On 15 March 2016, the European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC) launches MYGEOSS a third call for innovative apps in the environmental and social domains. This is an open call for the development of innovative applications (mobile or web-based) using openly available or crowd-generated data in different domains addressing citizens’ needs.
The focus of this call is on developing applications of European relevance that will provide users with quantitative or qualitative information on the changing environment, e.g. change detection in climate, biodiversity, water bodies, coastal areas, built environment, green areas, forestry, agricultural land and crops, and atmospheric composition. Other areas of application will be considered provided that they address broad environmental or social themes across geographic scales.
Any legal entity from the 28 EU Member States plus the countries associated with Horizon 2020 can participate. The data used for the proposed applications must be available under the conditions of full and open access with no restrictions for reuse except for the obligation to acknowledge the source of the input data.
The documentation and source codes delivered to the European Commission (EC) at the end of the contract will be published by the EC as open source software using the European Union Public License (EUPL). This will allow for further development of the applications in the future, even for commercial purposes.
Since the entire source code has to be released under the EUPL, it is the responsibility of the contractors to ensure that the developed applications are cleared of any IPR belonging to third parties. All the data used in the app have to be provided under the conditions of full and open access.
Submissions will be evaluated by an international panel co-chaired by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the Directorate-General for Research and Innovation (DG RTD) and including representatives of the public and private sectors and academia. Criteria for evaluation of the application will include relevance for use in Europe, ease of use of the apps by non-expert users, innovative characteristics of the proposed application, and contribution to environmental or social objectives, including active citizen participation in data collection and analysis.
The best applicants will be awarded contracts by the JRC for a maximum of € 13 500 to develop the applications further, and take them to the stage of first public release within three months of signing the contracts. The winners will also be invited to present their applications at the GEO Plenary meeting in St Petersburg, Russia, during the week of the 9-10 November 2016. This will give visibility to the winning teams and provide opportunities for further development. Travel and daily allowance will be supported by the European Commission for one person from each winning team.
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