Independent Consultancy - Technical Planning and Coordination

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for an Independent Consultancy – Technical Planning and Coordination based in Netherlands. This consultancy offers an opportunity to shape the future of open energy data by coordinating the development of a shared, interoperable data infrastructure across five mission-driven organizations. You will lead a 12-month foundational planning phase, bringing together technical experts, data leaders, and stakeholders to establish a common vision, technical standards, and governance framework. The role combines data architecture, technical project management, stakeholder facilitation, and strategic planning in an international, collaborative environment. You will assess existing datasets and systems, identify opportunities for integration, and develop practical recommendations for a scalable, open-source energy intelligence platform. A key focus will be improving data quality, traceability, interoperability, and accessibility for researchers, policymakers, and other users. You will also explore how trusted, well-documented energy data can better support AI-powered research and information systems. The assignment will culminate in a jointly developed technical and governance roadmap that lays the groundwork for the next phase of an ambitious open energy data initiative. Accountabilities - Consortium coordination and stakeholder engagement: Facilitate collaboration across five partner organizations by preparing meeting agendas, guiding technical discussions, documenting decisions, and building consensus among stakeholders with different priorities and working practices. - Needs assessment and user research: Interview data leads to assess existing datasets, systems, workflows, and user requirements. Help define priority audiences, use cases, access patterns, and the tools and assurances required by different user groups. - Technical project management: Develop and maintain an integrated workplan covering milestones, dependencies, responsibilities, and deliverables.

Monitor progress, manage risks and action items, and coordinate regularly with the consortium's secretariat and technical leadership. - Data mapping and interoperability: Create a centralized inventory of datasets, data collection tools, and internal data assets across participating organizations. Identify gaps, overlaps, and opportunities to improve integration and reuse. - Standards and documentation: Develop proposals for shared data schemas, identifiers, metadata standards, validation processes, and machine-readable documentation. Establish a framework for linking records across organizations through jointly governed identifiers and crosswalks. - Platform architecture and technical recommendations: Evaluate hosted, federated, and hybrid architecture options, taking into account different data products, version control, data provenance, reproducibility, and integration requirements. Recommend shared protocols and a practical technical architecture. - Data hub proof of concept: Define the requirements and scope of a limited proof of concept demonstrating how a shared platform could serve selected user groups. Coordinate the handover of requirements and assess the resulting prototype, which will be developed by external data engineering contractors. - AI-ready energy data strategy: Contribute to approaches for making trusted energy datasets accessible and discoverable by AI systems, including through structured metadata, APIs, and other machine-readable interfaces. Support knowledge exchange on AI-assisted research methods. - Roadmap development and reporting: Co-author the consortium's final plan with participating organizations, producing an implementation-ready technical and governance roadmap for the next phase. Deliver regular progress reports, meeting documentation, and agreed technical deliverables.