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The digital revolution is transforming municipal services, driven by the increasing adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies that also benefit from open data. These developments have the potential to redefine the way municipalities deliver services to their citizens, providing tools to improve efficiency, accessibility and sustainability. This report looks at success stories in the deployment of applications and platforms that seek to improve various aspects of life in municipalities, highlighting their potential to unlock more of the vast untapped potential of open data and associated artificial intelligence technologies.

The applications and platforms described in this report have a high potential for replicability in different municipal contexts, as they address common problems. Replication of these solutions can take place through collaboration between municipalities, companies and developers, as well as through the release and standardisation of open data.

Despite the benefits, the adoption of open data for municipal innovation also presents significant challenges. The quality, updating and standardisation of data published by local authorities, as well as interoperability between different platforms and systems, must be ensured. In addition, the open data culture needs to be reinforced among all actors involved, including citizens, developers, businesses and public administrations themselves.

The use cases analysed are divided into four sections. Each of these sections is described below and some examples of the solutions included in the report are shown.

Transport and Mobility

One of the most significant challenges in urban areas is transport and mobility management. Applications using open data have proven to be effective in improving these services. For example, applications such as Park4Dis make it easy to locate parking spaces for people with reduced mobility, using data from multiple municipalities and contributions from volunteers. CityMapper, which has gone global, on the other hand, offers optimised public transport routes in real time, integrating data from various transport modes to provide the most efficient route. These applications not only improve mobility, but also contribute to sustainability by reducing congestion and carbon emissions.

Environment and Sustainability

Growing awareness of sustainability has spurred the development of applications that promote environmentally friendly practices. CleanSpot, for example, facilitates the location of recycling points and the management of municipal waste. The application encourages citizen participation in cleaning and recycling, contributing to the reduction of the ecological footprint. Liight gamifies sustainable behaviour by rewarding users for actions such as recycling or using public transport. These applications not only improve environmental management, but also educate and motivate citizens to adopt more sustainable habits.

Optimisation of Basic Public Services

Urban service management platforms, such as Gestdropper, use open data to monitor and control urban infrastructure in real time. These tools enable more efficient management of resources such as street lighting, water networks and street furniture, optimising maintenance, incident response and reducing operating costs. Moreover, the deployment of appointment management systems, such as CitaME, helps to reduce waiting times and improve efficiency in customer service.

Citizen Services Aggregators

Applications that centralise public information and services, such as Badajoz Es Más and AppValencia, improve accessibility and communication between administrations and citizens. These platforms provide real-time data on public transport, cultural events, tourism and administrative procedures, making life in the municipality easier for residents and tourists alike. For example, integrating multiple services into a single application improves efficiency and reduces the need for unnecessary travel. These tools also support local economies by promoting cultural events and commercial services.

Conclusions

The use of open data and artificial intelligence technologies is transforming municipal management, improving the efficiency, accessibility and sustainability of public services. The success stories presented in this report describe how these tools can benefit both citizens and public administrations by making cities smarter, more inclusive and sustainable environments, and more responsive to the needs and well-being of their inhabitants and visitors.

Download here the accesible version of the report.

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It seems like only yesterday that we were finishing eating our grapes and welcoming the new year. However, six months have already passed, during which we have witnessed many new developments in the world, in Spain and also in the open data ecosystem.

Join us as we take a look back at some of the most newsworthy open data events that have taken place in our country so far this year.

New regulations to boost open data and its use

During the first weeks of 2024, some legislative advances were made in Europe, applicable in our country. On 11 January, the Data Act came into force, which aims to democratise access to data, stimulate innovation and ensure fair use across Europe's digital landscape. You can learn more about it in this infographic that reviews the most important aspects.

On the other hand, at the national level, we have seen how open data is gaining prominence and its promotion is increasingly taken into account in sectoral regulations. This is the case of the Sustainable Mobility Bill, which, among other issues, includes the promotion of open data for administrations, infrastructure managers and public and private operators.

This is a trend that we had already seen in the last days of 2023 with the validation of Royal Decree-Law 6/2023, of 19 December, approving urgent measures for the implementation of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan for the public service of justice, the civil service, local government and patronage. This Royal Decree-Law includes the general principle of data orientation and emphasises the publication of automatically actionable data in open data portals accessible to citizens. The government's Artificial Intelligence Strategy 2024 also includes references to data held by public bodies. Specifically, it establishes that a common governance model will be created for the data and documentary corpus of the General State Administration in such a way as to guarantee the standards of security, quality, interoperability and reuse of all the data available for the training of models.

