The application of new techniques aimed at extracting value from data has become a reality in the current environment, accelerating its transformation into knowledge for decision making. Therefore, it is common to focus on the exploitation of data as an indispensable part of its management, arising linked to the concept of its exploitation the concept of data space, enabling its sharing, involving both the private sector and the different public agencies, whether local, national or international.

A data space is an ecosystem where the voluntary sharing of its participants' data materializes within an environment of sovereignty, trust and security, established through integrated governance, organizational, regulatory and technical mechanisms. The concept of sovereignty is key, understood as the ability of a participant to maintain control over its own data, expressing the terms and conditions that will govern its permitted uses.

What is Gaia - X?

In this context, the Gaia-X initiative was born, a European private sector initiative for the creation of an open, federated and interoperable data infrastructure, built on the values of digital sovereignty and data availability, and the promotion of the Data Economy. The challenge is to establish an ecosystem in which data from European entities are available and shared in a trusted and managed environment according to European principles of decentralization, openness, transparency, sovereignty and interoperability.

Gaia-X aims to develop a federation of cloud data services, enabling cooperation and data sharing between companies and organizations across the European Union independently of infrastructure providers. Gaia-X defines the technical concepts, as well as the governance, for the interoperability of datasets and data infrastructures, assuming the role of orchestrator, mediating between data providers and data consumers via the federated services, and creating a physical decoupling between the data layer and the infrastructure layer.

From the origins

The Gaia-X initiative began to see the light of day in October 2019, when the French and German ministries of economic affairs presented the project. Since then, its growth has been exponential. At the end of 2020, a summit was held, leading to the founding of the Gaia-X association AISBL in January 2021. During that year, Gaia-X is defined as a brand, as well as the first versions of its services. Among its objectives is the development of common standards, best practices, tools, as well as governance mechanisms.

Gaia-X currently has 324 members around the world. Companies, associations, research institutions, administrations and politicians have joined forces to work together in the initiative. The 22 founding members are divided between France and Germany, where organizations such as Amadeus, Atos, OVH, Orange Business Services, Siemens, IDS, SAP SE and Deustche Telekom stand out. However, these 22 have been joined over the years by private and public organizations from Asia (China, India, Japan, Singapore, Qatar, Korea), the USA and mainly Europe (Austria, Belgium, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Poland, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK).

In Spain, in mid-2021, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, through the Secretary of State for Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence, promotes the creation of the Gaia-X national hub, an organizational initiative whose objective is to accelerate European capacity in industrial/sectoral data sharing and digital sovereignty, contributing to generate the common European infrastructure, through the launch of a manifesto of interest whose response from private sector companies was overwhelming.

In this way, Spain also joins the Government Advisory Board of Gaia-X, the European partnership to accelerate the response to data sharing. The Spanish Gaia-X Hub seeks that companies of all sizes create community around data, serving to develop and implement innovative solutions based on data and Artificial Intelligence, which boost national competitiveness, paying special attention to SMEs and micro-SMEs. Thus, it is proposed the creation of data spaces in the different productive sectors, interoperable with European spaces and without interfering in other spaces that the industry has planned to develop.

The data economy in Spain

This project aims to contribute to the economic growth of our country. According to the European Data Market study, the data economy in Spain had in 2019 a value equivalent to 2.5% of the national GDP, and it is estimated that by 2025, this value will represent more than 4% of the Spanish GDP, provided that the appropriate legal, political and financing environment is created, which highlights the importance of data in the economy.

Spain's commitment to the data economy is part of the Digital Spain 2025 strategy, which highlights the need to support the digitization of key sectors for the economy, such as tourism and healthcare in particular, but also others such as mobility, the agri-food sector and e-commerce.

Conclusions

Data are the focus of the major transformations taking place in today's environment as a result of the application of new digital technologies. For this reason, no digital economy will be able to consolidate and compete globally without a strong data economy.

The European strategy aims to create a single European data market, open to data from all over the world, in which personal and non-personal data, including sensitive business data, is secure and businesses have access to high-quality industrial data in a way that drives growth and creates value. Through the associated rules and mechanisms, the aim is to ensure that data can flow, European standards and values are fully respected, and the rules for data access and use are fair, practical and clear.

Data spaces in general, and initiatives such as Gaia-X in particular, are key elements in achieving the objectives of the European strategy, serving to foster ecosystems that create new products and services based on more accessible data.

Content prepared by Juan Mañes, expert in Data Governance, with contributions from the Data Office.

