The European Commission promotes open government data in several ways: (1) through directives and policies regarding public sector information (PSI), scientific data, and cultural heritage data; (2) by funding projects related to linked open data and applications development; and (3) by hosting workshops and challenges to encourage open data use. The Commission is also working to review the PSI directive, launch an EU-wide open data portal, and develop recommendations around open access to scientific information.
Open data in Poland: proposed legislation on the opening of public resources
Open Government Data in Europe
1. Open Government Data in Europe
Open Knowledge Foundation workshop,
Budapest, 19 May 2011
Richard Swetenham
Information Society and Media Directorate
European Commission
2. The European Commission
and open data (1)
Policy Maker
PSI, INSPIRE, Aarhus Directives
Data Collector
Eurostat, Tenders Electronic Daily
Funding Agency
Research & Innovation
LOD2, LATC projects
Networking, Awareness raising
Open Government Data in Europe, Budapest, 19 May 2011 ••• 2
3. The European Commission
and open data (2)
• Cultural heritage
– Europeana, digital libraries,
museums and archives
• Scientific information
• Public sector information
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4. PSI directive
• builds on national rules on
access to documents
• allow commercial re-use
• charges limited to cost
recovery
• transparency, no cross-
subsidy, no exclusivity
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5. Apps Apps Apps
Transport Health Weather
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6. RED ... local or regional
governmental authorities
GREEN ... local or regional
private initiatives
YELLOW ... nationwide
governmental authorities
BLUE ... nationwide
private initiatives
PURPLE ... transnational
catalogue
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7. Value of PSI increasingly recognised
• Conclusions of the European Council (4 February 2011),
in particular :
• 21. The Commission is invited to make rapid progress in
key areas of the digital economy to ensure the creation
of the Digital Single Market by 2015, including the
promotion and protection of creativity, the
development of e-commerce and the availability of
public sector information
• http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/do
cs/pressdata/en/ec/119175.pdf
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8. Food for thought
Are stakeholders maximising the PSI re-use full
potential ?
1. Governments
2. Public Sector Holders
3. Re-users
Is greater deployment/ awareness raising needed ?
Are the missed opportunities for PSI/Data re-use
in Hungary ?
Open Government Data in Europe, Budapest, 19 May 2011 ••• 8
9. Review of PSI Directive
• ensure level playing field where
government body has business
activity
• clarify terminology (right of re-
use)
• review scope (exceptions)
• results of public consultation
online
• Commission decision on options
Nov 2011
Open Government Data in Europe, Budapest, 19 May 2011 ••• 9
10. SharePSI "big idea" May
Workshop
• 10/11 May, Brussels, 1.5 day
workshop
• interoperability and re-use for public
sector information
• What is holding things up? What can be
done?
• Use cases; technical standards; legal and
licensing aspects of Public Sector
Information (licensing in particular)
• Call for Participation: position papers by
15 April
• http://share-psi.eu/
Open Government Data in Europe, Budapest, 19 May 2011 ••• 10
11. Digital Agenda Assembly
workshop 16 June
• 01. Open data and re-use of public
sector information
• The workshop will bring together
stakeholders to help the Commission
develop its strategy for open data for the
EU, taking into consideration the review
of the Public Sector Information Directive
• The workshop will build on the results of
Share-PSI.eu
• http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/events/cf
/daa11/item-display.cfm?id=5963
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12. Open data challenge
• Apps competition for PSI
• €20,000 prizes
• Four main strands:
– Ideas
– Apps
– Visualisations
– Datasets
• Open from 5 April until 5 June.
Prizes at DAA
• http://www.opendatachallenge.org/
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13. Hack4Europe!
• Europeana will host hackathons stimulating
the use of its cultural heritage metadata.
Europeana holds metadata on over 16
million cultural heritage objects.
• Creative reuse of the Europeana content
based on the Europeana Application
Programming Interface (API) and Linked
Open Data
• Four European cities:
– London, Barcelona, Poznan, Stockholm
• Each hackathon will last one or two days and
will bring together up to 30 developers.
• 7 June 2011 - 11 June 2011. Prizes at DAA
• http://version1.europeana.eu/web/api/hackathons
Open Government Data in Europe, Budapest, 19 May 2011 ••• 13
14. data.gov.eu
• Commission data portal 2012
– Relationship between data portal and
existing sites with big datasets
(Eurostat, Eur-Lex, CORDIS etc)
– Inventory of datasets
– Project design and implementation
• Pan-European data portal 2013
– Relationship between pan-European
and national portals
– Governance
– Sustainability
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15. Scientific information
• Hearing - Luxembourg 30.5.2011
• Who is concerned: European
scientific publishing sector,
European researchers, European
funders, European consumers and
society at large.
• Possible Communication,
Recommendation Nov 2011
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16. Selected Links
The Digital Agenda for Europe
http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda
Material on the PSI Directive
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/psi/index_en.htm
ePSI platform http://www.epsiplus.net/
LAPSI http://www.lapsi-project.eu/
Commission Open Access Policies
http://www.slideshare.net/ccbuhr/access-to-scientific-
information-the-role-of-the-eu-7094764
Eurostat Statistics Portal
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/statistics/the
mes
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17. Thank you!
richard.swetenham@ec.europa.eu
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