In relation to governance, we saw another development at the end of 2023 that has been reflected in 2024:  the adoption of the Standard Ordinance on Data Governance in the Local Entity, approved by the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP in its Spanish acronym). Over the last few months, various local councils have incorporated and adapted this ordinance to their territory. This is the case of Zaragoza or Fuenlabrada.

News on data platforms

In this time, new platforms or tools have also materialised that make data available to citizens and businesses:

• The Government of Spain has created the National Access Point for Traffic and Mobility which includes data on the facilities with electric vehicle charging points, detailing the type of connector, format, charging mode, etc.
• The National Institute of Statistics (INE in its Spanish acronym) has launched a Panel of Environmental Indicators. With it, it will be possible to quantify compliance with environmental targets, such as the Green Deal. It has also created a specific section for high-value data.
• The Statistical Institute of the Balearic Islands (IBESTAT in its Spanish acronym) has revamped its web portal which has a specific section on open data.
• Open Data Euskadi has published a new API that facilitates the reuse of public procurement data from the Basque administration.
• MUFACE (General mutual society of civil servants of the State) has launched a space with historical and current data on choice of entity, health care, etc.
• Some of the local authorities that have launched new data portals include the Diputation of Málaga and the City Council of Lucena (Cordoba).
• The Museo del Prado has set up a virtual tour which allows you to tour the main collections in 360º. It also offers a selection of 89 works digitised in gigapixel.
• Researchers from the University of Seville have collaborated in the launch of the PEPAdb (Prehistoric Europe's Personal Adornment database), an online and accessible tool with data on elements of personal adornment in recent prehistory.

In addition, agreements have been signed to make further progress in opening up data and boosting re-use, demonstrating the commitment to open and interoperable data.

• The INE, the State Tax Administration Agency (AEAT in its Spanish acronym), the Social Security, the Bank of Spain and the State Public Employment Service (SEPE) have signed a agreement to facilitate joint access to databases for research of public interest.
• The councils of Castelldefels, El Prat de Llobregat and Esparreguera have joined the Municipal Territorial Information System (SITMUN) to share geographic information and have access to a transversal information system.
• The Universidad Rey Juan Carlos and ASEDIE, the Multisectorial Association of Information, have joined forces to create the Open Data Reuse Observatory which is born with the vision of catalysing progress and transparency in the infomediary field, highlighting the importance of the data-driven economy.

Boosting the re-use of data

Both the data published previously and those published as a result of this work allow for the development of products and services that bring valuable information to the public. Some recently created examples include:

• The government has launched a tool to track the implementation and impact of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan investments.
•  Data on the network of ports, airports, railway terminals, roads and railway lines can be easily consulted with the this visualiser of the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility.
• The Barcelona Open Data Initiative has presented a new version of the portal DadesXViolènciaXDones a tool for analysing the impact of policies against male violence.
• Madrid City Council has shown how it measures the use of the Cuña Verde Park through data analysis and its GovTech programme.
• Furthermore, in the field of data journalism, we find many examples, such as this article from elDiario.es where one can visualise, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, the price of rent and access to housing according to income.

These data combined with artificial intelligence makes it possible to solve and advance social challenges, as the following examples show:

• The wildINTEL project, of the University of Huelva, in collaboration with the state agency Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), aims to monitor wildlife in Europe. It combines citizen science and AI for effective biodiversity data collection and management.
• Experts at the International University of La Rioja have developed AymurAI, a project that promotes judicial transparency and gender equality through artificial intelligence, based on methodologies with a gender perspective and open data.
• Two researchers from Cantabria have created a model that makes it possible to predict climatic variables in real time and in high resolution by means of artificial intelligence.

On the other hand, to boost the re-use of open data, public bodies have launched competitions and initiatives that have facilitated the creation of new products and services. Examples from recent months include:

•  The7th Castile and Leon open data competition.
• The University of Zaragoza's Pedro R. Muro-Medrano Awards.
• The València City Council awards for open data and data journalism projects.

New reports and resources linked to open data

Some of the reports on open data and its re-use published in the first half of the year include:

• The "ASEDIE Report: Data Economy in the infomediary field", now in its twelfth edition.
• The ASEDIE report "Geospatial data in the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility. Impact of the information co-produced by IGN and CNIG".
• The report "The reuse of open data in Spain" by the COTEC Foundation.
• The "Guide of Good Practices for Data Journalists" elaborated by the Observatori de Dades Obertes i Transparència of the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV).

A large number of events have also been held, some of which can be viewed online and some of which have been chronicled and summarised:

• The "III National Meeting of Open Data (ENDA): Data to boost the tourism sector", organised by the Deputation of Castellón, the Deputation of Barcelona and the Government of Aragón.
• The round table "Building Tourism Intelligence: Data Sharing for Strategic Decisions in the Tourism Sector" organised by SEGITTUR (State Trading Company for the Management of Innovation and Tourism Technologies) as part of Fitur Know-how & Export.
• The session "Managing Water with Open Data" organised within the framework of the CafèAmbDades initiative of the Generalitat de Catalunya.
• The European Data Portal's workshop "How to use open data for your research", with the participation of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.