The contents and views expressed in this publication are the sole responsibility of the author.

7 February 2022 was the date chosen for the launch of the sixth edition of the EU Datathon. Organised by the Publications Office of the European Union, this competition aims to raise awareness of the value of open data and showcase the opportunities for data-driven business models.

EU Datathon 2022 gives participants the opportunity to gain international visibility for their innovative ideas based on open data, as well as compete for a total prize fund of €200,000.

4 challenges available

Unlike the 2021 edition, which presented 3 challenges, this EU Datathon 2022 has 4 challenges to solve:

• Challenge 1: 'The European Green Deal'. The European Green Deal is the blueprint for a modern, sustainable and competitive European economy. Participants in this challenge must develop applications or services aimed at creating a greener Europe, for example to boost resource efficiency or reduce pollution.
• Challenge 2: 'Transparency in public procurement'. Transparency in public procurement helps to track how public money is spent, to fight fraud and to analyse economic and market trends. Therefore, this challenge invites developers to explore the wealth of information available and develop an application to expose it in a transparent way.
• Challenge 3: 'EU public procurement opportunities for young people'. Public procurement is often perceived as a complex field, where only specialists feel comfortable finding the information they need. This challenge invites developers to propose, for example, apps that help young people to easily find the information they need when applying for public procurement positions.
• Challenge 4: 'A Europe fit for the digital age'. The EU aims for a digital transformation that works for people and businesses. This challenge therefore drives the creation of applications or services that improve data literacy, increase connectivity or make data more understandable for all, based on the European Data Strategy.

How to participate?

Participants must submit an idea for an application that links and uses open datasets to address one of the four challenges above. Importantly, at least one of the datasets used to develop the idea must come from the datasets available on data.europa.eu.

In addition, participants opting for challenges 2 or 3 must use at least one dataset published by the EU Tender Electronic Daily (TED).

Who can participate?

The EU Datathon 2022 is aimed at citizens from all over the world interested in prototyping products based on public open data and even developing new business models, for-profit or not-for-profit, through the exploration of such data.

Participation is open to individuals or legal entities, in teams of one to four members. However, staff working in the institutions, agencies and bodies associated with or contracted by the EU Publications Office are not eligible to apply.

How does the competition unfold?

Participating teams must register their proposal via this form by 31 March 2022 at 23:59 CET (Central European Time). After the registration deadline, the competition will run in 2 phases:

1.Pre-selection

The jury, composed of experts from within and outside the EU institutions and agencies, will evaluate the registered proposals on the basis of a number of criteria such as the relevance of the selected challenge or the potential and creativity of the proposed solution.

For each challenge, the 6 highest scoring teams will be shortlisted. All participating teams will be notified of the results on 25 April 2022.

2.Fase final

The 24 shortlisted teams (6 per challenge) will be invited to turn their proposals into applications. Each team will have to produce and email a 60-second video presenting their app and the team working on it by 15 August 2022.

The final of the competition will take place on 20 October. The applications submitted in each challenge will be evaluated by a jury of experts. In addition to the relevance of the proposal, the open data used (economic and social potential, interoperability with other data sources, etc.) and fit for purpose (maturity of the product, benefits offered, etc.) will be taken into account.

What is the prize money?

This year, the total prize money increases considerably to 200,000 euros, which will be divided for each challenge as follows:

• First place: 25,000 euros
• Second place: EUR 15,000
• Third place: 7,000 euros

From datos.gob.es we invite you to submit your proposal. Remember that if you need inspiration, you can take as a reference CleanSpot, the Spanish company that managed to be a finalist in the EU Datathon 2021, winning second place in its challenge.

You also have at your disposal the information about the winning projects of all the editions of the Aporta Challenge, which, like the EU Datathon, seeks to reward ideas and prototypes based on open data that drive improvements in specific sectors of activity. The first year the focus was on the public sector, the second on the agri-food, forestry and rural sectors, and the third on education. The call for participants for the fourth edition, focusing on the field of health and well-being, has just closed.

Good luck to all participants!

The first EU Open Data Days took place from November 23rd to 25th in online format, organized by the Publications Office of the European Union. During 3 days, the open data community was able to learn from experts and professionals from various sectors about the innovations, challenges and opportunities facing the open data ecosystem.

The event, which included Spanish participation, was divided into two parts. During the first two days, the international conference EU DataViz 2021 was held, focused on sharing experiences and best practices in the field of open data and data visualizations. The last day was dedicated to the final of the EU Datathon 2021, an annual competition that seeks to showcase business models linked to the reuse of open data.

