Open data maturity in Europe in 2023
Publication Date/Time
2024-02-09T09:00:00+00:00
The ninth annual open data maturity report reveals how the
data-sharing ecosystem in Europe continues to evolve
The open data maturity (ODM) assessment
[https://data.europa.eu/en/publications/open-data-maturity] by
data.europa.eu measures the progress of European countries in making
public sector information available and stimulating its reuse. The
results show the level of maturity of the participating countries and
support the development and sharing of best practices regarding open
data across Europe. 

A total of 35 countries participated in the ninth consecutive annual
report, including the 27 EU Member States, three European Free Trade
Association [https://www.efta.int/] countries (Iceland, Norway and
Switzerland), and five candidate countries
[https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-history/joining-eu_en]
(Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia and Ukraine). 

This data story highlights the findings of the 2023 ODM report
[https://data.europa.eu/en/publications/open-data-maturity/2023] and
the key trends for each of the four dimensions of the assessment:
policy, impact, portal and quality. As in previous years, data for the
assessment is collected through a questionnaire sent to the
representatives of the participating countries, which they can fill
out on a voluntary basis. Answers to the individual questions are
translated into scores for the four dimensions. The full details of
the methodology are described in the 2023 method paper
[https://data.europa.eu/sites/default/files/odm2023_method_paper.pdf].

OVERALL OPEN DATA MATURITY IN 2023 

In 2023, the average maturity score across all the participating
countries reached 79 %, a slight increase from 75 % in 2022. In
the EU-27, it rose from 79 % in 2022 to 83 % in 2023. The change
in country scores from 2022 to 2023 is shown Figure 1. The rise in
average maturity was driven by increases in the scores of all four
dimensions. The most significant increases concern the impact and
quality dimensions (see ‘highlights’ sections below). 
 
_Figure 1: Overall maturity scores for all participating countries in
2023, ranked from highest scoring to lowest scoring within the groups
of countries (source: 2023 ODM report) _

The following sections explain key trends and country success stories
for each dimension of the assessment. Figure 2 shows the evolution of
average scores across the ODM dimensions for the EU-27. 
 
_Figure 2: Average open data maturity scores in the EU-27 per
dimension (2018–2023) (black bar represents the EU-27
average) (source: 2023 ODM report) _

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE POLICY DIMENSION 

Policy remains (since the first report in 2015) the most mature
dimension on average, with the governance and implementation of open
data initiatives improving since 2022 to better support the policy
framework. 

One topical policy evaluated in the report is the implementing
regulation on high-value datasets
[https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/commission-defines-high-value-datasets-be-made-available-re-use]
(Regulation (EU) 2023/138), which will take effect in June 2024 for
the EU-27 countries. High-value datasets are public sector datasets
that have significant benefits for society, the environment and the
economy. Figure 3 shows the overall progress EU Member States report
regarding the requirements of high-value datasets. Front-runners in
preparing for high-value datasets include Estonia, Finland, Denmark
and Latvia. 
 
_Figure 3: Overall progress of EU-27 Member States towards
implementing the regulation on high-value datasets (source: 2023 ODM
report)_ 

On average, the EU Member States are making the most progress with
geospatial and statistics datasets. Regarding the underlying technical
and legal requirements, identifying and inventorying high-value
datasets and addressing legal barriers are the most advanced. In
general, requirements related to technical progress, such as metadata
quality, standardised structures, and machine-readable formats show
less advancement. Figure 4 shows the aggregated progress score of
countries across several technical and legal requirements for the six
categories of high-value datasets. 
 
_Figure 4: Average progress of the EU-27 Member States for the six
categories of high-value datasets (source: 2023 ODM report) _

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE IMPACT DIMENSION 

The impact dimension remains the least mature dimension but saw the
greatest year-on-year improvement, making up lost ground after a sharp
decrease in 2022. One of the countries that improved the most on this
dimension from 2022 is Iceland (from 10 % to 45 %). 

To achieve its significant improvement, Iceland put processes and
incentives in place to monitor the level of open data reuse, including
training civil servants; launched initiatives to document which and
how open datasets are reused, including analysing portal usage
statistics; and created a definition for open data impact. These
activities also resulted in a greater awareness of reuse case examples
in different domains of impact. 

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE PORTAL DIMENSION 

The portal dimension remains the second most mature, but saw the
smallest improvement compared to 2022. Although the provision of data
continues to increase, portal features are not becoming more
sophisticated. One country that made substantial progress on this
dimension is Latvia (from 61 % to 87 %). 

Latvia introduced new portal features, such as a discussion forum,
conducted analyses of portal traffic and surveys of user satisfaction,
ensured that local and regional portals are discoverable and
automatically harvested on the national portal, and enabled official
and non-official data to be published on the national portal. 

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE QUALITY DIMENSION 

The quality dimension shows an accelerated improvement, closing the
gap with the portal dimension after 3 years of stagnant maturity.
Compared to 2022, more EU Member States are working to ensure the
interoperability of datasets, particularly high-value ones (from 17 to
22 Member States). This is also reflected in the increased use of
mandatory DCAT-AP classes
[https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/dcat-ap] to describe
metadata on national portals (from 19 to 23 Member States). 

A specific country that made significant progress on this dimension is
Serbia (from 56 % to 70 %). Some key activities Serbia reported
include creating guidelines and conducting regular activities to
assist data providers in publishing high-quality metadata. They also
report that, compared to 2022, more metadata is obtained automatically
from its source and most datasets on the national portal have an open
licence available in a structured format. 

CONCLUSION 

Countries in Europe continue, on average, to advance on the four
dimensions of ODM defined in the ODM methodology, even as the
data-sharing ecosystem in Europe continues to evolve. The next year
will also bring new requirements for open data teams. The Member
States must apply the implementing regulation on high-value datasets
by June 2024. Furthermore, the European Commission is establishing
common European data spaces
[https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/staff-working-document-data-spaces]
to support the additional data needs of European governments,
businesses and civil society that cannot be addressed exclusively
using public administrations’ open data. New legislation such as the
Data Governance Act
[https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/data-governance-act-explained]
(Regulation (EU) 2022/868) and the Data Act
[https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_3491]
(proposal) introduce measures to increase data availability and
overcome technical obstacles to the reuse of data that cannot be made
available as open data. 

In addition, a periodic revision of the ODM methodology is planned for
2024. The purpose of this revision is to incorporate contemporary
policy and technology changes in the assessment to be more accurate
and continue to help countries in their constant improvements. The
year 2024 will also mark the 10th anniversary of ODM. 

Interested in the full insights from the 2023 ODM report? Read the
report
[https://data.europa.eu/sites/default/files/odm2023_report.pdf]. 

Also, stay tuned for our upcoming data stories and webinars by
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