Greater Varese Metropolitan Area
Paul Smits is with the Science for Democracy and Evidence-Informed Policymaking unit of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre. He facilitates JRC's portfolio on Innovative Policymaking in a Complex World. In this role he has been promoting a transparent and responsible use of evidence in EU policies, thereby supporting #BetterRegulation. Paul has degrees in medical electronic engineering and applied physics, and received a PhD in computer science from the University of Genoa, Italy, in 1998. Since then he has been with DG JRC working on a range of research topics involving Artificial Intelligence, data management and analysis, interoperability and standardisation, applied primarily to environmental issues. From 2006 to 2013 he was leader of the team responsible for the technical aspects of the Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE Directive 2007/2). In that context he chaired various working groups of standardisation bodies and the Member States, including the Interoperability Solutions for European Public Administrations (ISA) Working Group on Spatial Information and Services. As of 2013 he has been closely involved in the development of the corporate modelling inventory MIDAS and the competence Centre on Modelling. Paul is a Marie Curie Fellow.
Team leader at the Institute for Environment and Sustainability, dealing with the Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE Directive 2007/2), GEOSS, and the Shared Environmental Information System.
The transparency and coherence of evidence used to support EU policy decisions – including, but not limited to, ex-ante and ex-post policy evaluations – are vital for the credibility of the Commission's policy analysis. The Commission makes extensive use of models for ex-ante and ex-post policy evaluations, for working documents and reports, and to underpin its position in international negotiations. The Competence Centre on Modelling promotes a responsible, coherent and transparent use of modelling to underpin the evidence base for EU policies. It leverages the modelling capacity and competences across the Commission and beyond. Starting with the Commission-wide modelling inventory, it supports a proper documentation, use, and reuse of models. It further helps identifying common approaches to quality and transparency of model use, and establishes a Community of Practice on Modelling. The Competence Centre on Modelling was launched on 26 October 2017.
Leading the working group that delivered the CEN Technical Report 15449 wayfinder for standards in the field of spatial data infrastructures and geographic inforamation.
Editor of the White Paper 1 produced by the Eye on Earth Summit Working Group 3 Technical Infrastructure. http://www.eyeonearthsummit.org/
Ph.D. "Model Regularization in Remote Sensing Image Analysis"