EU DataViz 2021: Keynote speakers to highlight the importance of open data

The conference was opened by Hilde Hardeman, the newly appointed Director-General of the Publications Office.

The first day focused on open data as a key driver of digital transformation. Speakers included Xavier Bettel, Prime Minister of Luxembourg, who highlighted the priority that the government of Luxembourg gave to digital transformation, and Yvo Volman of the European Commission, who presented the EU's perspective on open data and its plans to build a European single market for data, highlighting four pillars:

• A cross-sector governance framework promoting access to and use of data, including the legislative arena.
• The investment of between €4 billion and €6 billion for high-impact projects related to federated data spaces and cloud infrastructures.
• The boosting of digital and data skills, especially in SMEs.
• The deployment of common data spaces in crucial sectors and sectors of public interest.

After presentations by representatives of the European Data Portal and The Govlab, the specialized sessions began, where topics ranging from interoperability and accessibility of EU open data to the creation of open data ecosystems were addressed. The Spanish note was set by Antonio Ibáñez, Head of Transparency and Reuse of Information of Castilla y León, and Nuria Oliver, Co-Founder and Vice-President of ELLIS - European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems-, with two presentations focused on data provision during the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Antonio Ibañez explained the challenges faced by the Castilla y León health service in providing complete and clear information, highlighting the complexity of the data and the need to update it constantly. As a result of their work, 1.6 million records were created and made available to the public through 34 datasets and various visualizations and interactive dashboards.
• For her part, Nuria Oliver spoke about Valencia's experience in using data science in the fight against COVID-19. The objective was to make informed decisions based on available information. To this end, different data sources were used, ranging from health data (cases, hospitalizations, etc.), mobile data that allowed estimates of population density and movements, and data from citizen surveys, among others. Epidemiological and predictive models were developed and used as the basis for policy decisions.

The first day's session was closed by Pascal Leardini, Deputy Secretary-General and Chief Operating Officer of the European Commission.

The second day of presentations focused on data visualization. Boštjan Koritnik, Minister of Public Administration of Slovenia, representing the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, opened the day.  Sixtine Bouygues of the European Commission highlighted the benefits and challenges of data visualization for EU administration, and Valérie Saintot of the European Central Bank focused on data visualization as a vector for innovation. Finally, Jonathan Schwabish of the Urban Institute spoke about the importance of applying diverse, equitable and inclusive awareness to data visualization.

Specialized sessions inspired discussions on data visualization as a tool for discovering new insights through storytelling. Internationally successful data visualization projects in fields such as finance or transportation were also explored.

The second day was closed by Paul Hofheinz, president and co-founder of The Lisbon Council, ASBL.

EU Datathon 2021: Spanish company CleanSpot wins second prize

The Open Data Days closed with the final of the EU Datathon. Nine teams had reached the final, selected from nearly 100 proposals from 33 countries, which had to create a mobile or web application using open datasets. The finalists were divided into three categories, aligned with the European Commission's policy priorities:

• Challenge 1: 'A European Green Deal', focusing on the European Green Deal and boosting sustainability.
• Challenge 2: 'An economy that works for people', focused on creating a fairer economic union, enabling economic growth while reducing poverty and inequality.
• Challenge 3: 'A Europe fit for the digital age', which seeks improvements in data-related skills and the European data strategy.

Prior to the final, the teams presented their ideas in a series of videos. In his opening speech, Commissioner Johannes Hahn praised the teams' innovative approaches and solutions to help Europe address its key challenges.

A jury of 18 data specialists chaired by Per Nymand-Andersen of the European Central Bank selected the winners of each challenge. Spanish company CleanSpot won second prize in the 'A European Green Deal' category for its app to raise awareness and incentivize recycling through gamification.

Cleanspot also won the second prize from the public, demonstrating the interest of citizens in this type of solutions.

You can see the rest of the winners here.

The awards ceremony ended the first EU Open Data Days, whose success was evidenced by the more than 2,000 registrations received.

If you were unable to attend, you can watch the videos of all the presentations and participations that made up the three days at this link.

For the seventh consecutive year, the European Data Portal has presented its Open Data Maturity assessment. This is a report that analyses a series of indicators to measure the maturity of open data across Europe, in order to understand the progress of each country, make comparisons and find areas for improvement.

This year, Spain ranks third with a score of 95%, 14 points above the European average (81%). First place goes to France (98%), followed by Ireland (also with 95%).

