About Us

The Heliophysics Integrated Observatory is a Research Infrastructures that addresses the needs of the Heliophysics community. It provides integrated access to observations from all the domains that constitute Heliophysics and accommodates differences in the way the domains describe and handle data.

HELIO's infrastructure is designed around a Service-Oriented Architecture with the required capabilities implemented as a set of services that can be used independently or in combination. The services have been implemented by different partners or groups of partners, each bringing their espertise in particular areas – see the Consortium

HELIO was funded under the Capacities Specific Programme of the European Commission's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7; Grant No. 238969); the project started on 1 June 2009 and had a duration of 42 months.

The initial infrastructure was based on capabilities developed within the European Grid of Solar Observations (EGSO); this was a project funded under EC's Fifth Framework Programme (FP5) that involved several of the HELIO partners. The capabilities were extended to address observations from all the disciplines of heliophysics; differences in the way the domains describe and handle the data were resolved using semantic-mapping techniques based on an ontology built from data models that exist in the domains.

The capabilities of HELIO are an integral part of a worldwide effort to integrate heliophysics data. The project has coordinated closely with international organisations such as the IVOA in order to exploit synergies with complementary domains.

 
Last updated: 21st April 2015