In this digital age, more and more data reflect different aspects of our lives. We witness an increased interest in using this data from public and private sources to foster innovation, decision making and commercial growth. However, these promising ideas have not fully materialized in practice, and we claim that a core reason is our lack of understanding of the available data, and of data analysis products. 

FounData addresses fundamental issues in understandings of gathering, analyzing, and exploring data, namely quality, validity and intelligibility. Statistical information and data from the public sector is made available through different platforms to support research, decision-making and innovation. The European Commission is pushing for increased release of public sector information as part of Digital Agenda Europe.

FounData aims at providing the technical, conceptual and methodological foundation that is needed for these platforms to be accessible to citizens at large and play a role onwards in supporting democracy, transparency and innovation. We address the technical and conceptual gap between the data sources already out there, and the large user base seeking to explore the economic and societal potential. The project focuses on providing the concepts and methods that support better how people, professionals or citizens, may use, combine and critically scrutinize data.

The research project is a collaboration between researchers from Data Intensive Systems and Compute Mediated Activities at Department of Computer Science at Aarhus University. 

Contact: Ira Assent