These are just a fe examples that illustrate the great activity that has taken place in the open data environment over the last six months. Do you know of any other examples? Leave us a comment or write to dinamizacion@datos.gob.es!

The Use Case Observatory is an initiative led by data.europa.eu, the European Open Data Portal. This is a research project on the economic, governmental, social and environmental impact of open data. The project will run for three years, from 2022 to 2025, during which the European Data Portal will monitor 30 cases of open data re-use and publish findings in regular deliverables.

In 2022 it made a first report and now, in April 2024, it has presented volume 2 of the exploratory analysis on the use of open data. In this second instalment, he analyses thirteen of the initial use cases that remain under study, three of them Spanish, and draws the following conclusions:

• The paper first of all underlines the high potential of open data re-use.
• It stresses that many organisations and applications owe their very existence to open data.
• It also points to the need to unlock more broadly the potential impact of open data on the economy, society and the environment.
• To achieve the above point, it points to continued support for the reuse community as crucial to identifying opportunities for financial growth.

The Multisectoral Information Partnership (ASEDIE) has published the twelfth edition of its "Report on the Infomediary Sector", that reviews the initiatives to boost the data economy in the country. In addition, this edition commemorates the 25th anniversary of the association in the sector.

In the 12th Report on the Data Economy in the infomediary sphere, ASEDIE provides accurate figures on the sector in Spain to continue its annual work of highlighting and conveying its size and importance. The presentation of this edition took place at Madrid International Lab's auditorium on 20 March.

The main findings of the study are summarised below.

The European Union has placed the digital transformation of the public sector at the heart of its policy agenda. Through various initiatives under the Digital Decade policy programme, the EU aims to boost the efficiency of public services and provide a better experience for citizens. A goal for which the exchange of data and information in an agile manner between institutions and countries is essential.

This is where interoperability and the search for new solutions to promote it becomes important. Emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) offer great opportunities in this field, thanks to their ability to analyse and process huge amounts of data.

A report to analyse the state of play

Against this background, the European Commission has published an extensive and comprehensive report entitled "Artificial Intelligence for Interoperability in the European Public Sector", which provides an analysis of how AI is already improving interoperability in the European public sector. The report is divided into three parts:

1. A literature and policy review on the synergies between IA and interoperability. It highlights the legislative work carried out by the EU. It highlights the Interoperable Europe Act which seeks to establish a governance structure and to foster an ecosystem of reusable and interoperable solutions for public administration. Mention is also made of the Artificial Intelligence Act, designed to ensure that AI systems used in the EU are safe, transparent, traceable, non-discriminatory and environmentally friendly.
2. The report continues with a quantitative analysis of 189 use cases. These cases were selected on the basis of the inventory carried out in the report "AI Watch. European overview of the use of Artificial Intelligence by the public sector" which includes 686 examples, recently updated to 720.
3. A qualitative study that elaborates on some of the above cases. Specifically, seven use cases have been characterised (two of them Spanish), with an exploratory objective. In other words, it seeks to extract knowledge about the challenges of interoperability and how AI-based solutions can help.

Conclusions of the study

AI is becoming an essential tool for structuring, preserving, standardising and processing public administration data, improving interoperability within and outside public administration. This is a task that many organisations are already doing.

Of all the AI use cases in the public sector analysed in the study, 26% were related to interoperability. These tools are used to improve interoperability by operating at different levels: technical, semantic, legal and organisational. The same AI system can operate at different layers.

• The semantic layer of interoperability is the most relevant (91% of cases). The use of ontologies and taxonomies to create a common language, combined with AI, can help establish semantic interoperability between different systems. One example is the EPISA60 project, which is based on natural language processing, using entity recognition and machine learning to explore digital documents.
• In second place is the organisational layer, with 35% of cases. It highlights the use of AI for policy harmonisation, governance models and mutual data recognition, among others. In this regard, the Austrian Ministry of Justice launched the JustizOnline project which integrates various systems and processes related to the delivery of justice.
• The 33% of the cases focused on the legal layer. In this case, the aim is to ensure that the exchange of data takes place in compliance with legal requirements on data protection and privacy. The European Commission is preparing a study to explore how AI can be used to verify the transposition of EU legislation by Member States. For this purpose, different articles of the laws are compared with the help of an AI.
• Lastly, there is the technical layer, with 21% of cases. In this field, AI can help the exchange of data in a seamless and secure way. One example is the work carried out at the Belgian research centre VITO, based on AI data encoding/decoding and transport techniques.

