UCL’s Geographical Information Science (GIScience) research group is one of the strongest in Europe, en- compassing the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA), the Jill Dando Institute for Crime Science and fundamental research topics such as ontologies, spatio-temporal data mining and usability in the GIScience group of the department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering. UCL established the Chorley Insti- tute (under the directorship of Dr. Haklay) in 2005 to foster cross-disciplinary GIScience research.

A number of participatory GIS projects have been carried out in the Chorley Institute UCL, including devel- opment of the London Green Map, an ongoing Environmental Justice project and the Mapping Change for Sustainable Communities project in which a collaborative web-based mapping system has been developed to allow communities in London, to monitor development changes in their neighbourhood. The system is based on a Google Maps and OpenStreetMap Mashup and includes a location aware SMS service that alerts resi- dences to events in their area. Activities include collaborative noise mapping whereby UCL provides the local community standard noise meters and information sheets on which they are asked to collect the meter read- ings, together with affective information (feeling, notions of nuisance). The outcome of this activity is maps that present regulatory noise levels combined with affective interpretation of the sounds.

A second area of activity that bares direct relevance to EveryAware is the focus on usability engineering and technical design of software for community projects. Dr. Haklay has working on evaluation of geographical software and mobile devices, and this will assist in the development of websites and mobile interfaces that are community focused and understandable by non-expert users, allowing sensor data to be easily intepreted. Dr Haklay has recently published the first dedicated textbook on interaction aspects of geospatial technologies.