SoBigData Mission
To use big data and AI to understand the complexity of society and offer services to researchers, industry, public bodies, and citizens through the creation of a multidisciplinary scientific community according to the EU’s vision of an ethical, legal, and open science
SoBigData is an European open science research infrastructure for social mining according to EU values of fairness and privacy protection.
SoBigData provides a broad set of services, data, methods, training materials and technologies for Data Science within operative guidelines including EU Ethical, Legal, Social, Economic, and Cultural (ELSEC) values. FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) and FACT (Fair, Accurate, Confidential, and Transparent) principles are key aspects in the research infrastructure development.
SoBigData RI: Towards a Sustainable Research Infrastructure
European Recognition
SoBigData RI is included in the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) Roadmap 2021, aiming to become a sustainable research infrastructure by 2026.
ESFRI plays a key role in shaping and integrating European research infrastructures, ensuring they adhere to high standards of excellence, sustainability, and innovation. Essentially, ESFRI offers a long-term strategy to help SoBigData RI expand and establish itself as a leading research hub for AI and social mining in Europe and globally.
Current Composition
Currently, the SoBigData RI consortium comprises 14 countries, which are potential nodes:
Goals
By pursuing these goals, SoBigData contributes to advancements in big data analysis, social mining, and the responsible use of data in various sectors.
1.SoBigData aims to become the reference infrastructure in Europe for big data analysis and social mining. It supports data scientists and AI researchers in designing and developing big data experiments in social science and innovative, cutting-edge research.
2.SoBigData strives to support enterprises in data exploitation for new products and services, new markets, cost reduction, and profitability. These efforts align with the objectives of the EU Strategy for Data.
3.SoBigData aims to be a reference point in the EU for public bodies and policymakers on data management, AI, and their ethical use. It directs its focus toward concrete solutions, facilitating responsible and ethical practices.
What SoBigData does
SoBigData offers an integrated ecosystem of tools for data scientists and AI researchers to design and develop big data experiments in social science. The infrastructure supports innovation and cutting-edge science in collaboration with a network of experts, research institutions, and industries. SoBigData creates synergies with public bodies and policy-makers to answer societal questions and optimize public resources usage.
To accomplish its goals, SoBigData offers several services and facilities.
TRAINING
Resources for training and education on social data and AI to promote the training of the next generation of responsible data science researchers.
CATALOGUE
A catalogue of resources such as datasets, algorithms, technologies, methods, and libraries for social mining and AI in tailored virtual research environments.
TRANSNATIONAL ACCESS
A Mobility program for researchers and professionals in data and social science to visit the infrastructure nodes where start collaborations and access data and computational facilities.
PRIVACY RISK EVALUATION
An evaluation of ethical and legal risks for users' experiments and provides tailored solutions in terms of practical guidelines and specific suggestions.
The RI may help in creating collaborations between research institutions, public bodies, and industries facilitating the interconnections between them.
INNOVATION ACCELERATION
With the strict collaboration with industries and public bodies SoBigData plays an active role in the diffusion of an ethical the data science culture, accelerating and transferring innovation, from research to industry .
SoBigData history
The Research Infrastructure was born in 2015 with the EC H2020 SoBigData project (g.a. 654024) to integrate existing EU platforms on various social mining topics. Initially, the consortium was formed by academics and researchers from twelve institutions in seven countries. The first research infrastructure release came out in 2016, including some of the functionalities inherited by the initial platforms.
In 2020 the new project EC H2020 SoBigData++ started (g.a. 871042), enlarging the consortium to the experts in different fields collaborating during the first project. Thirty one partners from 14 countries form the new consortium.
2021 the SoBigData Research Infrastructure was selected to be part of the ESFRI roadmap as relevant digital infrastructure in the European Research Area (ERA).
In 2022 SoBigData was included in the top relevant infrastructure in Italy and won a call part of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan call (NRRP) to strengthen its capabilities.
What is Social Mining
1. Social mining is a toolbox aimed at understanding and modelling complex social phenomena and their evolution.
2. It combines data-driven and model-driven analytic approaches (network science, data mining, and AI): what is and what if.