Data underpins our business and economy and can be collected by everything and everyone from lampposts to professors. By sharing these datasets between public and private sector organisations and businesses it is possible to generate significant extra socio-economic benefits for the UK economy and its citizens. This is particularly true for infrastructure owners and operators who collect similar datasets (e.g. meteorological data) and face similar 21st Century challenges and opportunities. Better knowledge exchange and data-sharing between these separate businesses and organisations can: improve operational procedures; drive new solutions; and foster joined up response to common environmental problems such as air quality, extreme weather events or longer-term climatic change.

A cross-disciplinary approach is also crucial to limit cascade failures and build resilience across the infrastructure system as a whole. For example, a failure in the electricity network could impact the transport sector by stopping electrified trains or causing black-outs along streets or motorway. Or a dam failure could flood the nearby road and railway line. Cascade failures are particularly disruptive in urban areas which have a high population density and critical infrastructure like railway stations or energy substations.

Considering blue and green infrastructure is also vital for whole systems approach. For example, flooding and vegetation (leaves on the line, debris following high winds) often cause disruption for operators such as Network Rail; in urban areas vegetation aids storm water management by increasing infiltration and reducing run-off into urban sewers. Trees can 'scrub' the atmosphere and improve air quality and psychological well-being for inhabitants.
Although data-sharing across the infrastructure sector is clearly advantageous, in practice a range of different barriers can stop this from happening. This KE Fellowship (MEDIATE) will demonstrate the added value that intelligent data-sharing can bring. It has two work programs with two different groups of non-academic partners who are not maximising the potential of their existing datasets for a range of different reasons. Overcoming the barriers to sharing their datasets will generate socio-economic benefits as outlined below.

Work Program One focuses on green and blue infrastructure and will facilitate the creation of a scientific evidence base and new network to support Birmingham City Council's Natural Health Improvement Zones. MEDIATE will initiate the development of the evidence base, and set-up a network to maintain it long-term. This will have impact at local-scale by: providing the evidence base necessary to inform blue-green planning, ultimately to improve air quality and citizen health; and, at national and international scales by providing a case study of how to evaluate blue-green improvement schemes.

Work Program Two focuses on the grey infrastructure and will facilitate cross-disciplinary data-sharing between infrastructure providers and the research community. MEDIATE will: use a pilot study with Network Rail (NR) to explore and overcome barriers to data-sharing then use this knowledge to expand the study across the infrastructure sector. This will have impact at local-scale by: improving the NR evidence base for meteorological/climatological decision-making; and at national and international scales by clearly articulating data gaps to NERC, and improving the sector-wide evidence base to facilitate a whole systems approach to weather and climate resilience.

There is no better time to facilitate data sharing; 90% of the world's data has been generated in the last two years. The MEDIATE project will help business and organisations in the ERII community and more widely across the infrastructure sector to maximise the potential of their datasets to generate significant wealth for the UK economy and invaluable social benefits for its citizens.