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Celebrate three years of Open Data on the European Data Portal!

The European Data Portal was launched three years ago to improve accessibility to Open Data across Europe

Introducing the European Data Portal

Join us in celebrating three years of open data on the European Data Portal (EDP). Thank you to all open data enthusiast, publishers and re-users for creating impact with open data! Thanks also to our readers and subscribers for following our news, events, articles and reports and for sharing your valuable experiences, insights and opinions with us.

The EDP is an initiative launched by the European Commission to harness the potential of open data to drive economic and societal development across Europe and beyond. The portal serves as a gateway to open data from national public administrations in Europe. We engage with Member States and the public to promote, guide and monitor open data publishing and re-use.

How did it start?

Three years ago, the EDP Beta version was launched, starting with 240,000 datasets and the accompanying metadata translated into 3 languages.

By the EDP's first anniversary, the portal expanded to contain already 600,000 datasets that were searchable with keywords in 18 languages thanks to the translation of their metadata. The portal contained over 200 articles and reports and promoted dozens of open data related events.

How does it look today?

By November 2018, the EDP attracts on average 30,000 visitors a month from across Europe and beyond. The portal contains over 860,000 datasets covering 35 countries, with 78 catalogues structured in 13 categories. The metadata is now translated to 24 official EU languages enabling multilingual keyword search and enabling ease of access.

In addition, the portal offers 16 e-Learning modules in five languages that cover open data basics, such as licensing or data formats and guidance on how to exploit the value of open data. In addition, the EDP has a collection of Use Case examples on how open data is re-used in practice, showcasing inspiring open data applications in different sectors such as transport, population and society, regions and cities, environment and health.

Furthermore, the EDP has an active social media presence with more than 9,000 followers on twitter @EU_Dataportal, an open data news feed that promotes data-related events and updates on what governments, universities and organisations are doing around open data and a Calendar showing more than 100 open data Events in 2018. The portal also entails multiple Factsheets and Reports on open data publication and re-use, such as the Open Data Goldbook for Data Managers and Data Holders, ten analytical reports about hot topics in open data and the annual Open Data Maturity report. In fact, the fourth annual report: the "Open Data Maturity in Europe Report 2018: New horizon for Open Data driven transformation", which highlights how open data can be used as a strategic asset to enable successful transformation at national level, was launched this week!

Continue exploring open data on EDP!

The EDP is continuously growing and harvesting more datasets. For example, last October the EDP started harvesting Ukraine's Open Government Data. In addition, the portal is in constant collaboration with national governments and open data portals to continue harvesting data in more areas, for example geo data.

The EDP is also placing a larger focus on digital formats to share information and examples of open data re-use, such as interviews, podcasts, webinars and online workshops to increase community engagement. A recent example is the Open Data in Smart Cities Webinar hosted by EDP on 8 November, discussing open data initiatives in Smart Cities in Europe with keynote speakers from Helsinki and Prague.

To continue improving, we invite you to please keep sharing your experiences, thoughts and opinions on open data and data sharing with the EDP via mail, Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Once again, thank you for your support and let's continue to harness the potential of open data!