New collaboration with the VCity project, led by the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) and funded by the UNICO I+D Cloud España Digital 2026 program. This project aims to develop Urban Digital Twins, advanced digital tools that enable public administrations to make evidence-based decisions.
Why is this project important for Decidim?
In the development of these digital twins, it is essential to have standardized open data that can be easily reused by third parties. Currently, Decidim has an API that allows certain database queries and extracts information about citizen participation in the municipalities using the platform. However, with the VCity project, we seek to take these functionalities to the next level.
Key improvements planned
The main goal is to enhance Decidim's Open Data capabilities, thus facilitating data access and reuse by third parties. This will not only benefit public administrations but also foster research and the use of data related to citizen participation and public debate. The planned improvements will have a global impact, benefiting all administrations that use Decidim and generating a valuable data set for academia and the public sector.
Specific developments and stories
Improvements to be carried out within the framework of the VCity project include:
- Review and enhancement of the open data CSV file: To ensure exported data is more understandable and useful.
- Publication of survey responses: Expanding open data capabilities to include relevant participation information.
- Sociodemographic data module: A new feature to include additional data that helps better understand the context of participation.
- Integration with Grafana: Will allow advanced visualization and real-time data analysis.
- Review and update of the GraphQL API: Enhancing the existing API for greater efficiency and completeness.
- Development of a write API for Decidim: Enabling other tools and systems to interact with the platform.
- Update and improvement of API documentation: So developers and users can fully leverage the new functionalities.
- Review and quality control of contributions: Ensuring changes meet Decidim's quality and transparency standards.
Tangible impact on the community
By optimizing our Open Data tools and expanding interoperability capabilities, we are fostering a more collaborative and open ecosystem. This project marks an important step toward creating digital environments that encourage participation and access to information for all stakeholders.
Follow our progress
To stay updated on the development of these new features, visit our GitHub. We thank the Barcelona Supercomputing Center and the UNICO I+D Cloud program for supporting this initiative, which propels Decidim toward a more innovative and connected future.