European Administrative Data Spaces

Anyone who wants to find their way in the digital world in the future will have to rely on clearly defined functional areas. Whether government, business or society, they all have a need for recognisably defined spaces in order to access the precise data they need for a specific task. For these reasons, the EU Commission has laid the foundation for the development of various sector-specific European data spaces with its Data Strategy 2020.

They are intended to help establish large data pools in strategically important sectors and areas such as energy, health, industry and mobility - but also in public administration - and to exchange data in a trustworthy and secure manner.  They should gradually grow together to form a standardised European data space in order to provide sufficient data, particularly for the rapidly developing field of generative AI, and thus strengthen the EU's competitive position in the world. The EU Commission hopes that this will create a genuine internal market for data.

In contrast, research into the legal framework conditions for co-operative data usage structures between private and public stakeholders is still in its infancy. While some of the new spatial structures have already received greater attention (e.g. the European Health Data Space), the announced data space for public administration has so far remained surprisingly quiet. Whether it can provide the promised order and orientation for the public sector in the future in order to generate real social and economic added value from data depends on multiple conditions for success. The project is involved in the discussion on how these new data infrastructures can be organised in a fair, transparent, proportionate and non-discriminatory way.