Spain, above the European average in all the analyzed categories

As every year, the report measures 4 categories:

• Policy, focusing on the existence of specific policies and strategies to promote open data at the national level.
• Impact, which analyzes activities to monitor and measure the reuse of open data.
• Portal, which evaluates the existing functions in the national platform (in the case of our country, datos.gob.es) to access open data and interact with the community.
• Quality, which studies the mechanisms that guarantee the quality of (meta)data.

Spain is ahead of Europe in all categories:

In total, Spain's score has increased by one percentage point compared to 2020, when it stood at 94%. It stands out especially in the impact category, where it is in first position with 100% of the score. The report highlights how the Aporta Initiative conducts an annual national survey to ascertain the control over the use of data by the various national, regional and local public bodies. It also highlights the collaborations that the institutions carry out with universities, such as the agreement adopted by the Valencian Government with all public universities in the Community to work together in training and research activities related to transparency and open data.

Our country continues in the group of open data prescribers

As part of the analysis, the European Portal groups all participating countries into four groups based on the assessment of open data maturity during 2021. With its score, Spain continues to place itself in the leading group of open data in Europe, called trend-setters. The group with the best results is completed by France, Ireland, Poland, Estonia and Ukraine.

These countries are characterized by an advanced open data policy and a platform with a wide range of functions to meet the needs of advanced users and publishers. They are also countries where there are initiatives to ensure the publication of high-quality data and compliance with the DCAT-AP European open data cataloging profile, and where communities around data reuse are in place. Finally, it is highlighted that there are established methodologies in place to assess the impact of data in the different domains.

Europe's average score rises

In 2021, the average score relating to open data maturity of EU27 countries is 81%, an increase of three percentage points compared to 2020.

The report highlights three trends observed in all the countries analysed:

• Member States are updating their policies to transpose the Open Data Directive into their national legislation. More and more countries are carrying out the transposition process. In the case of Spain, it was included in the Royal Decree-Law 24/2021, approved last December 2 by the Congress. It is worth mentioning that the Open Data Directive still requires the adoption of a future implementing regulation by the European Commission, where the list of high-value datasets to be provided free of charge through APIs is included.
• Understanding, monitoring and measuring the impact of open data is becoming more important. The impact dimension has seen the most growth in the last year, while the quality indicator is the least mature. In recent years, impact has been measured mainly through activities such as maintaining records of data downloads or creating lists of use cases. This year there has been a clear trend towards in-depth studies, such as desk research or surveys, to quantify and verify the impact of open data.
• The COVID-19 pandemic continues to highlight the value and impact of open data.  Last year, the health situation led to highlight the importance of systematically collecting data and making it available to the public in an up-to-date manner. This year, the available data is complemented by statistics related to vaccination.

Future recommendations

The report ends with a series of recommendations for each group of countries. In the case of prescribers, a group that includes Spain, some issues are highlighted, such as continuing to develop thematic communities of providers and reusers, giving priority to the high-value data categories highlighted in the Open Data Directive. In this sense, Spain is moving forward with the creation of specific hubs for various sectors such as tourism or health.

Other examples of recommendations are to collaborate with other national and international teams to develop an experimental impact assessment framework and with academic institutions to provide advanced courses and training on open data.

You can see the full report here and the Spain report here.

96 ideas from 33 countries. Those have been the proposals presented to the UE Datathon 2021, a competition organized by the Publications Office and the Presidency of the Council of the European Union to promote the use of open data as a basis for new ideas, innovative products and services.

Proposals could be submitted to three different categories: “A European Green Deal”, focused on promoting sustainability, “An economy that works for people”, focused on reducing poverty and inequality, and “A Europe fit for the digital age ”, which seeks improvements in competencies related to data and european strategy in the matter.

For each of these categories the jury has chosen 3 finalists.

CleanSpot, the Spanish presence in the contest

There were 12 proposals from Spanish teams for the EU Datathon 2021, one of them, CleanSpot, has achieved a place in the final, within the “A European Green Deal” category.

CleanSpot is an app that seeks to promote awareness and incentive of recycling through gamification. The app allows you to locate recycling and reuse points, such as clean points, specialized containers or collection services and centers. The novelty is that it also allows calculating the CO2 that each user avoids emitting into the atmosphere by performing a daily action such as throwing waste into the corresponding recycling container or donating it for reuse. Users can share their results and thus show the community how much they have reduced their carbon footprint, contributing to caring for the environment.