Specifically, the three most common actions that AI-based systems take to drive data interoperability are: detecting information (42%), structuring it (22%) and classifying it (16%). The following table, extracted from the report, shows all the detailed activities:

Download here the accessible version of the table

The report also analyses the use of AI in specific areas.  Its use in "general public services" stands out (41%), followed by "public order and security" (17%) and "economic affairs" (16%). In terms of benefits, administrative simplification stands out (59%), followed by the evaluation of effectiveness and efficiency (35%) and the preservation of information (27%).

AI use cases in Spain

The third part of the report looks in detail at concrete use cases of AI-based solutions that have helped to improve public sector interoperability. Of the seven solutions characterised, two are from Spain:

• Energy vulnerability - automated assessment of the fuel poverty report. When energy service providers detect non-payments, they must consult with the municipality to determine whether the user is in a situation of social vulnerability before cutting off the service, in which case supplies cannot be cut off. Municipalities receive monthly listings from companies in different formats and have to go through a costly manual bureaucratic process to validate whether a citizen is at social or economic risk. To solve this challenge, the Administració Oberta de Catalunya (AOC) has developed a tool that automates the data verification process, improving interoperability between companies, municipalities and other administrations.
• Automated transcripts to speed up court proceedings.  In the Basque Country, trial transcripts by the administration are made by manually reviewing the videos of all sessions. Therefore, it is not possible to easily search for words, phrases, etc. This solution converts voice data into text automatically, which allows you to search and save time.

Recommendations

The report concludes with a series of recommendations on what public administrations should do:

1. Raise internal awareness of the possibilities of AI to improve interoperability. Through experimentation, they will be able to discover the benefits and potential of this technology.
2. Approach the adoption of an AI solution as a complex project with not only technical, but also organisational, legal, ethical, etc. implications.
3. Create optimal conditions for effective collaboration between public agencies. This requires a common understanding of the challenges to be addressed in order to facilitate data exchange and the integration of different systems and services.
4. Promote the use of uniform and standardised ontologies and taxonomies to create a common language and shared understanding of data to help establish semantic interoperability between systems.
5. Evaluate current legislation, both in the early stages of experimentation and during the implementation of an AI solution, on a regular basis. Collaboration with external actors to assess the adequacy of the legal framework should also be considered. In this regard, the report also includes recommendations for the next EU policy updates.
6. Support the upgrading of the skills of AI and interoperability specialists within the public administration. Critical tasks of monitoring AI systems are to be kept within the organisation.

Interoperability is one of the key drivers of digital government, as it enables the seamless exchange of data and processes, fostering effective collaboration. AI can help automate tasks and processes, reduce costs and improve efficiency. It is therefore advisable to encourage their adoption by public bodies at all levels.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a set of targets adopted by the international community aimed at addressing the most pressing challenges of our time. These goals were born simultaneously with the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data and the International Open Data Charter, which provided a coalition of experts willing to harness the benefits of open data for the new development agenda.

In this regard, open data plays a very relevant role within the development agenda as indicators of progress towards the SDGs, as they allow measuring and evaluating their progress, as well as improving accountability through sharing that data with the rest of the community, providing great value in multiple ways:

• Facilitating decision-making when designing policies and strategies to help meet the objectives;
• Identifying inequalities and specific challenges among different regions or population groups;
• Improving efficiency in policy and program implementation;
• As an engine of innovation through research and development.

Today, there are large global databases, both generalist and thematic, that we can use for these purposes, in addition to all the national data sources available in our own country. However, there is still a long way to go in this regard: the proportion of SDG indicators that are conceptually clear and have good national coverage is still 66%, according to the latest SDG progress report published in 2023. This leads us to continue facing data gaps in vital areas such as poverty, hunger, education, equality, sustainability, climate, seas, and justice, among others. Additionally, there is also a fairly general and significant lack of data disaggregated by age and/or sex, making it very difficult to properly monitor the potential progress of the objectives regarding the most vulnerable population groups.

This report takes a journey through the dual role that open data plays in supporting national and global progress in achieving the SDGs. The first part of the report focuses on the better-known role of open data as mere indicators when measuring progress towards the objectives, while the second part addresses its role as a key tool and fundamental raw material for the development of society in general and for the achievement of the objectives themselves in particular. To this end, it explores which datasets could have the greatest potential in each case, showing some practical examples, both national and at the European level, in various specific development objectives.

If you want to learn more about the content of this report, you can watch the interview with its author.

