Data has become an essential resource for competitiveness, innovation and economic growth and the European Union (EU) is seeking to pave the way in the field.
In 2020, the European Commission (EC) published the European strategy for data that aims at a single market for data in order to ensure the EU’s competitiveness in data-based innovation and in developing new technologies, as well as in enabling a secure and dynamic data-agile economy. While the European data strategy is built on horizontal rules applicable across sectors, such as the Data Governance Act and the proposed Data Act, it will also be strengthened with sector-specific initiatives.
To date, the EC has identified 10 strategic economic sectors and domains of public interest, and is looking to unleash the enormous potential of data-driven innovation within these data spaces in order to boost the interconnected and competitive European data economy:
| I II III IV V |
Industrial (manufacturing) Health Financial Mobility Energy |
VI VII VIII IX X |
Agriculture Green Deal Public administration Skills European Open Science Cloud |
While the horizontal rules include mandatory provisions for opening data (and sometimes even trade secrets!), many of the identified data spaces will be based on voluntary data sharing and are expected to facilitate such voluntary sharing even across economic sectors. The EC’s vision is to overcome legal and technical barriers to data sharing by deploying technical tools, creating standards and promoting interoperability, as well as by building sectoral data governance structures, taking also into account the different levels of maturity and needs in each sector.
The data spaces are based on the idea that if Europe’s data infrastructure can be trusted, the players are willing to share more and better quality data, which will eventually lead to better services for everyone in the market.
D&I continues to monitor closely the developments in each data space within the strategic economic sectors in addition to the horizontal data related regulations. In this D&I Quarterly, we touch upon the Industrial and Manufacturing space as well as the Health space, and which will be continued with different data space insights in the upcoming D&I Quarterlies of 2023.
Article Series: Common European Data Spaces Being Developed in Strategic Economic Sectors