The users with the best score in the ranking receive prizes and recognition. In addition, each time the user goes to a collection or recycling point to deposit their waste, they accumulate points, which can be exchanged for discounts on municipal taxes, savings checks in local businesses or direct payments.

In addition, the app allows you to save favorite locations or services, and gives the option of receiving notifications, for example, reminders about the passage of the mobile clean point - for this service to be available in a specific municipality, prior integration is necessary -. It also allows the generation of awareness campaigns, with advice on recycling or information on specific actions in each area.

Finalists from 8 different countries

This year, the presence of finalists from multiple territories stands out. Only Italy repeats with three teams, one shared with France.

• In the category of “A European Green Deal”, CleanSpot will face each other with FROG2G, from Montenegro, and The Carbons, from India. FROG2G is an interactive visualization tool, created to offer a viable model to make Europe greener, while The Carbons allows you to compare the greenhouse gases that are emitted, for example, when you have a cup of coffee or take a drive.
• In the category "An economy that works for people", we find CityScale, from Ukraine, a tool to visualize, compare and find the best place to live; ITER IDEA, from Italy, a portal that facilitates the mobility of women in Europe; and PowerToYEUth, from Portugal, focused on locating public funding for SMEs and promoting youth employment.
• Finally, in the category “A Europe fit for the digital age”, the finalists are Democracy Game, from Greece, a virtual debate tool; TrackmyEU, from Italy and France, which makes it possible to explore EU policies, follow topics of interest and make the voice of the citizenry heard in Brussels; and VislmE-360, also from Italy, which offers a 360ᵒ view of visual impairments in the EU.

Next steps

The nine finalist teams have 5 months to develop their proposals, from June to November. Proposals will be evaluated by a jury of experts, based on criteria such as lThe open data used and the fitness for purpose. The winner will receive € 18,000, while the second and third will receive € 10,000 and € 5,000 respectively.

The award ceremony will be on November 25, 2021, within the framework of the EU Open Data Days, an event that this year has its first edition. In this event, aimed at push the use of open data in Europe to generate value, we will be able to see the various opportunities and business models offered by the reuse of public information.

The year 2021 is undoubtedly a crucial period for the definitive progress in a regulatory and institutional framework that will enable the promotion of data strategies at both national and European level. As regards the latter, as has been advanced through various media, the main initiative refers to the foreseeable approval of a new data governance framework already announced with the draft Regulation made public in November 2020. As can be seen in this outline, this regulation is set to become one of the cornerstones of European policy on open data.

As a basis for the proposal for a Regulation on data governance, an impact assessment has been carried out beforehand, which has considered various analytical criteria, in addition to assessing the cost-benefit ratio of each of the measures envisaged. Specifically, the impact assessment identified several regulatory options of varying intensity in relation to the four main challenges identified:

• Identifying mechanisms to improve the re-use of public sector data
• Promoting trust in intermediaries
• Facilitating the transfer of data for altruistic purposes
• Fostering horizontal aspects of governance.

The evaluation found that there are barriers related to difficulties in accessing data, mostly related to technical aspects and data quality, but other barriers are also highlighted, such as those related to denial of access or the setting of unfair or prohibitive conditions, both financial and otherwise.

Throughout the process of preparing the impact assessment, evidence has been gathered through different and complementary methodologies, such as case studies and workshops on the possible existence of third-party rights hindering re-use and on governance structures; market studies on the role of intermediaries; and legal analysis, in particular on altruism in the release of data.

The different regulatory options considered ranged from no general measures at all (although they could be considered in relation to specific sectoral areas or, where appropriate, by Member States), to high/low intensity regulatory measures, without ruling out simple coordination based on guidelines and recommendations.

What were the different regulatory options envisaged in each of the above areas and why have some been prioritised over others?

Mechanisms to improve the re-use of public sector data

As a low-intensity measure - finally chosen - it was envisaged that Member States should establish a one-stop shop that would allow re-users to contact public sector bodies and even offer them advice, in particular to facilitate the re-use of publicly owned data subject to third party rights under certain conditions. The more demanding option, which was discarded in the final proposal, was instead to oblige them to set up a single body with decision-making powers, although this would entail significant legal and institutional challenges and more rigidity.

Promoting trust in intermediaries

In this respect, the approach is to seek to strengthen the role of intermediaries in fostering reliable data exchange systems both in business-to-business (B2B) and consumer-to-business (C2B) scenarios. In particular, while the less intensive alternative focused on an EU-wide voluntary labelling/certification scheme for such intermediaries, the more demanding option would have been to make such schemes mandatory. The major difficulties relating to the lack of an appropriate industry forum for the development of such a model and the difficulties in setting neutrality criteria, as well as the risk of fragmentation, led the draft Regulation to incorporate the first of the alternatives.

