Unit Aspect

ASPECT is a research unit within SFI’s Insight Research Centre which analyses multimodal data to produce tools and policy recommendations, aiding policy makers in building new policies or improving existing policy implementation to more successfully achieve sustainability goals from local to EU levels.

Why are Analytics for Sustainable Policies needed?

Policies in this rapidly evolving world are often static and unable to keep up with the pace of change. Thus, to help policymakers and stakeholders adapt to these constant changes, ASPECT will provide the tools to build resilient evidence-based policy solutions that are flexible and adaptable to take account of current data. This dynamic evidence-based approach is especially valuable in policy making for the environment, sustainable development, and Just Transition.

Our Work

Current focus areas for ASPECT include: Climate Transition, Land Use, Peatlands, Sustainability, Environment & Health, Water Quality & Waste-Water Treatment, Soil Health, Biodiversity, Energy and Nature-Based Solutions.

Example: A Toolkit for Policymakers 

The Peatland Policy Portal will provide a comprehensive dashboard for exploring the current state of peatland related policies and projects throughout Europe, as well as providing tools to aid in the development of effective evidence-based policies for peatland restoration and  transformation.

Our Aims

ASPECT aims to develop tools and interfaces to help users  find, understand, analyse, create, and improve policies and  their implementations, that are impactful and based on  evidence from the field.

Analytics: Collect, synthesize & analyze quantitative  and qualitative data applicable to sustainable policy  development.

Sustainability: Focus areas are identified under SDGs and  the EU Green Deal based on existing linkage to our internal  research capacity.

Policy: Introduce smart evidence-based tools and  associated recommendations for relevant policymakers at  every stage of the policy cycle. 

Environment: Utilise multimodal data using Artificial  Intelligence and machine learning to enable sustainable  environmental policy development.

Climate: Develop new toolkits for climate policy to enable  policymakers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Transition: Engage with a broad range of stakeholders and  partners across Europe using the quadruple helix model for  collaboration (academia, government, community, business  and industry) to transition to a brighter future.