Periodic Reporting for period 3 - SoBigData-PlusPlus (SoBigData++: European Integrated Infrastructure for Social Mining and Big Data Analytics)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2023-01-01 al 2023-12-31
SoBigData++ is set to advance along the ambitious lines of SoBigData, the predecessor project that started in 2015 to construct the community and research infrastructure for open social mining and big data. SoBigData++ strives to deliver a distributed, pan-European, multi-disciplinary research infrastructure for big social data analytics, coupled with creating a multi-disciplinary and cross-disciplinary European research community using social mining and big data to understand the complexity of our contemporary, globally-interconnected society. Becoming an advanced community, SoBigData++ provides tools and services to help researchers and innovators tackle these challenges, delivering a platform for the design and execution of large-scale social mining experiments accessible seamlessly on computational resources from the project cloud and supercomputing facilities, open to users with a diverse background.
The RI’s service platform empowers researchers for the design and execution of large-scale social mining experiments. Pushing the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Responsible) and FACT (Fair, Accountable, Confidential and Transparent) principles, the RI will render social mining experiments more efficiently designed and repeatable by leveraging concrete tools that operationalize ethics, incorporating values and norms for privacy, fairness, transparency, and pluralism. SoBigData++ was born with 5 main objectives to move forward from:
- a repository of data and methods to a platform for the design and execution of complex social mining processes. This platform will be easily usable by interdisciplinary scientists and innovators and compliant with the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC);
- a starting community of social mining pioneers to a wide and diverse movement capable of empowering the next generation of responsible social data scientists engaged into the challenging research questions of the exploratories and ambassadors of a critical data literacy aimed at facilitating data citizenship and data democracy;
- the present awareness of ethical and legal challenges in social mining to the development of concrete tools that operationalize ethics with value-sensitive design, incorporating values and norms for privacy protection, fairness, transparency, and pluralism;
- an accelerator of data-driven innovation that facilitates collaboration with industries and start-ups to develop pilot projects and proofs-of-concept.
- an established pan-European Research Infrastructure to be recognized by ESFRI Roadmap and become a legal entity, which will design an appropriate form of legal entity.
The RI’s service platform empowers researchers for the design and execution of large-scale social mining experiments. Pushing the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Responsible) and FACT (Fair, Accountable, Confidential and Transparent) principles, the RI will render social mining experiments more efficiently designed and repeatable by leveraging concrete tools that operationalize ethics, incorporating values and norms for privacy, fairness, transparency, and pluralism. SoBigData++ was born with 5 main objectives to move forward from:
- a repository of data and methods to a platform for the design and execution of complex social mining processes. This platform will be easily usable by interdisciplinary scientists and innovators and compliant with the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC);
- a starting community of social mining pioneers to a wide and diverse movement capable of empowering the next generation of responsible social data scientists engaged into the challenging research questions of the exploratories and ambassadors of a critical data literacy aimed at facilitating data citizenship and data democracy;
- the present awareness of ethical and legal challenges in social mining to the development of concrete tools that operationalize ethics with value-sensitive design, incorporating values and norms for privacy protection, fairness, transparency, and pluralism;
- an accelerator of data-driven innovation that facilitates collaboration with industries and start-ups to develop pilot projects and proofs-of-concept.
- an established pan-European Research Infrastructure to be recognized by ESFRI Roadmap and become a legal entity, which will design an appropriate form of legal entity.
The main results obtained in this second reporting period, from 01 July 2021 to 31 December 2022, can be summarised as follows:
- The project which was entered in the ESFRI Roadmap 2021 during the RP1 worked in the definition of the HE SoBigData RI PPP (Preparatory Phase Project) to integrate additional activities for the sustainability of the RI in the long term.
- As part of the strategy for the development of the SoBigData RI, the consortium agreed to become more effective in increasing its impact at the national level. Following this strategy, the Italian node applied to the Italian RRNP (Recovery and Resilience National Plan) call for empowering RIs and won with a project called: “SoBigData.it: Strengthening the Italian RI for Social Mining and Big Data Analytics”.
- Several dissemination and training events have been organised during the period, slowly recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic situation and moving towards a mixed modality (online and offline) to guarantee a good balance between the quality and impact of the event.
- The TransNational Access started right after the RP1, and the SoBigData++ institutions adapted the call to guarantee the safety of the visitors and allow them to visit the place according to the national rules.
- New datasets, methods, and experiments are integrated into the RI Catalogue from the consortium scientific production, making SoBigData RI a vector for high-quality research resulting in publications in top conferences and journals.
- A process of stakeholder analysis, user engagement strategy definition, and re-braiding started during the RP2. In particular, a collaboration with Horizon Results Booster resulted in a deep understanding and definition of the Key Exploitable Results and Services. Moreover, a new website with a specific path for different stakeholders is under development to present the RI results and opportunities to the best.
We believe that the SoBigData++ project in the RP2 made a huge step towards the definition of short and long-term strategies defining a realistic path to fulfill the project objectives and beyond. The consortium as a whole is very committed to this, thanks to the involvement of national priorities and the empowerment of the nodes. The second reporting period was also the “recovery” period after COVID-19, and the project tried to come back to normal, but improved by the difficult situation and including new strategies and ways of doing research after the pandemic in Europe.