Facilitating the transfer of data for altruistic purposes

In relation to this objective, the aim was to ensure the availability of more data for the common good by increasing trust in systems inspired by altruism in the provision of data. Thus, a choice was made between requiring States to establish voluntary certification schemes for the implementation of data altruism mechanisms and/or for the entities that offer them or, on the contrary, opting for a model based on the need to have an authorisation to carry out such activities. This authorisation, granted by a public authority in advance and valid in the rest of the Member States, would aim at verifying whether the requirements laid down by law are actually met. The latter alternative was finally chosen in order to strengthen confidence in such entities and arrangements.

Fostering horizontal aspects of governance

The draft Regulation proposes the creation of a formal group of experts - the so-called European Data Innovation Board - in charge of promoting the exchange of national practices and policies based on the information provided by the States themselves, as well as exercising advisory functions, facilitating standardisation and the improvement of interoperability, providing coherence to the proposed governance model as explained in the following image:

However, the creation of a body with its own legal personality was envisaged which, in addition to the above-mentioned functions, would assume the task of supervising the process of granting labels and certifications, as well as the authorisations granted by the Member States. This last alternative was rejected, among other reasons, due to the results of the cost/benefit analysis carried out from the point of view of economic efficiency.

Finally, the document itself envisages a mid-term review mechanism through which to check whether, four years after the entry into force of the Regulation's provisions -three in the case of the objective of strengthening confidence in data sharing- the measures adopted really meet the expected results in terms of a series of specific indicators for each of the objectives and solutions finally proposed. In short, this is an approach that takes on a singular relevance if we consider the dynamism that characterises the data economy, since the regulation proposed with the draft Regulation is destined to be one of the main tools in meeting the objectives formulated in the European Data Strategy.

Content prepared by Julián Valero, professor at the University of Murcia and Coordinator of the Research Group "Innovation, Law and Technology" (iDerTec).

Contents and points of view expressed in this publication are the exclusive responsibility of its author.

More than two years ago we started 2019 very hopeful about the progress that was being made in Spain regarding the openness of data related to transport and mobility, after a few years in which there had not been much progress. Although there is still room for improvement, especially in the availability of open data in real time, the fact that applications in the transport category already represent 20% of the total published on the datos.gob.es portal serves as an indicator of progress in this period.

In these two years, the pace of innovation in everything related to the use of data and artificial intelligence has been accelerated not only by technological progress, but also by a significant legislative impulse, both at European and national level. For example, the new Directive (EU) 2019/1024 considers data related to mobility and transport to be among the six groups declared to be of high value for their considerable benefits to society, the environment and the economy. Therefore, their momentum has been considered in the new mobility strategy.

European framework for mobility data

The European data strategy published in 2020 has among its objectives to create a single data market that ensures Europe's global competitiveness and data sovereignty through the creation of common European data spaces in nine strategic sectors, capable of ensuring that more data are available for use in the economy and society. Actions leading to the development of these data spaces are being channelled through the different strategies that the European Commission is developing to deliver on the priorities set for the period 2019-2024. Some examples already under development are the common manufacturing data space or the common agricultural data space.

As regards transport, in December 2020 the European Commission presented its "Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy" accompanied by an action plan of 82 initiatives for the next 4 years that will contribute to achieving the objectives of the European Green Pact. This strategy lays the groundwork for how the EU transport system must achieve its green and digital transformation to become more resilient to future crises.

Although the role of data is present in most of the points, among the ten key actions there is one that focuses exclusively on the role of data. In Action 7: "Innovation, data and artificial intelligence for smarter mobility", in addition to the objectives related to fostering innovation in general and building adequate digital infrastructures, the following points related to data and artificial intelligence stand out:

• The Commission stresses the need to step up efforts related to data availability, access and exchange in order to make the digital transformation of the transport and mobility sector a reality.
• It recognises that the availability of data and statistics is also essential, especially real-time data, as it enables better services to citizens or transparency of supply chains in freight transport.
• The need to remove barriers such as unclear regulatory conditions, the absence of an EU market for data provision, the lack of an obligation to collect and share data or misgivings about data sovereignty, among others, is highlighted.
• The commitment to propose further actions to build a common European data space for mobility data, set out in the Data Strategy, is developed. This sets the objective of collecting, connecting and making data available to achieve the objectives of sustainability and multimodality.
• Of particular relevance is the commitment that the mobility data space should work in synergy with other key systems such as energy, satellite navigation and telecommunications.
• It deals in a very differentiated way with access to vehicle data where the Commission is committed to present a new initiative on access to vehicle data, through which it will propose a balanced framework to ensure fair and efficient access to vehicle data for mobility service providers.
• The Commission plans to fund research, innovation and deployment of transport solutions based on artificial intelligence through the Horizon Europe and Digital Europe programmes, recognising that artificial intelligence is central to the automation of transport in all its modes. In this context, the Commission will support test and experimentation centres dedicated to AI for smart mobility.

