About the Aporta Initiative

Raising awareness

Awareness actions associated with the Aporta Initiative seek to encourage the opening of quality information and the re-use of public and private data in order to develop advanced data-based services.

Actions for raising awareness are a cornerstone of the Aporta Initiative. These actions follow the Communication strategy.

The objectives are as follows:

• Generate relationships between agents of the national and international open data ecosystem.
• Raise awareness on the value of public data and their re-use, covering sectors in which data-based innovation is a key element.
• Guide publishers and reusers on what they need to do to contribute to the success of their data-based actions.
• Identify business models, re-use companies, success stories, start-ups, etc. to favour the extrapolation of successful practices.
• Improve recognition of the efforts of the public sector at national level by making data generated by its activity available to society.
• Position the Aporta Initiative as a benchmark leader in communicating the re-use of public sector information nationwide.

Various actions are carried out to meet these objectives:

• The datos.gob.es platform offers the latest news, developments in innovation with data, outstanding projects in the form of applications or re-use companies, materials and reference guides, and reports on new trends and challenges in the world of data.
• Regular participation in meetings, conferences and round tables, organised by the Initiative team and by third parties.
• Regular awareness and training sessions run by the Initiative or through specific training institutions.

Additionally, the latest news and progress in the field - both national and international - is published via the profiles created for the initiative on the social media Twitter (@datosgob) and LinkedIn.

National Catalogue and support

The National Catalogue, stored at datos.gob.es, is the meeting point for administrations, businesses and citizens interested in opening up public information and developing advanced data-based services.

The National Catalogue of open data is the flagship of the datos.gob.es platform.

• It is a single access point to data offered by the Spanish public administration for re-use.
• It increases visibility and facilitates access to datasets published in Spanish local and regional catalogues.
• Thanks to its convergence with European standards, it is a single communication channel with the European data portal.
• It offers multiple mechanisms for locating and accessing data of interest: free text search, filters, web services (API+SPARQL point), mass downloads…
• The National Catalogue is complemented by numerous services including:
  • Methods for facilitating the publication and description of data, both manually and automatically.
  • A one-stop window service for users to request data of interest.
  • Mechanisms for interacting with users to publicise new products and businesses developed using open data as their basis.

In order to facilitation interaction with the different target publics, the Aporta Initiative offers a permanent advice and support service.

Analysis and statistics

The Aporta Initiative monitors data-related activity in Spain and regularly reports on that activity:

• Via the National Telecommunications and Information Society Watchdog (ONTSI), an  Infomediary Sector Characterisation Study is drawn up on a regular basis to identify and classify business activity based on products and/or services that re-use public sector information in Spain. The report considers both companies set up specifically for this purpose and those that have a specific department for the development of data-based products.
• Open data initiatives in Spain are publicised through the  Map of open data initiatives in Spain, where existing open data projects in Spain and their characteristics can be consulted, and which facilitates access to each of their websites.
• Participation in international questionnaires that offer a comprehensive view of the opening and re-use of public sector information in Spain.
• An applications catalogue  and a  catalogue of companies  providing data management and analysis services are permanently enriched; they are presented as proof of the diverse existing offer.

National cooperation

National cooperation actions are key for achieving greater progress and impact in opening and reusing public sector information, adapting to the various relevant agents, as referred to in the Aporta Initiative Governance model .

In the case of the Autonomous Regions, we must specifically consider the various mechanisms for cooperation between administrations established to date, such as Sector conferences and their work groups.

Specific informal cooperation groups have also been created to make public sector information opening and re-use more dynamic, according to common interests in the public sector as well as the private sector.

Moreover, bilateral collaboration agreements are established with entities of particular interest for the Aporta Initiative activities. The activities and results of these agreements are included in the Aporta Initiative.

Collaboration with the private sector , is reinforced, focusing especially on prioritising actions for a greater impact in opening public sector information with an expert work group offering consultancy.

Regulation

The regulatory framework is an important part of the context needed for effectively opening and reusing public sector information.

For this purpose, entities participating in the Aporta Initiative contribute to establishing regulations in Spain that are favourable for achieving full, easy access to quality public sector information, focusing on more priority information and dynamic information so as to foster innovation and the creation of new data-based products and services to benefit citizens.

Specific regulations promote at any time by Aporta Initiative member entities are detailed in the National open data policy, and are the result of the following actions: 

• Participating in preparing European Union directives
• Preparing and processing laws, particularly laws to transpose European directives
• Preparing Royal Decrees for the national public sector
• Preparing other technical regulations, such as technical interoperability regulations

International cooperation

In addition to national cooperation, effective international cooperation is also important.

Aporta Initiative entities cooperate to take part and monitor the re-use of public sector information at international level. In this sense, the following groups are considered, among others:

• European Commission Public Sector Information Group
• OECD Open Government Data Group
• European Data Portal Groups

Innovation

Supporting innovation to generate new data-based products and services is an essential element to ensure a greater end impact of opening public sector information, from both an economic and a social perspective.

Actions to support innovation developed under the Aporta Initiative are designed for any area of the data value chain: from organising and approaching opening and making data available, to data processing, and models for the subsequent offer of products and services.

In terms of supporting innovation, data management-viewing systems, advanced tools to support data-based decisions, artificial intelligence systems, natural language processing techniques are deemed of particular interest, among others.

The Aporta Initiative has been working in various fields, such as:

• Open competitions of ideas for innovation, through the Aporta Challenges
• Prizes for innovative ideas and projects: Aporta Awards
• Dissemination of developments related to disruptive technologies and data: Innovation blog