- The project which was entered in the ESFRI Roadmap 2021 during the RP1 worked in the definition of the HE SoBigData RI PPP (Preparatory Phase Project) to integrate additional activities for the sustainability of the RI in the long term.
- As part of the strategy for the development of the SoBigData RI, the consortium agreed to become more effective in increasing its impact at the national level. Following this strategy, the Italian node applied to the Italian RRNP (Recovery and Resilience National Plan) call for empowering RIs and won with a project called: “SoBigData.it: Strengthening the Italian RI for Social Mining and Big Data Analytics”.
- Several dissemination and training events have been organised during the period, slowly recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic situation and moving towards a mixed modality (online and offline) to guarantee a good balance between the quality and impact of the event.
- The TransNational Access started right after the RP1, and the SoBigData++ institutions adapted the call to guarantee the safety of the visitors and allow them to visit the place according to the national rules.
- New datasets, methods, and experiments are integrated into the RI Catalogue from the consortium scientific production, making SoBigData RI a vector for high-quality research resulting in publications in top conferences and journals.
- A process of stakeholder analysis, user engagement strategy definition, and re-braiding started during the RP2. In particular, a collaboration with Horizon Results Booster resulted in a deep understanding and definition of the Key Exploitable Results and Services. Moreover, a new website with a specific path for different stakeholders is under development to present the RI results and opportunities to the best.
We believe that the SoBigData++ project in the RP2 made a huge step towards the definition of short and long-term strategies defining a realistic path to fulfill the project objectives and beyond. The consortium as a whole is very committed to this, thanks to the involvement of national priorities and the empowerment of the nodes. The second reporting period was also the “recovery” period after COVID-19, and the project tried to come back to normal, but improved by the difficult situation and including new strategies and ways of doing research after the pandemic in Europe.
The objective of the projects are the following:
- ADVANCING THE SOCIAL MINING PLATFORM: SoBigData++ will expand platform functionalities: i) all current services will be made available through cloud web-based services and/or high-performance computing software packages; ii) a new workflow language will provide an easy-to-use common interface to design and execute complex social mining experiments relieving the data scientist from being responsible for resource allocation and software installation (based on Python notebook, containerization, etc.) and facilitating the mastering of the complexity of big data analytical processes; iii) The platform will be aligned with the EOSC, to become compliant with its policies and be able to utilize computational resources from the European Open Science Cloud.
- EXPANDING THE MULTIDISCIPLINARY COMMUNITY: SoBigData++ will extend its community by widening the multidisciplinary communities identified by the current exploratories with the contribution of the new partners and a clear plan of actions/events for attracting new users and experiments and returning specialized services to that community.
- OPERATIONALIZING THE ETHICAL AND LEGAL PRINCIPLES: SoBigData++ will pursue the EU views on Responsible Research and Innovation will especially uphold values and norms of EU Data Protection law, inspired to strengthen the protection of personal data as a fundamental right, combined with boosting the free flow of personal data as a common good.
- ACCELERATING INNOVATION: SoBigData++ will amplify the innovation activities by strengthening the opportunities for cooperation through a privileged communication path for events, projects, hackathons, and boot camps, relying on successful collaboration with industrial and institutional stakeholders (e.g. Challenge Us programme).
- DESIGNING A GOVERNANCE FOR SUSTAINABILITY: SoBigData++ will follow the ESFRI Roadmap and focus on becoming and ERIC. It will manage membership of all interested entities in Europe – especially those not in the consortium – and will study the viability and possible governance of a future SoBigData Foundation (or another non-profit legal entity) which will be the recipient of the RI management at the end of the project.
- ADVANCING THE SOCIAL MINING PLATFORM: SoBigData++ will expand platform functionalities: i) all current services will be made available through cloud web-based services and/or high-performance computing software packages; ii) a new workflow language will provide an easy-to-use common interface to design and execute complex social mining experiments relieving the data scientist from being responsible for resource allocation and software installation (based on Python notebook, containerization, etc.) and facilitating the mastering of the complexity of big data analytical processes; iii) The platform will be aligned with the EOSC, to become compliant with its policies and be able to utilize computational resources from the European Open Science Cloud.
- EXPANDING THE MULTIDISCIPLINARY COMMUNITY: SoBigData++ will extend its community by widening the multidisciplinary communities identified by the current exploratories with the contribution of the new partners and a clear plan of actions/events for attracting new users and experiments and returning specialized services to that community.
- OPERATIONALIZING THE ETHICAL AND LEGAL PRINCIPLES: SoBigData++ will pursue the EU views on Responsible Research and Innovation will especially uphold values and norms of EU Data Protection law, inspired to strengthen the protection of personal data as a fundamental right, combined with boosting the free flow of personal data as a common good.
- ACCELERATING INNOVATION: SoBigData++ will amplify the innovation activities by strengthening the opportunities for cooperation through a privileged communication path for events, projects, hackathons, and boot camps, relying on successful collaboration with industrial and institutional stakeholders (e.g. Challenge Us programme).
- DESIGNING A GOVERNANCE FOR SUSTAINABILITY: SoBigData++ will follow the ESFRI Roadmap and focus on becoming and ERIC. It will manage membership of all interested entities in Europe – especially those not in the consortium – and will study the viability and possible governance of a future SoBigData Foundation (or another non-profit legal entity) which will be the recipient of the RI management at the end of the project.