Bridging Institutions, Open Knowledge and AI
AI-Driven Bridging of Resources and Integration of Data Governance in Educational & Cultural Heritage Systems
AI-BRIDGES is a research-driven, collaborative initiative addressing a long-standing challenge: institutional data is rich, valuable, and carefully curated, yet remains difficult to share, connect, and reuse at scale.
As Generative AI is rapidly reshaping how knowledge is produced and consumed, AI-BRIDGES brings institutions, Open Knowledge communities, technologists, researchers and funders together, to explore how this gap can be responsibly bridged.
Combining research and practice, AI-BRIDGES works toward shared, sustainable solutions, developed with the communities they are meant to serve.
The Challenge
In the knowledge ecosystem, institutions, open knowledge infrastructures and AI systems still operate largely in silos, making it difficult to share data openly, reuse it at scale, and ensure its sustainability in an AI-driven world.
Our Approach
We builds practical bridges between institution and their data, Linked Open Data platforms and GenAI systems. Through research and experimentation, the project explores sustainable ways of connecting practitioners, data, technology and the public.
Why this matters
GenAI is reshaping how knowledge is accessed and used. AI-BRIDGES works to ensure that institutional and open knowledge can meaningfully inform AI systems, while supporting public-interest and those who steward, build, study and fund it.
The Challenge we are facing
Despite years of effort, key parts of the knowledge ecosystem still operate in silos.
Institutions and their Data
Institutions steward vast amounts of high-quality data, from cultural heritage to research and public records. Yet differences in formats, standards and capacity make this data difficult to share openly and sustainably.
Linked Open Data Platforms
Platforms like Wikidata and Wikibase support open, structured, and multilingual knowledge at scale. However, contributing institutional data remains labor-intensive and hard to sustain, especially for smaller institutions.
Generative AI Systems
Generative AI increasingly shapes how people access information, yet it relies on opaque data and makes limited use of structured open knowledge. This constrains transparency, accuracy, and inclusion.
Our Approach: Building Bridges, Together
AI-BRIDGES works across three interconnected strands to strengthen links between institutions, open knowledge infrastructures, and emerging AI technologies.
Read more about how we practically approach this work in the project page.
Institutions & LOD
We are researching and co-designing low-code / no-code workflows to make it easier for institutions to contribute data to Wikidata and Wikibase, informed by past efforts
LOD & AI Systems
We are exploring how open, structured data can be connected to Large Language Models (LLMs), to enable querying, analyzing, and working with data using natural language, rather than receiving opaque or hallucinated outputs .
Data & Participation
We are developing and testing participatory, lightweight approaches, including gamified micro-contributions, to involve students and the public in data curation without requiring technical expertise.
Why This Matters
For Institutions
Lower the practical and technical barriers to sharing data openly and responsibly, while keeping it meaningful and usable in an AI-driven landscape.
For the Open Knowledge Movement
Address long-standing challenges of scale, sustainability, and inclusion, while staying grounded in shared values of openness and transparency.
For Technologists
Work with large-scale, structured, multilingual open knowledge to explore how it can meaningfully inform AI systems in real-world contexts.
For Researcher
Engage with rich empirical material across institutions, communities, and technologies, and contribute to interdisciplinary research that connects theory and practice.
For Funders Supporting Research or Public Knowledge Infrastructure:
Gain a grounded view into an emerging ecosystem of public-interest work at the intersection of data, AI, and the commons, and identify where support can make a lasting difference.
AI-BRIDGES is an open, evolving project.
Participation is welcome at every stage.
You can get involved by sharing experiences, contributing data samples, joining the AI-BRIDGES Open Forum, or collaborating on research and experimentation.