Looking back at EU Open Data Days 2021: ‘Creating open data
ecosystems’
 

Last November, the Publications Office of the European Union
[https://op.europa.eu/en/home] organised the first ever EU Open Data
Days [https://op.europa.eu/en/web/euopendatadays/home] . Over three
days (23-25 November 2021), the event showed the benefits of open data
to more than 2300 registered EU public sector representatives,
citizens and businesses, under the main motto: ‘_SHAPE OUR FUTURE
WITH OPEN DATA’_.

Over 70 speakers from all over the world took the floor in six
thematic sessions
[https://op.europa.eu/en/web/euopendatadays/programme]. Each of these
sessions provided an overview of innovative techniques and best
practices used in both the private and the public sectors, offering
the participants valuable insights into open data and data
visualisation techniques and practices. 

In a series of news pieces, we will recap each of these thematic
sessions of the EU Open Data Days. The first thematic session
addressed the topic of _‘Creating open data ecosystems’_ to ensure
a trustworthy data-sharing and unlock the socioeconomic potential of
open data for better evidence-based policies.

Throughout this session, five presentations gave insights into
different EU-funded and Member States´ initiatives contributing to
(EU) open-data policies and strategies:

 	* _´Towards sustainable open-data ecosystems
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TbEvEcsUkU&list=PLT5rARDev_rm6SCFP-AuJYHqjzIafAhn-&index=7]`_
, held by BASTIAN VAN LOENEN (Delft University of Technology,
Netherlands), introduced a new educational programme called ODECO
[https://odeco-research.eu/] on sustainable open-data ecosystems. The
aim of the 4-year Horizon 2020 initiative is to train young open data
researchers to advance current open-data systems towards being
user-driven, circular, inclusive and skill-based – in line with the
European Commission’s 2019–2024
[https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024_en] and the
Berlin Declaration
[https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/berlin-declaration-digital-society-and-value-based-digital-government]
goals.

 

 	* GIORGIA LODI (Institute of Cognitive Science and Technologies of
the National Research Council, Italy) presented the _ European
‘Water health open knowledge’ (WHOW)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdXrF0NPhJE&list=PLT5rARDev_rm6SCFP-AuJYHqjzIafAhn-&index=9]`_.
 The project aims at creating an open knowledge graph that links
together data on water consumptions and pollution with health
parameters and disease diffusion, to be further reused for development
of innovative services. 

 

 	* In the third presentation, different perspectives on _´going
towards a public procurement data space
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hH1nfH5REk0&list=PLT5rARDev_rm6SCFP-AuJYHqjzIafAhn-&index=9]`_ were
provided. ISABEL DA ROSA (DG GROW, European Commission) described the
European Commission´s work on a public procurement data strategy
proposing the creation of a public procurement data space based on a
federated model, where TED [https://ted.europa.eu/] data and data from
national databases in the EU can be integrated. TIMO RANTANEN (Finnish
State Treasury, Finland) talked about the experience of the Finnish
State Treasury in gathering and making public procurement data and
other governmental data open, to improve data quality, better
understand the market and foster business creation. GIOVANNI PAOLO
SELLITTO (National Anticorruption Authority, Italy) gave an overview
of the Italian Open Data Portal on Procurement and described how
standardisation and domain knowledge sharing are key aspects when
moving towards an e-procurement data space.

 

 	* ANGELA BAKER (EuroGeographics AISBL, Belgium) presented _´Open
maps for Europe: accessing official, online, public-sector geospatial
open data
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-LAXLD15U8&list=PLT5rARDev_rm6SCFP-AuJYHqjzIafAhn-&index=10]`._
Her intervention focused on the Connecting Europe Facility project
_´__open maps for Europe [https://www.mapsforeurope.org/]__`_, which
provides free to use maps from more than 40 European countries. This
is thanks to datasets based on official maps, as well as geospatial
and land information from official national sources. The project not
only makes more data available through harmonised open data licenses
and produces open Pan-European harmonised datasets, but also improves
re-useability and sustainability of geo-spatial public sector
information.

 

 	* The topic of the last presentation was _´Data for R&I policy–
better transparency, coordination and benchmarking of policies and
results?`
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGL-sJ7Aw24&list=PLT5rARDev_rm6SCFP-AuJYHqjzIafAhn-&index=11].
_Here,_ _PAVEL ZBORNIK (DG RTD, European Commission) showed how such
policy questions can be addressed by polling research &
innovation-related open data from sources such as data.europa.eu
[https://data.europa.eu/en], EU funding systems or national CRIS
systems. At the same time, he highlighted the challenges of gathering
data from various sets, while ensuring a common understanding of terms
and allowing interoperability.

To learn more about these and other presentations, visit the EU Open
Data Days site [https://op.europa.eu/en/web/euopendatadays], where you
can find official press releases, promotional materials, as well as
the recordings of all contributions!

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Publication Date/Time
2022-06-17T08:30:00+00:00
Discover five projects that contribute to the open data policy