This is certainly a very ambitious set of commitments that must also be compatible with EU data protection rules and ensure a level playing field for data in the value chain, so that innovation can flourish and new business models emerge. Otherwise operators would perceive that the common mobility data space is not secure and reliable for sharing their data and it would be very difficult to meet the ambitious targets that already by 2030 aim for automated mobility to be deployed on a large scale and for multimodal passenger transport to be a reality supported by integrated e-ticketing.

Contenido elaborado por Jose Luis Marín, Senior Consultant in Data, Strategy, Innovation & Digitalization.

The contents and views expressed in this publication are the sole responsibility of the author.

The EU Publications Office has awarded a six-year contract to a consortium including the Ontology Engineering Group of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. The aim of the contract is to continue the development of the European Data Portal and to carry out consultancy and research work leading to the new data.europa.eu service.

data.europa.eu: a single access point for data across Europe

Until now, users wishing to locate public sector data related to Europe or member states had two platforms at their disposal:

• The European Union Open Data Portal (EUOPD), which provides access to data from the European Union institutions and other bodies for commercial or non-commercial use; and
• The European Data Portal (EDP), which federates the metadata of public sector information available in the open data portals of European countries. In the case of Spain, the datasets that the different organisations federate with datos.gob.es are automatically federated with the EDP, increasing their visibility at an international level.

The awarded contract aims, among other objectives, at the development, maintenance, operation and evolution of a pan-European data portal infrastructure combining the two current portals under the name data.europa.eu.This service is expected to act as a single point of access to open datasets made available by different publishers, including EU Member States, EU institutions, regional and local authorities, and possibly also NGOs and other international organisations. It will also integrate the EU web archive and resources with persistent URIs of EU institutions and bodies. In this way, it aims to facilitate the publication and re-use of open data across the region.

Continuing the impulse, analysis and assessment of the European open data ecosystem

The consortium's tasks will include fostering the provision of quality data and metadata, as well as promoting the re-use of public sector information across Europe. It will also continue to support the open data community through various actions such as participation in its own and third party events, the organisation of webinars and the production of news, articles and reports on open data developments, best practices and use cases.

In this sense, the consortium will continue to carry out, among others, two of the key studies that the EDP has been developing, such as the following:

• The Open Data Maturity Assessment in Europe. Every year, the European Data Portal publishes the Open Data Maturity Report, which measures the development achieved in the field of open data in Europe. In recent years, Spain has occupied second place in the maturity ranking, positioning itself as a trend-setter in the field.
• The analysis of the socio-economic impact of open data in Europe. The EDP also periodically produces reports in which the benefits of open data are gathered and its value is measured. In the latest edition in 2020, the size of the open data market was estimated at 184 billion euros and was expected to grow to between 199.51 and 334.21 billion euros by 2025.

3 key pillars

In short, the new portal will be based on three main pillars:

• Access to public data from across Europe through a single point of contact. It will offer more than 1 million datasets from 36 countries, 6 European institutions and 79 European bodies and agencies.
• Support to European institutions and Member States through community building, training and consultancy activities to improve, maintain and document good practice in data publishing. Assistance will be provided to those European countries where it is deemed necessary to improve data availability and enhance portals to foster the re-use of public data in each country and community.
• Evidence of the socio-economic benefits associated with the re-use of public data and incentives to encourage and demonstrate the creation of value and use of such data.

Through these pillars data.europa.eu seeks to support the creation and improvement of processes, products and services that reuse public data resources to create economic, social, political and environmental impact.

More information about the Ontological Engineering Group of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid

The Ontological Engineering Group of the Polytechnic University of Madrid (OEG-UPM) is part of this project through a consortium led by Capgemini Invent, in collaboration with INTRASOFT International, and which also includes other organisations such as Fraunhofer FOKUS, OMMAX, con. terra, 52°North, agiledrop, Timelex, the Lisbon Council, the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, CapGemini Idean and CapGemini Cybersecurity Services.

