MIMs Plus Technical Specifications version 4.0 Final draft released

The MIMs Plus Technical Specifications version 4.0 final draft is now available for comment until 6 August. The draft was first published on 23 June and discussed at the Living-in.EU Tech Sub Group meeting on 28  June.

Open & Agile Smart Cities (OASC) leads the development of the MIMs Plus, through the Living-in.EU Technical Sub Group coordinated by OASC Chair Martin Brynskov. MIMs Plus are based on the ten OASC MIMs, five of which were progressed and another five adopted at the OASC Council of Cities meeting on 16 June.

Minimal Interoperability Mechanisms (MIMs) are the minimal but sufficient capabilities needed to achieve interoperability of data, systems, and services between buyers, suppliers and regulators across governance levels around the world. Because the mechanisms are based on an inclusive list of baselines and references, they take into account the different backgrounds of cities and communities and allow cities to achieve interoperability based on a minimal common ground.

Implementation can be different, as long as crucial interoperability points in any given technical architecture use the same interoperability mechanisms. The MIMs are vendor neutral and technology agnostic, meaning that anybody can use them and integrate them in existing systems and offerings, complementing existing standards and technologies.

MIMs Plus consists of the OASC MIMs and relevant European initiatives and specifications (Plus), such as EIF4SCC, ISA2, CEF, INSPIRE, EIP-SCC, ELISA, LORDI, DIGISER, and others. Minimal interoperability requires further integration based on local priorities and legacy, so governments and other stakeholders can add their preferred technical stacks, tools and management standards into operations and development, with an open-ended baseline that can evolve as needs arise.

The final draft of the MIMs Plus Technical Specification version 4.0 includes:

• an updated list of the OASC MIMs, as approved by the OASC Council of Cities on 16 June 2021;
• input from JRC aligning OASC MIM7: Geospatial information management (Places) with the INSPIRE directive, which aims to create a European Union spatial data infrastructure to support the crafting of EU environmental policies and policies or activities which may have an impact on the environment;
• input from OASC Sweden and the Swedish Living-in.EU signatories on ten principles supporting municipalities with IoT implementation (to be incorporated in deeper detail in the version 5.0 of the document). 

Input to the final draft via email to cornelia@oascities.org are welcome until 6 August. The MIMs Plus Technical Specifications version 4.0 (stable) will be released on 9 August on the Living-in.EU website.

The next iteration of the MIMs Plus Technical Specifications (version 5.0), planned for Q4 2021, will incorporate wider structural changes to the document format to better present MIMs Plus.