In order to comply with Directive (EU) 2019/1024 and its subsequent implementing regulation, EU member states are working on making available so-called high-value datasets (HVD). The aim is to enable citizens and businesses to access such data under technical requirements that favour its re-use and its positive impact on society, the economy and the environment.

Opening up these datasets is a major challenge for public administrations in all EU countries. Although much of this data is already available tousers, countries need to identify it in order to be able to report on it and resolve the high heterogeneity in formats, structures and semantics. In particular, from February 2025, Member States will have to report to the Commission every two years on available high-value datasets, including links to licence conditions and APIs.

To assist in this task, the European Data Portal has published the report "Report on Data Homogenisation for High-value Datasets" where it proposes a methodological approach to facilitate the identification and homogenisation of HVD. Among other issues, the report provides examples of standards that help to achieve greater interoperability not only between data, but also between the applications that use them.

A method for identification and homogenisation

The report describes a methodological approach based on three steps:

1. The identification of HVDs in existing data portals. Although there are some guidelines for HVD publication,  like these for applying DCAT-AP, the naming of already published datasets is not uniform, which makes it difficult to find them. The report proposes a protocol that consists of defining keywords, based on the datasets and their associated attributes, contained in Annex I of the Implementing Regulation. The idea is to use these keywords to search the various existing data portals. The report explains how the identification protocol has been tested with datasets from the categories of business registers, statistical data and transport network data, including tables with the keywords used.
2. Localisation or development of data models, ontologies, controlled vocabularies and/or common APIs. In this section, the report describes some useful resources, which are summarised in the following table:

Source: Report on Data Homogenisation for High-value Datasets

The report also mentions some models to be used in the field of smart cities, such as  Smart Data Models and the Spanish Open Cities.

1. The application of such models. The last step is the actual harmonisation of the data. Once the models to be used have been selected, it is time to apply them. In this phase, the necessary conversion processes will be carried out to provide the data in the appropriate formats and with unified quality metadata. The way in which these transformations are applied will vary depending on the intended end result. For example, it may consist of transforming tabular data (comma-separated values or CSVs, Excel, relational databases, etc.) into other data sources that are also tabular but follow the structure provided in common data models. You can also go further and transform them into tree-based representations (such as JSON) or RDF according to the ontologies and controlled vocabularies you select.

Conclusions of the report

The report ends with a series of conclusions and recommendations. There are still challenges around the identification of HVDs and the implementation of the Implementing Regulation in all European countries, especially in raising awareness and disseminating information about their importance. In HVD categories where there are large data harmonisation initiatives, such as Inspire on geospatial data or Eurostat on statistical HVD, we can find a larger amount of data available in an interoperable and harmonised way. In contrast, in categories where there is no majority initiative, such as companies and company ownership, there is still some way to go to implement the regulation.

The recommendations set out in the European Data Portal report help to shape a roadmap for publishing high-value datasets in each of the categories defined by the European Commission. A challenge that administrations will have to address during 2024 and that will facilitate the re-use of public information.

The year is coming to an end and it is a good time to review some of the issues that have marked the open data and data sharing ecosystem in Spain, a community that continues to grow and build alliances for the development of innovative technologies. A synergy that lays the foundations to face an interconnected, digital future full of possibilities.   

With 2024 just a few days away, we take stock of the news, events and training of interest that have marked the year behind us. In this compilation we review some regulatory developments, new portals and projects promoted by the public sector, as well as various educational resources and reference documentation that 2023 has left us. 

Legal regulation for the development of collaborative environments  

During this year, in datos.gob.es we have echoed relevant news in the open data and data sharing sector. All of them have contributed to consolidate the appropriate context for interoperability and the promotion of the value of data in our society. The following is a review of the most relevant announcements: 

• At the beginning of the year, the European Commission published a first list of high-value datasets that are of great value to the economy, the environment and society because of the information they contain. For this reason, member states must make them available to the public by summer 2024. This first list of categories includes geospatial, earth observation and environmental, meteorological, statistical, business and mobility data. On the other hand, at the end of 2023, the same body made a proposal to expand the list of categories of datasets to be considered of high value, adding another seven proposals for categories that could be included in the future: climate loss, energy, financial, public administration and government, health, justice and language. 

• In the first quarter of the year, Law 37/2007 on the reuse of public sector information was amended in light of the latest European Open Data Directive. Now, public administrations will have to comply with, among others, two essential requirements: to focus on the publication of high-value data through APIs and to designate a unit responsible for information to ensure the correct opening of data. These measures are intended to be aligned with the demands of competitiveness and innovation raised by technologies such as AI and with the key role played by data when it comes to configuring data spaces.  