The OEG-UPM will work together with other consortium members on several of the studies related to the socio-economic impact of open data, the positioning of the future data.europa.eu in the context of the European Data Strategy, the future European Data Spaces and the European Open Science Cloud. It will also collaborate on the homogenisation of data in Europe to boost interoperability and on understanding the role that citizen-generated data can play in this context.

This Group has extensive experience in the area of open data. It leads the Madrid region node of the Open Data Institute and has collaborated in the design of the open data strategy, development and deployment of various open data infrastructures for several public administrations and non-profit organisations (e.g. the National Centre for Geographic Information, the National Library of Spain, the city of Zaragoza or the Regional Transport Consortium of Madrid). He has participated in the development of technical standards such as UNE 178301:2015 on Smart Cities and Open Data, or the series of technical reports and recommendations for the adoption of open data policies for the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces, among other actions.

This new contract with the EU is a great opportunity to give visibility to these and other actions in our country. As Oscar Corcho, who leads the team at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, says, "The work on this six-year contract will allow us to transfer some of our experiences to the future of open data in the European Union and its Member States".

2021 has been the year chosen by the Publications Office of the European Union to organize the first Open Data Days of the European Union. Under the name EU Open Data Days, they will take place from November 23 to 25 with the aim of “promoting the value of open data in Europe and highlighting the opportunities they offer to different business models”. The event, which will be virtual, is made up of two proposals:

• EU Dataviz 2021. On November 23 and 24 there will be a conference program focused on open data and visualizations. This program is currently in the definition phase of the agenda, seeking proposals that contribute to enhancing the digital future of Europe.
• EU Datathon 2021. On November 25, for its part, the final of the EU Datathon 2021 will be held. Through this competition, which is now in its fifth edition, the Publications Office of the European Union seeks to promote the creation of products based on open data, such as mobile or web applications, that offer a response to different challenges related to EU priorities.

The registration period to participate in the EU Dathaton has recently been opened, which will run until May 21 (for more information you can read this article). At the same time, as we anticipated, the deadline has been opened to seek speakers for the EU Dataviz, as we will see below.

Who can submit a proposal to EU Dataviz?

The call is aimed at citizens around the world interested in open data, regardless of the sectors to which they belong: academics, private entities, journalists, data visualization professionals, graphic designers and officials of international organizations, from the EU and national, etc.

Proposals submitted to EU Dataviz 2021 should be oriented towards two specific topics:

• 30-45 minute plenary speeches presenting good practices, new use cases and emerging trends on the development of open data and / or data visualizations.
• Thematic sessions of 45 to 60 minutes (including questions and answers) with a practical approach that show initiatives and results, practices to follow and practical advice.

These sessions will have to be related to the topics included in the two days of presentations.

How will the EU Dataviz 2021 conference program unfold?

The event will be divided into two days, one more focused on open data and the other on visualizations:

Day 1: Open Data - November 23, 2021

During this first day it will be revealed how open data can contribute to the digital future of Europe. The challenges and benefits of data reuse and how to make it interoperable will be discussed, along with related topics such as:

• Open data initiatives that support policy making.
• Use cases and good practices of international, national and regional entities.
• How to improve data quality, interoperability and linked open data.

Day 2: Data Visualization - November 24, 2021

The second day will be dedicated to showing examples and good practices on the presentation of data in an attractive, efficient and ethical way. In addition, the different methods of applying data visualization techniques and some related topics will be discussed, such as:

• State-of-the-art tools and technologies in data visualization
• Emerging trends in data visualization
• Powerful visualization in the age of big data

How are the proposals presented?

To participate it is necessary to fill in this form. The deadline for submitting proposals is May 21.

How will the proposals be chosen?

Proposals received will be evaluated by the EU DataViz 2021 Program Committee, according to 4 criteria.

1. Relevance of the proposal to the EU DataViz Conference, i.e. whether it can be implemented at the EU level to help shape the digital future of the region and improve the lives of its citizens.
2. Clarity and quality of the proposal.
3. Innovative approach or professional experience of the collaborator.
4. Applicability to the EU public sector and / or use of EU or European open data in the proposal.

Each criterion will be valued for a maximum of 25 points each, with 100 being the maximum possible score.

Whether you are a public body that has launched an open data initiative, a company with innovative solutions based on data or a visualization professional, from datos.gob.es we invite you to present your proposal. Good luck to all participants!