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New H2020 project: HARMONIA kick-off meeting

The kick-off meeting of the HARMONIA project took place on 17-18 June 2021. The project will run for 3,6 years and HARMONIA will leverage existing tools, services and novel technologies to deliver an integrated resilience assessment platform working on top of GEOSS, seeing the current lack of a dedicated process of understanding and quantifying Climate Change (CC) effects on urban areas using Satellite and auxiliary data available on GEOSS, DIAS, urban TEP, GEP etc. platforms. HARMONIA will focus on a solution for climate applications supporting adaptation and mitigation measures of the Paris Agreement. HARMONIA will test modern Remote Sensing tools and 3D-4D monitoring, Machine Learning/Deep Learning techniques and develop a modular scalable data-driven multi-layer urban areas observation information knowledge base, using Satellite data time series, spatial information and auxiliary data, in-situ observing systems, which will integrate detailed information on local level of neighborhoods/building blocks. HARMONIA focuses on two pillars: a) Natural and manmade hazards intensified by CC: urban flooding, soil degradation and geo-hazards (landslides, earthquake, ground deformation) and b) Manmade hazards: heat islands, urban heat fluxes, Air Quality, Gas emissions. Sustainable reconstruction of urban areas and the health of humans and ecosystems, are top priorities. HARMONIA will take into account the local ecosystems of European urban areas, following an integrated and sustainable approach by incorporating the active communities’ participation initiative, which will involve the use of a social platform. Paying extra attention to Sustainable Urban Development, one of the Societal Benefit Areas posits that use of EO is a crucial tool towards resilient cities and the assessment of urban footprints, to promote equity, welfare and shared prosperity for all, feed new indicators for the monitoring of progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals in an EU context.

MPlegal (Athens) is responsible for the legal and ethical compliance of the project as well as for the project’s outcomes’ adherence with the highest legal and ethical standards.

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MPlegal opens new office in Brussels

MPlegal is pleased to announce that it has opened up a new office in Brussels, Belgium. Through its presence in the capital of Europe MPlegal intends to provide more comprehensive services to its international clients, while staying close to EU law developments particularly in the fields of personal data protection and intellectual property rights protection. Its office is also expected to be active in applied research projects in related fields.

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Vagelis Papakonstantinou, professor at the Faculty of Law and Criminology, Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Vagelis Papakonstantinou has been appointed a professor at the Faculty of Law & Criminology of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. While working for the Brussels Privacy Hub and the Research Group on Law, Science, Technology & Society (LSTS) his research will continue to focus on personal data protection, both from an EU and an international perspective; Special emphasis will be placed on supervision, in particular Data Protection Authorities’ global cooperation. New research topics will include cybersecurity, digital personhood and computer programmes.