Data Spaces: Transforming Data Sharing Practices

Europe is building a data-driven economy in a changing geopolitical context. As it strives for both innovation and sovereignty, decentralized ecosystems offer a way to create value with data, while safeguarding freedom of choice.

Data has the potential to transform processes, businesses, economies, and society by unlocking new kinds of value creation. It’s also how we are going to make AI work as a crucial component of the future European data economy—but only if that data is built on strong foundations that ensure its quality and relevance.

Of course, value creation depends on the data that’s available to you, and you might not have all the data you need. That’s why data needs to be shared and combined. In this article, we consider how data spaces meet this need, offering what the Data Spaces Support Centre (DSSC) describes as the “ability to provide the essential foundations for secure and efficient data sharing”. While our focus in this article is on European data spaces, we recognize that this is becoming a relevant topic around the world.

Why a decentralized data economy makes sense for Europe

Data spaces are, in effect, decentralized ecosystems that have a powerful resonance in the world today. Indeed, recognizing their huge potential, the European Commission established a series of domain-specific/sectoral common European data spaces designed to help “unleash the enormous potential of data-driven innovation”.

We see three main drivers for these common data spaces in Europe: geopolitics, commercials, and choice. In the first instance, in light of the unstable geopolitical landscape, data spaces give you assurance that all your (data) eggs aren’t in one basket.  You select the datasets you want to reside in what data space. Interoperability and portability can help avoid the dreaded lock-in effect where changing from one service provider to another might be prohibitively complicated. Commercially, data spaces address any exposure to potential monopolistic lock-in effects by individual companies cornering the market in data platforms. Then there’s the matter of choice. You choose who you interact with in a common data space, which puts you in control of who to share data with.

Why we need data spaces

Sharing data is key to data-driven growth. Indeed, it’s a vital aspect of the European strategy for data. But over-reliance on data platforms predominantly controlled by a limited number of international technology firms introduces potential vulnerabilities regarding data security, access, and strategic autonomy. We may also lose the ability to share data on our own terms, in accordance with our own values—freedom, privacy, control.

An alternative future for Europe is to share data on a sovereign basis. And that implies across industries. That’s why we’re so excited to be working on the DSSC and on Simpl, the open source, smart and secure middleware platform that supports data access and interoperability among European data spaces.

Beyond technology to value creation

Let’s not forget that a data space is only an instrument. It’s what you do with it that matters. In a data space you will be able to aggregate, combine and correlate data that you can’t today because it is stored in different places. And that’s where we begin to create significant value from data, specifically in a number of areas, as follows.

1. Global challenges: Data spaces will prove inordinately useful in tackling grand challenges that cut across sectors and geographies. Here we’re talking about achieving mission-oriented policy goals, such as reducing healthcare inequality and achieving net zero/carbon neutrality targets. For example, the European Health Data Space (EHDS) will be an enabler of patient empowerment, with better access to and control over health data. Further, increased reuse of EHDS data for research and policy making will improve public health interventions. A 2025 report from the World Economic Forum in collaboration with Capgemini suggests the EHDS could generate €5.5 billion savings over ten years. We’ve already seen the huge value of data sharing in a global crisis when, in the Covid 19 pandemic, our governments needed data from many areas at once to form policy—healthcare systems, pharma, mobility, employment and economic data. There will be future pandemics.
2. Innovation: Data spaces will undoubtedly contribute to data-driven innovation across the EU as it continues on its mission to build the Single Market for Data. The European Commission states, “Common European Data Spaces will enhance the development of new data-driven products and services in the EU, forming the core tissue of an interconnected and competitive European data economy”.  In this respect, the combination of data from different sources across sectors can produce fascinating new applications. Think, for example, of the traffic flow in a city, where the observation of vehicle movement and a subsequent adjustment of traffic lights can help avoid congestion, and the monitoring of parking lots eases the burden of finding a parking spot, possibly connected to a recommendation of a charging port for the car’s battery. The energy grid could then be supplied with better anticipation of demand peaks and control energy distribution accordingly.  The seamless integration of real-time public transport data can then be used to recommend the best option for getting from A to B.
3. Efficiency: Data spaces will help in the more efficient use of resources and improve public services. A great example here is that of road surface observation. By correlating data from cars’ electrical sensors, it becomes possible to monitor, in real time, the deterioration of the road, and carry out preventative maintenance to optimize spend / return. And returning to the healthcare sector, access to comprehensive patient histories in a shared data ecosystem has the potential to lead to better and faster diagnosis and treatment.
4. Science and research: Shared data can create new evidence bases for scientific and medical research. Let’s consider the following scenario—I drive to work in a convertible most days; the farmer of the field sprays an experimental fertilizer; later I develop  neurological issues but doctors are unsure how to treat them. In the future we might be able to correlate this illness with the exposure to the fertilizer by aggregating mobility data, air quality data, times that the farmer used the fertilizer, and the contents of that fertilizer.

Questions at the edges of our data economy

The potential for value is clear, but there are numerous challenges still to overcome—and they are not principally digital ones. One unknown factor is what it will cost to set up and run a common data space. At this point we don’t have an adequate way to price data, so this question remains unanswered. Other questions include: How can we quantify the value of new data-driven business models vs traditional business models? And how can we pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses of data ecosystems and technologies?

The answer to all of these questions at present is that we are all on a journey with common data spaces. We improve every day and the answers will come. But it is hard to imagine that the massive contribution of sharing data to the common good will not outweigh the costs and barriers that need to be overcome.

Above all, the decentralized model depends on participants’ willingness to share data. That means they must trust the other participants and the infrastructure. There is no other way to build trust except enabling people to say no. Letting people choose in itself invites trust.

Europe can do data differently

Data spaces are a way for Europe to reap the benefits of data for economic growth and positive societal outcomes, while affirming European values in the digital domain. They remain an integral part of the European strategy aiming to make the EU a leader in a data-driven society.

Find out more

Peter Kraemer will speak about the future of data sharing in Europe at the Data Spaces Symposium in Warsaw on 11-12 March. Register at https://www.data-spaces-symposium.eu/