
de la Méditerranée, Mediterranean University of Montenegro, University of
Crete, FUNDITEC;
7 Associated partner: Ministry of ICT of Montenegro, Ministry of Sustainable
Development of Montenegro, Presidency of Council of Ministry in Italy, Ministry
of Internal Affairs in Greece, Ministry of Environment of Slovenia, CRIGE PACA,
Consejeria de Agricultura Y Pesca de la Junta de Andalucia

7. Events and Milestones
Two milestones
Milestone1: launch of open data portals in Spain, Italy, France, Greece, Cyprus,
Malta, Montenegro, Slovenia and opening of specific thematic datasets;
Milestone 2: the setting up of the MED PSI Federation;

8. Main project Deliverables
Open Data Requirements Report
State of the art on PSI policy and main legal/technical aspects related with OD
Open Data To Do List
An operative guide on technological and licenses aspects to develop OD portals in MED
Open Data Licensing and Legal Report
To present and harmonise EU, national, regional laws and licensing topics for the re-use of data
Federation of Open Data Portals
Set-up of a federated research engine for OD portals and signature of a MoU
(formal harmonisation of technical and legal aspects among different partners OD portals)
Open Data Socio-economic Impact Analysis in the Mediterranean Area”
Socio-economic study to identify obstacles, and impact of PSI access ad exploitation
Most of them are available on HOMER website: www.homerproject.eu

9. HOMER Contribution and expected IMPACT

Harmonise both from a legal point of view and technical aspects the OD
portals in MED;

Federation effect: ease of finding data for final users (citizens or business –
not only for geek);

Stimulate the re-use federated data: more re-use opportunity founded on
similar shared data;

Discovering new opportunities to develop useful applications for citizens
and government with data and linked data and enhance economic growth and
creation of job opportunities;

Create awareness about Open Data policy: as example,
initiate
harmonising the Montenegrin legislation and licencing with EU policies on PSI
Directive;

10. Work-Package 3
Capitalisation, Homer Federation and MoU

Analysis of MED PSI social and economic impact;

Development of a federation of Open Data portals among partners and a
memorandum of understanding, aiming at sharing common data sets related to
MED strategic domains (culture, agriculture, tourism, energy, environment);

Official action plans for the 7 regions and the local governments with the
support of the expert partners;

Establishment of three focus groups to create synergies and links with OD
related programmes, projects and events.

11. Work-Package 5
Improve Access to Public Data and the participation of
People to Public Policies

Define and harmonise OD portal technical and legal specifications;

Support the development of Open Data Portals in Aragon, Andalucia, ProvenceAlpes Côte d’Azur, Corse, Piemonte, Veneto, Sardinia, Emilia Romagna, Slovenia,
Limassol, Malta, Crete, Montenegro;

Implementations of 2 pilot actions on re-use of data:
PilotA: “HACK4MED!”
PilotB: “PARTICIPATION OF CITIZENS IN THE DEFINITION OF PROJECTS &
POLICIES THROUGH THE CO-ELABORATION OF NEW SOLUTIONS”

12. Pilot A: HACK4MED!
“event in which computer programmers and others in the field of software
development, like graphic designers, interface designers and project managers,
collaborate intensively on software-related projects”
With aim of:

Stimulate the re-use of HOMER datasets in the Mediterranean by private
companies;

Encourage the development of web and mobile apps;

Emphasize the model of collaborative construction;
Final Award Ceremony in Turin (June 2014)

13. THANK YOU
FOR YOUR ATTENTION!
Massimo Fustini
Regione Emilia-Romagna
homer@regione.emilia-romagna.it
www.homerproject.eu
dati.emilia-romagna.it