B. INTERNATIONAL ACADEMIC NETWORK - colouring-cities/manual GitHub Wiki
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1. The CCRP international academic research network
The Colouring Cities Research Programme(CCRP) is an academic programme overseen by The Alan Turing Institute (UK) that drives knowledge and data sharing about building stocks, and built and natural infrastructure, within and across countries. The Programme focuses on the co-creation of a decentralised, network of open spatial databases, created and managed at country level by academia. We currently work with academic institutions and academic consortia across over twenty countries. Academic partners also co-work on code development, core content and data classes and formats, methods for manual and automated data capture, security, data accuracy and data ethics, to support their research and help meet specific research goals.
Our collective aims include: stimulating a rapid increase in the volume and geographic coverage, variety, accuracy and granularity of open microspatial data essential for environmental and socio-economic and environmental research, at local, national, and global scale; gaining large-scale insights into sustainable and unsustainable patterns and cycles within the data using computational approaches ML and AI, and accelerating the impact of research on the quality, sustainability, efficiency and resilience of the physical and natural environment in line with United Nations' Sustainability Development Goals. The CCRP also aims to improve efficiency in academic research and minimise time wasted on applying for funds for data and expertise that could be freely shared by academics across countries.
CCRP Global Region Hubs are voluntarily managed by academic consortia and are currently active in Africa, Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America, The Middle East and North America. Over twenty countries are now involved. All CCRP platforms are at different stages of development with some at city demo stage and others with national coverage. Current CCRP partners are shown at the map below with further information available on our academic network home page.
Joining requirements
The CCRP is a research-led open knowledge initiative in which management of networked CCRP platforms is only open to academic institutions. Participation is voluntary and the network is informal. All code and data produced as part of the CCRP are released under open licences. Requirements for joining the network include demonstration of relevance of partner work to the CCRP's mission, proof of academic status of partner institution, demonstration of expert knowledge of PIs in relation to buildings and building stocks, and agreement to partner protocols, the CCRP code of conduct and its ethical framework. Please note that all legal and ethical oversight of platforms/databases built by academic partners using CCRP open code are the responsibility of the academic partner. The CCRP network's role is to offer free resources and tools, through its voluntary consortium, to help academic partner improve access to open spatial data on national stocks, and to accelerate knowledge exchange and problem solving across countries through developing methods for collecting standardised data.
CCRP Quality control and platform interoperability
CCRP branding is tightly controlled to maintain programme and platform quality, and to maximise user trust. Branding is also important as platform code is open-source, with experimentation by software developers and engineers encouraged. The CCRP provides the necessary space to allow international research partners to co-design and test platforms to the highest standards, to explore the potential value of captured data in many areas of building stock research, and to ensure ethical considerations are prioritised. Clear branding is also necessary to allow the purpose, principles, and quality and of Colouring Cities platforms to be instantly understood regardless of which country a Colouring Cities platform is set up in. Improvements to interface design and content are ongoing and incremental, building on findings from the CCRP group. CCCP partners use identical interfaces and main data category keypads to maximise clarity and interoperability of systems. Where platforms differ is in additional subcategory inclusion relevant to national/regional contexts, open-source code for which is also available within the CCRP GitHub repository.
CCRP research partners can be identified by their exclusive use of the Colouring Cities logo, and their inclusion on this page, on the Alan Turing Institute CCRP webpage. No other applications of Colouring Cities code, interface design or logo are endorsed by the Alan Turing Institute. CCRP resources are provided by Turing and CCRP Hub and Expert Group are listed below. All CCRP partners and asked read and acknowledge that they agree to work to the CCRP's protocols, code of conduct and ethical framework.
CCRP Resources
Resources provided by the Alan Turing Institute for CCRP partners - in addition to the Colouring London working prototype, core open-source code and the open manual which are accessible to all - are as follows:
- Use of the Colouring Cities Research Programme logo;
- Inclusion on the Alan Turing Institute website and the CCRP Open Manual;
- Free use of the Colouring Cities domain name;
- Dedicated CCRP partner page;
- Free access to online CCRP PI and engineering meetings managed by The Alan Turing Institute (see meeting programme below);
- Software engineering guidance for research software engineering teams for demo platform development;
- Free access to CCRP talks and workshops
- Help-in-kind support for funding applications which relate to CCRP platform setup;
- Opportunities to chair informal expert groups;
- Opportunities to co-work on platform code and share engineering expertise;
- Opportunities to co-work on content and interface design and share research and stakeholder expertise;
- Opportunities to co-work on additional platform tools as well as animations and simulations of data and 3D/4D open models;
- Opportunities to co-work work on data analysis across countries and to experiment with AI and machine learning approaches;
- Opportunities to co-work on research papers;
- Opportunities for joint publicity;
- Opportunities to co-work on international funding bids.