systEmic Standardisation apPRoach to Empower Smart citieS and cOmmunities (ESPRESSO) focuses on the development of a conceptual Smart Cities Information Framework, which consists of a Smart City platform (the so-called Smart City enterprise application) and a number of data provision and processing services to integrate data, workflows, and processes in applications relevant for Smart Cities within a common framework. To build this framework, the project will identify relevant open standards, technologies, and information models that are currently in use or in development in the various sectors. It analyzes potential issues caused by gaps and overlaps across standards developed by the various standardization organizations and provides guidelines on how to effectively solve those issues. Particular emphasize will be put on common denominators in order to eventually allow for horizontal interoperability between the various sectors of a smart city. Though horizontal interoperability is out of scope for this project, emphasizing integration reference models as a key common denominator (e.g. in the form of multi-dimensional city models) already defines essential parts of the foundation for future levels of interoperability.