• The publication of the UNE data specifications was another milestone in standardization that marked 2023. The volume of data continues to grow and mechanisms are needed to ensure its proper use and exploitation. To this end, there are: 

  • UNE 0077 on Data Governance  

  • UNE 0078 on Data Management  

  • UNE 0079 on Data Quality Management  

  • UNE 0080, Data Governance, Management and Quality Evaluation Guide  

  • UNE 0081, Guide to Data Quality Evaluation.  

• Another noteworthy advance has been the approval of the consolidated wording of the European Data Regulation (Data Act), which seeks to provide harmonized standards for fair access to and use of data. The legal structure that will drive the data economy in the EU is now a reality. The Data Act and the Data Governance Act also passed in 2023 will contribute to the development of a European Digital Single Market.  

• In October 2023 the future Interoperable Europe Act (Interoperable Europe Act) entered the final legislative stage after getting the go-ahead from the member states. The aim of the Interoperable Europe Act is to strengthen interoperability between public sector administrations in the EU and to create digital public services focused on citizens and businesses. 

Advances in the open data ecosystem in Spain  

 In the last year, many public bodies have opted for opening their data in formats suitable for reuse, many of them focused on specific topics, such as meteorology. Some examples are:  

•  The Diputación de Segovia premiered an open data portal with information from city councils.  

• The Cabildo de Palma launched a new open and real-time weather data portal that provides information on current and historical weather and air quality.  

• The City Council of Soria also created a georeferenced information viewer that allows to consult parameters such as air quality, noise level, meteorology or traffic of people, among other variables.   

• The Malaga City Council has recently allied with the CSIC to develop a marine observatory that will collect and share open data in real time on coastal activity.   

• Progress on new portals will continue during 2024, as there are city councils that have expressed their interest in developing projects of this type. One example is the City Council of Las Torres de Cotillas: it recently launched a municipal website and a citizen participation portal in which they plan to enable an open data space in the near future. 

On the other hand, many institutions that already published open data have been expanding their catalog of datasets throughout the year. This is the case of the Canary Islands Statistics Institute (ISTAC), which has implemented various improvements such as the expansion of its semantic open data catalog to achieve better data and metadata sharing. 

Along these lines, more agreements have also been signed to promote the opening and sharing of data, as well as the acquisition of related skills. For example, with universities:  

• The Navarra Open Data portal incorporated information provided by the Public University of Navarra (UPNA) on its structure, activity, economic data and workforce.   

• The University of Valladolid (UVa) has presented a Chair of Transparency and Open Government that will address issues such as data governance, among others.   

• The University of Burgos has implemented an open science policy to foster collaboration and knowledge sharing and provide equal access to scientific and research work.   

• The Carlos III University of Madrid (UC3M) has partnered with the Community of Madrid to establish the Chair on Territorial Dynamism that will promote research and the development of open data analysis activities, among others. 

Disruptive solutions using open data   

The winning combination of open data and technology has driven the development of multiple initiatives of interest as a result of the efforts of public administrations, such as, for example:  

• The Community of Madrid managed to optimize by 25% the reliability of the prediction of pollen levels in the territory thanks to artificial intelligence and open data. Through the CAM's open data portal, citizens can access an interactive map to find out the level of pollen in the air in their area.    

• The Valencia City Council's Chair of Governance at the Polytechnic University (UPV) published a study that uses open data sources to calculate the carbon footprint by neighborhoods in the city of Valencia.   

• The Xunta de Galicia presented a digital twin project for territorial management that will have information stored in public and private databases.   

• The Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) initiated the TeresIA project for terminology in Spanish that will generate a meta-search engine for access to terminologies of pan-Hispanic scope based on AI and open data.   

During 2023, Public Administrations have not only launched technological projects, but have also boosted entrepreneurship around open data with activities such as the Castilla y León Open Data contest. An event in which projects developed with open data as products or services, ideas, data journalism works and didactic resources were awarded. 

Trainings and events to keep up with the trends  

Educational materials on open data and related technologies have only grown in 2023. We highlight some free and virtual resources that are available:  

• The European Open Data Portal is a reference source in all aspects, also at the training level. Over the last year, it has shared educational resources such as this free course on data visualization, this one on the legal aspects of open data or this one on how to incorporate open data into an application.  

• In 2023, the European Interoperability Academy published a free online short course on open source licensing for which no prior knowledge of the subject is required.   

• In 2023, we have published more practical exercises from the 'Visualizations step by step' series such as this tutorial to learn how to generate a customized tourist map with MyMaps or this analysis of meteorological data using the "ggplot2" library. 

In addition, there are many activities that have been carried out in 2023 to promote the data culture. However, if you missed any of them, you can re-watch the online recordings of the following ones:   

• In March, the European Conference on Data and Semantics was broadcast, presenting trends in multilingual data.  

