This project engages EuroSDR members and their network in the linkage of datasets across Europe. We study the publication of metadata as linked data and the creation of links between metadata records. Our motivation is to set up a Metadata Knowledge Graph (MKG) ecosystem to support the joint usability of different digital assets that exist in Europe. Targeted objectives are more precisely: the design of vocabularies and of an infrastructure for such a MKG ecosystem, the implementation of use cases, the continuous engagement of more organisations in the project during these 2 years.

Expected value from such MKG is several fold.  

It can facilitate the discoverability and linkability of data. Links between data products from different domains, like topography and statistics, bearing explicit information on how to interconnect these assets, should facilitate the development of applications that require a rich description of places, like for example Digital Twins. Links between data products from different types of authorities, like for example national mapping and cadastral agencies and Wikidata or OpenStreetMap, should improve the openess of current national platforms and the quality of widely adopted collaborative assets. Links between data products across time, for the same phenomena (e.g the french BDTopo and orthophotos in 1950) can improve the study of dynamics.

It can also ease the transposition of applications designed in one country to another. For example a link between the Dutch official product for Buildings and Adresses to the sister products in other european countries can facilitate the transposition of a dutch geocoder to the corresponding countries.

Project webpage:  https://geometadatalabs.eu/index.php?title=LinkingDataInEurope