On 12th March 2025, the DAFNI Programme held a showcase event for the data sharing project ‘Data Infrastructure for National Infrastructure’ (DINI), held in person at Satellite Applications Catapult at Harwell Campus.
The purpose of the event was to showcase the DAFNI-DINI project work, including the project use cases, workshops, champions and discuss the project results and recommendations.
The project is part of an exciting programme of work driven by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), aiming at better and safer use of data in research, with the DAFNI-DINI project funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)’s Digital Research Infrastructure programme.
Brian Matthews opening the DAFNI-DINI showcase (lef) and staff and collaborators at the poster session
DAFNI Programme Lead, Brian Matthews, opened the event, describing how far data sharing has come since 2017, with increasing awareness of the benefits of data sharing, initiatives to systematically share data, and sector initiatives to support data sharing. The key questions remaining are: what more is needed to support researchers to access and use data and how can we deliver the impact of research to government, industry and society at large?
This is where the DINI project comes in, a pilot study on the requirements and impact of supporting the sharing and analysis of data across national infrastructure systems, with a focus on energy, water and transport, and the related natural, built, social and economic environment.
After a welcome from DAFNI Science Lead, Tom Kirkham, we heard from Oliver (Olly) Tones, Head of Data Sharing and Technology at DSIT. Oliver outlined how UKRI and DSIT are invested in tackling barriers together, to improve the data that is securely available to researchers and can enable research and insights that drive growth and improve lives. DSIT are supporting the ecosystem to enable the sharing of data to be more effective and in the longer term, how this can be shared within the community. DSIT has had an open approach to using available data and is now working on how data can be licensed more effectively and how to embed capability and value into the data itself.
Workshop lightning talks followed, starting with Catherine Jones, UK Energy Data Centre (UKERC) Lead, who discussed the UKERC/DINI workshop on sharing data used in energy modelling, held in October 2024. The workshop created the opportunity to discuss, in more depth, a 2023 UKERC/CREDS energy data sharing workshop recommendation that there is a need for greater guidance in the sharing of energy models’ inputs and outputs.
Energy modelling is important as it encompasses tools which impact on real-life decisions made by academics, government and industry. One of the key issues that arose in the workshop was that there is inadequate documentation and metadata, with a lack of common terminology. People collect and think about data in different ways, which reflects the interdisciplinary nature of energy research and hence, the same kind of data may be recorded differently. Above all, models need an active community to keep running and emerging technology data to become findable.
Gea Mikic, Co-Founder and Programme Director, and Ceri Stanaway, Researcher, then discussed Icebreaker One, whose mission is to make data work harder to deliver net zero. Within the DAFNI-DINI work, they focussed on data providers in energy, water and transport, in particular rail and road. Most of the data providers they contacted allowed access to their data, with most recognising the benefits of data sharing. The team’s findings led to a number of recommendations, including that data providers must invest in co-designing appropriate and open governance for data sharing, and that data sharing initiatives between infrastructure data providers and the research community must build on existing initiatives to promote interoperability.
Clara Lines Diaz, Research Data Specialist at the Digital Curation Centre (DCC), introduced the DCC workshops, held regionally across the UK alongside DAFNI roadshows, as well as Innovate UK’s Digital Twins Energy Grids workshop. They found that Northern Ireland has specific challenges around data, with more limited access to national datasets, whilst Wales has already built a framework, guidance and templates for public and private data sharing. Their workshop with Innovate UK focused on brainstorming economic benefits to justify data sharing. The main findings were that data sharing would increase efficiency, promote sharing workflows, fill gaps in training and set up a trusted data environment, which could tackle the most common barriers, such as cost and the risk of reputational damage.
Dr. Liz Varga (left) and Dr. Joanne Leach (right) speaking at the DINI showcase
Dr Joanne Leach, Executive Manager at UKCRIC, then introduced the workshops they ran for the DAFNI-DINI project. These addressed the challenges of and opportunities for data sharing between industry and academia, and within urban observatory settings. Both the industry representatives who participated in the first workshop, and the academics who participated in the second workshop, saw value in establishing a national data cloud. They also believe that the challenges to establishing such a cloud so are surmountable, and that now is the right time to tackle them.
Elizabeth Newbold (Open Science Lead Theme, Scientific Computing) presented results from use cases – eight specific academic projects, funded by BSRW and DINI. They aimed to give real examples of data sharing in current research and widen the evidence base, with specific examples from Energy, Transport and Water research. All eight found benefits in data sharing, including facilitating collaboration and interoperability, improving accuracy and validation, increasing trust and transparency and enhancing public safety and mobility. Despite the commercial sensitivity of data, collaboration is still possible. In order to this, standardisation is necessary to generate connectivity.
Our DAFNI Champions presented next, beginning with Professor Liz Varga, UCL, on water systems leakage, emphasising the scale of the growing water loss crisis. Shocking statistics demonstrate that an average of 53 litres per person per day are used in England and Wales, and that 95% of leaks are not seen by the public as they are often deep underground. UCL’s data collection identified the risks, including data privacy and security breach, as well as the benefits, such as timely interventions for incidents for such leakages. Proactive action is essential with real datasets and analytics.
Professor Theo Tryfonas, University of Bristol, discussed the enabling of mobility data sharing, with two trials involving e-bikes and e-scooters, respectively. Their study follows on from an earlier research project on urban riding, which provided the framework for developing the technical environment and engagement with researchers and regional authorities. Barriers, such as datasets containing personal data and contract set-up delays are an issue. The team became mindful during their research of the potential of the DAFNI platform to facilitate discussions for a Trusted Research Environment, to allow safe sharing, exploration and processing of micro-mobility data.
Dr Giuliano Punzo, University of Sheffield, spoke about his research with users on the barriers and opportunities for Quasi-Real Time (QRT) data in transport, which refers to data used approximately 1-15 minutes after being collected. QRT is useful for assisting transport infrastructure controllers in making medium-term decisions to manage load on the system. Via a literature review, interviews and meeting with experts and stakeholders, it was found that the UK does not seem to align to the main trends. Data standardisation does not present a significant barrier to current QRT usage, but it provides an opportunity for the improvement of national infrastructure through increased management of QRT data access, as commonly found in other countries. Brian summarised the results of the DINI projects, which clearly highlight a need and now a vision for a trusted space or research data cloud for data sharing that has suitable control and security. This will enable research and innovation, enhance collaboration and interoperability and foster transparency and trust.
(Left to right), Dr. Liz Varga, Professor Miranda Sharp and Mark Enzer speaking at the DAFNI-DINI showcase panel
A poster session followed, which included posters both on the technical work completed by the DINI team and the work completed by BSRW Project Leads as a chance to showcase their work, as described by Elizabeth earlier in the day. Finally, a panel was held with Professor Liz Vargas, Mark Enzer from Mott MacDonald, and Miranda Sharp from Icebreaker One. The panel spoke of their immediate thoughts after the day of talks, and discussed getting to greener data solutions and common identifiers to link datasets together. Whilst there needs to be a respect for data privacy and a balance between open and quality data, the panel members spoke of how heartened they were to see debates not only about the cost of data but also its potential value.
In order to unlock better outcomes, the panel agreed that there is an immediate need to address the challenges presented during the showcase.
· Data sharing is hard!
· What can be done to make it less difficult?
The use cases revealed that data is hard to obtain. Government also needs to play their role and address the value of data. Who is the customer of the data and who can organise a data infrastructure that would save money? Technical governance and training are needed but it’s more about making connections and meeting the increased complexities that organisations across industry, government and academia face, rather than trying to implement major change.