• In September, the 2nd National Open Data Meeting was held under the theme "Urgent Call to Action for the Environment".  The event continued the tradition started in 2022 in Barcelona, consolidating itself as one of the main meetings in Spain in the field of public sector data reuse and presenting training materials of interest to the community.  

• In October, the European benchmark interoperability conference SEMIC 2023, Interoperable Europe in the age of AI, was organized in Madrid. 

Reports and other reference documents published in 2023  

Once we have reviewed the news, initiatives, trainings and events, we would like to highlight a compendium of extensive knowledge such as the set of in-depth reports that have been published in 2023 on the open data sector and innovative technologies. Some noteworthy ones are:  

• The Asociación Multisectorial de la Información (ASEDIE) presented in April 2023 its 11th edition of the Infomediary Sector Report in which it reviews the health of companies working with data, a sector with growth potential. Here you can read the main conclusions.  

• From October 2023 Spain co-chaired the Steering Committee of the Open Government Partnership (OGP), a task that has involved driving OGP initiatives and leading open government thematic areas. This organization presented its global Open Government Partnership report in 2023, a document that highlights good practices such as the publication of large volumes of open data by European countries. In addition, it also identifies several areas for improvement such as the publication of more high-value data (HDV) in reusable and interoperable formats. 

• The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published a report on public administration principles in November 2023 in which it highlighted, among others, digitization as a tool for making data-driven decisions and implementing effective and efficient processes.  

• During this year, the European Commission published a report on the integration of data spaces in the European data strategy. Signed by experts in the field, this document lays the groundwork for implementing European dataspaces.  

• On the other hand, the open data working group of the Red de Entidades Locales por la Transparencia y la Participación Ciudadana and the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces presented a list of the 80 datasets to be published to continue completing the guides published in previous years. You can consult it here. 

These are just a few examples of what the open data ecosystem has given of itself in the last year. If you would like to share with datos.gob.es any other news, leave us a comment or send us an email to dinamizacion@datos.gob.es. 

Spain continues to make progress in open data. This is corroborated by the latest edition of the Open, Useful and Re-usable data Index, also known as OURdata Index. This report is prepared periodically by the OECD to evaluate the efforts made by different governments in designing and implementing national open data policies. 

First launched in 2015, the Index had two subsequent editions published in 2017 and 2019. In this fourth edition, there has been a change in methodology, which does not make it possible to compare the results with those of previous editions.  

To conduct the analysis, data was collected regarding the policies carried out by 40 countries in the 2020-2021 period. This is a period marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused an exceptional situation worldwide and highlighted the need for governments to ensure access to high quality data, to build resilience and facilitate joint societal responses to a crisis.  

The final report will be published during the second quarter of 2024. However, the OECD has released a summary of some of the main conclusions of the study.   

Spain is among the world leaders  

According to the study, Spain ranks fifth in terms of open data, behind only South Korea, France, Poland and Estonia, as shown in the following graph. 

The report assesses three pillars and nine sub-pillars, all of which have the same value in the final score:  

• Data availability: this indicator measures the extent to which governments have adopted and implemented formal requirements for open data publication. It also assesses whether the different actors involved in the data publication process (stakeholders) are carrying out some work to identify the demand for data in general and the availability of high-value datasets in particular. In this regard, it should be noted that, although the report speaks of high value datasets, this is not the same concept of high value data as that used by the EU. In the case of the OECD, other high-impact categories such as health, education, crime and justice or public finances, among others, are also taken into account. Details of the categories taken into account are given in the annex to the report. 

• Data accessibility: This indicator assesses whether high-value government datasets are provided in open and reusable formats, updated, with good metadata quality and through application programming interfaces (APIs). It also discusses the involvement of different stakeholders in the central open data portal and in improving data quality. 

• Government support for data reuse: this indicator looks at the extent to which governments play a proactive role in promoting the reuse of open public data, both within and outside the administration. 

Considering these indicators, Spain is in the group of "leading countries". These countries demonstrate a comprehensive approach to open data initiatives and, in general, perform well in all aspects. In the specific case of Spain, it stands out when it comes to promoting the reuse of data, where it is in second place. It has been taken into account how the governmental sphere makes companies and civil society aware of the opportunities offered by open public data, participating in associations and co-creation events to stimulate the reuse of data. It also highlights the availability of awareness-raising and training initiatives for public officials on open data publication, analysis and reuse, as well as efforts to carry out impact assessments of open public data and the presentation of examples of reuse.  

On the other hand, it ranks eleventh in data accessibility in general, although it rises to sixth if we talk about high-value data. Finally, we rank sixth in terms of accessibility.

