Introducing GENESIS

A three-year ICT project established in 2008, GENESIS is a cornerstone of the EC’s ambition to create a single information space for Europe, and aims to deliver an integrated system in which environmental and health information can be accessed, analysed and acted upon. GENESIS will provide secure, high-bandwidth communications, rich and diverse content and digital services, and will become a vital tool for those involved in environmental management and health provision. The provision of accurate air and water quality data through GENESIS will enable more efficient decision-making on environmental issues, and will also provide health services with advance warning of possible threats to public health.

Why was GENESIS established? 

The GENESIS project was established in response to a number of issues raised by the INSFO Directorate of the European Commission, who partially funded the project. In particular the Directorate wanted to explore the possibility of linking the different services that exist at defined levels of environmental management, and of providing users – or system developers – with a way to connect all the resources available in Europe. GENESIS uses an open source paradigm in order to meet these criteria. This means application providers from any area of environmental monitoring, such as air or water quality, can develop their own applications and then customise them to suit their own specific needs.

The GENESIS consortium

The GENESIS consortium is comprised of 30 partners from across Europe, reflecting both the importance attached to environmental monitoring, and the broad scope of the project. The project combines technological, cross-cutting and thematic activities; the sub-projects in this final area, in which the generic solution being devised in GENESIS will be used, centre on three thematic domains:

• Air Quality and its impact on health
• Fresh Water Quality and its impact on health
• Coastal Water Quality and its impact on health

The thematic sub-projects are charged with identifying the main gaps and ICT needs in their domains. They are also working to define and set-up pilots of complex thematic applications, and to combine the generic solution with their own components to address real scenarios.