At the Very Large Data Bases (VLDB) 2025 conference in London, Nicolas Travers, Professor (HDR) and Deputy Director of the De Vinci Research Center (DVRC), and Wissal Benjira, PhD student and Data Engineer at DVRC, presented a demonstration entitled “SDG-KG: A Framework to Compute SDG Indicators with Open Data.”
Their participation highlights how advanced data management research at ESILV connects with international scientific communities and global sustainability priorities.”
The VLDB: A Global Forum on Data Science and Database Innovation
The VLDB conference is recognized as a leading international forum dedicated to data management and scalable data science.
Each year, it brings together researchers, practitioners, and industry experts to explore advances in database systems, artificial intelligence, distributed architectures, and data analytics.
The 2025 edition, held in London, featured research talks, industrial sessions, workshops, and demonstrations. The venue, located in Westminster near the River Thames, provided a central setting for discussions on the future of large-scale data systems.
Nicolas and Wissal at the VLDB 2025
ESILV’s research: SDG-KG: Structuring Open Data for Global Challenges
Monitoring the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires reliable and harmonized data. Yet open data sources are often fragmented, schema-less, and inconsistent.
This creates barriers to integrating information from relational databases, NoSQL stores, and APIs into unified frameworks.
The SDG-KG demonstration addressed this issue by introducing a spatio-temporal Knowledge Graph designed to guide data retrieval and formalize workflows for computing SDG indicators. The framework includes:
- A Metadata Graph that structures data provenance and source descriptions.
- Conflict resolution techniques to reconcile overlapping datasets.
- Query-driven execution plans that dynamically adapt to user needs.
Through an interactive interface, participants could explore UN specifications, visualize the generated knowledge graph, and inspect computed indicators.
The system offers both transparency and adaptability, making it a valuable tool for organizations aiming to track progress toward sustainability objectives.
ESILV’s De Vinci Research Center: Interdisciplinary Focus
The demonstration also reflects the research orientation of the De Vinci Research Center (DVRC) at ESILV.
The laboratory brings together researchers from management sciences and engineering, promoting interdisciplinarity in projects addressing significant societal challenges.
DVRC’s strategy is built around four priorities:
- Scientific excellence, illustrated by publications in top academic journals.
- Societal impact, reinforced through European projects, research chairs, and dissemination to practitioners.
- Interdisciplinarity, with teams combining diverse expertise to address fields such as ecological transition and e-health.
Collaboration agreements and participation in global scientific events support internationalisation.
By presenting at VLDB 2025, ESILV’s researchers underlined the school’s commitment to advancing both the theoretical and applied dimensions of data science.
Transitioning from Research to Practical Impact
The SDG-KG project demonstrates how academic research can contribute directly to global agendas such as the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
By creating a scalable and transparent framework, the initiative bridges the gap between heterogeneous open data and actionable indicators for policymakers, NGOs, and businesses.
This alignment of research excellence with international sustainability priorities positions ESILV and DVRC as active contributors to technological innovation with societal relevance.
Learn more about ESILV’s research strategy
This post was last modified on 23 September 2025 5:02 pm