General conclusions  

The report includes a number of general findings from all countries. According to the study, only 48% of high-value datasets are available as open data in OECD countries. Although the COVID-19 pandemic positively influenced the publication of open health data, only 43% of datasets in this category are currently available. Collaboration between public and private healthcare actors is therefore encouraged to promote the publication of these data systematically at the national level.   

The results also indicate that countries should prioritize the publication of open data in areas such as public procurement, public budgets and lobbying, as well as boosting those related to the green agenda, highlighting those related to Earth observation, environmental and meteorological data. In addition, consideration should be given to making company registries and company ownership data available to all citizens as open data.   

On the opposite side of the scale, there is a large availability of statistical and geospatial data. 

Overall, OECD countries have improved the quality of open government data, an important issue that also affects recent developments in Artificial Intelligence (AI). The evolving landscape of AI applications makes it necessary to ensure data quality, paying particular attention to metadata quality and access through APIs.  

Ultimately, the report highlights the importance of open public data for democracy in the digital age, as well as in driving innovation in both the public and private sectors. 

The European Data Portal, data.europa.eu, has just published its Data Maturity Index, an index that assesses the level of maturity of European countries in terms of open data. For its elaboration, an evaluation survey has been carried out and has been completed by 35 countries, including the 27 Member States of the European Union, three countries of the European Free Trade Association (Iceland, Norway and Switzerland) and five candidate countries (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Serbia and Serbia and Ukraine).  

In this year's edition, Spain obtained a score of 95% out of 100%. This places it in fifth place overall and in fourth place if only European Union (EU27) member countries are taken into account. This figure represents an improvement of three percentage points over last year's score and places Spain 12 points above the EU27 average (83%).  

The top positions in the ranking are occupied by France, Poland, Ukraine and Estonia. 

Above the EU27 average in all dimensions analyzed 

The index is accompanied by a report containing the analysis carried out and an overview of the good practices applied in Europe. In the case of Spain, it is above the EU-27 average in the four indicators analyzed:  

• Policy, focused on the open data policies of the different countries. It analyzes the existence of national governance models for open data management and the measures that have been applied to implement existing strategies. This is the indicator in which Spain obtains a higher score, with 99% compared to 89% in the EU27. The report highlights how the country's national open data strategy helps promote the openness of public information through innovative and structured actions in collaboration with public and private partners. Among other issues, the strategy includes the objective of identifying business models and business success stories to share successful practices. The report also highlights the existence of various digital strategies that complement specific policies on open data, such as the national artificial intelligence strategy, which includes provisions related to the availability of open data for the operation and training of artificial intelligence systems. 

• Impact, which analyzes the activities undertaken to monitor and measure both the reuse of open data and the impact created by such reuse. Traditionally, this has been the least mature dimension across Europe. Nevertheless, Spain scores 96% compared to 77% in the EU27. The best results are achieved in measuring the impact of open data use cases in the environmental, economic and political sectors.  

• Portal, focused on evaluating the functionalities of the national platform that allow users to access open data and help drive interaction within the community. With 96% compared to 85% in the EU27, Spain stands out in the use of analytical tools to understand user behavior, and in the implementation of strategies to ensure the sustainability of the portal and increase its visibility, including presence in social networks. It also highlights the existence of a private area that allows editors to act according to the feedback received. 

• Quality, which examines the mechanisms for ensuring the quality of (meta)data. Here Spain scores 88% compared to 82% in the EU27. Spain's score is driven by compliance with the DCAT-AP standard (providing educational materials for publishers), the existence of a systematic approach to ensure that metadata is up to date, and the wide range of data offered, both historical and current. 

The report also measures how EU27 countries are progressing in the implementation of the implementing regulation on high-value datasets. In this section, Spain ranks ninth, with 68% implementation. In general, Member States are making more progress on geospatial and statistical datasets. Progress is also being made on the underlying technical and legal requirements.  

Overall recommendations 

The report includes a number of recommendations for Spain, among other countries, including encouraging the development of initiatives at the local and regional level, fostering better coordination between teams, and activating the network of open data officers to implement monitoring activities within their organizations. Emphasis is also placed on the need to promote existing open data courses and promote new training materials, paying special attention to developing strategic awareness of the reuse and impact of open data.

Overall, the report shows good progress in open data across Europe. Although there are areas for improvement, the European open data landscape is consolidating, with Spain at the top of the table.  

In 2024, new waves of implementation of the European data strategy will present national teams with new challenges. On the one hand, they will have to redouble their efforts to inform citizens of the new data sources arising from initiatives such as the Data Governance Act and the data spaces. In this sense, coordination will be necessary between the new figures arising from these legislative developments and the traditional world of open data, enhancing the obvious synergies between the two to boost the data economy and collectivize the value generated.