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Open Data Maturity
Report 2021

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data.europa.eu
This study has been prepared as part of data.europa.eu. Data.europa.eu is an initiative of the European Commission. The Publications Office of the European Union is responsible for contract management of data.europa.eu.

For more information about this paper, please contact:

**European Commission**

Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology

Unit G.1 Data Policy and Innovation

Email: [CNECT-G1@ec.europa.eu](mailto:CNECT-G1@ec.europa.eu)

**data.europa.eu**

Email: [info@data.europa.eu](mailto:info@data.europa.eu)

**Written by:**

Daphne van Hesteren

Laura van Knippenberg

Raymonde Weyzen

Esther Huyer

Gianfranco Cecconi

Last update: 04-01-2022

www: [https://data.europa.eu/](https://data.europa.eu/)

**DISCLAIMER**

By the European Commission, Directorate-General of Communications Networks, Content and Technology. The information and views set out in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the Commission. The Commission does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this study. Neither the Commission nor any person acting on the Commission's behalf may be held responsible for the use, which may be made of the information contained therein.

Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2021

© European Union, 2021

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Publications Office
of the European Union

OA-BE-21-001-EN-N

ISBN: 978-92-78-42712-2

ISSN: 2600-0512

doi: 10.2830/394148

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# Executive Summary

The Open Data Maturity assessment 2021 benchmarks the development of European countries in the field of open data.<fnref n="1" /> This is the seventh consecutive annual report by data.europa.eu<fnref n="2" /> (formerly conducted by the European Data Portal). This report aims to support countries to better understand their level of maturity, to capture their progress over time, to find areas for improvement, and benchmark this against other countries. Additionally, the study provides an overview of best practices implemented across Europe that could be transferred to other national and local contexts. The assessment measures maturity against four open data dimensions:

* **Policy:** focusing on countries' open data policies and strategies

* **Impact:** looking into the activities to monitor and measure open data re-use

* **Portal:** assessing portal functions and features that enable users to access open data via the national portal and support interaction within the open data community

* **Quality:** focusing on mechanisms that ensure the quality of the (meta)data

Three trends found during the assessment are highlighted below: the transposing of the Open Data Directive into national law, the more prominent focus on measuring open data impact, and the continued value creation of the COVID-19 pandemic. Afterwards, the overall ranking, country clustering, and developments per dimension are summarised.

Trends and findings of the Open Data Maturity assessment 2021:

## 1. Member States update their policies to transpose the Open Data Directive into national law.

Many Member States reported that they are in the process of, or have already completed, transposing recent development in EU regulation regarding open data and high-value datasets into national law. The Directive (EU) 2019/1024 of the European Parliament and of the Council<fnref n="3" /> (further referred to as the Open Data Directive) came into force in July 2019 and is the key piece at the centre of the European Union legal framework that regulates open data, and the re-use of public sector information (PSI).

The Open Data Directive requires the adoption of a future implementing regulation by the European Commission, i.e., of a list of high-value datasets to be provided free of charge and through APIs. The procedure towards the adoption of the implementing regulation is still ongoing, this landscaping exercise got a first glimpse of the approach Member States will use to implement the upcoming regulation, showing the activities that countries are performing to comply with EU regulation.

<footnote n="1">¹ It assesses the level of open data maturity in the European Union's Member States (EU27), the participating European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland, the participating Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries Georgia and Ukraine, as well as Montenegro and the UK.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² Data.europa.eu is the official portal for European open data. The portal was launched in the spring of 2021, integrating the pre-existing European Data Portal and European Union Open Data Portal into a single, coherent core component of the public sector data infrastructure that has been set up by the European Union, its institutions and Member States.</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³ https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32019L1024&from=EN</footnote>
## 2. Understanding, monitoring, and measuring open data impact is becoming more prominent.

The open data impact dimension experienced the highest improvement compared to the other dimensions, see figure 1. More and more European countries are successfully performing activities to understand and capture the extent to which open data is reused and how value is created. This is in line with one of the objectives of the Open Data Directive to reap the full potential of open data re-use. In recent years, impact was often measured by monitoring user analytics of national open data portals or by keeping a list of use cases. This year a clear trend has shown towards conducting in-depth research, such as desk research or surveys, in order to quantify and verify the open data impact. This will, in the long-term, result in a more structured and aligned approach of measuring open data impact and more accurate estimations of the impact on society and economy as a whole.

<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>Figure 1: The Open Data Maturity scores of the EU27 (used to be EU28 until 2019)</figcaption></figure>

## 3. In 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to highlight the value and impact of open data.

The 2021 assessment proved that open data creates high social impact on raising awareness on health and wellbeing related issues, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic. Last year's assessment showed the emphasis on the importance of systematically collecting and making data available to the public as a response to the pandemic. The need to respond to the emergency led many countries to start publishing related data and developing initiatives and dashboards to make the data more easily understandable and insightful for European citizens. The initiatives and dashboards are in most cases complemented with recent statistics about national vaccination rates, vaccination productions capacities, protective equipment availabilities, intensive care capacities, etc. This year's assessment shows a continuation and strengthening of the high social impact created by these efforts.
## The overall Open Data Maturity scores in 2021

Figure 2 illustrates the overall open data maturity scores of all 34 participating European countries in 2021.

* European countries are becoming more mature across the board. Countries' maturity scores are concentrated in the higher end of the spectrum.

* In 2021, the average open data maturity score of the EU27 countries is 81%, an increase of 3 percentage points compared to 2020.

* After being a top performer for seven years in a row, this year France leads the ranking for the first time with a score of 97,5%.

* The group of top performers is completed by Ireland, Spain, Poland, and Estonia, as well as Ukraine who showed an impressive growth from 17th to 6th place in the overall ranking.

<figure><img src="image_6.png" /><figcaption>Figure 2: The overall open data maturity scores of the 2021 assessment</figcaption></figure>

## The clustering of the countries in 2021

The open data maturity clusters are presented in figure 3. The 2021 clustering exercise categorises countries – from low performing to high performing – as beginners, followers, fast-trackers, and trend-setters. The figure shows that:

* The maturity of European countries is concentrated in the higher end of the spectrum.

* The trend-setter cluster consists of the top performing six countries: the retained top performers Estonia, France, Ireland, Poland, Spain, and newcomer Ukraine.

* The nine countries included in the fast-tracker cluster show highly similar scores, as the cluster is concentrated on a range of 3%. In fact, the maturity scores of seven countries of the fast-tracker cluster, fall within a range of 1,5%, showing the high level of comparability between those countries in terms of open data maturity.
<figure><img src="image_7.png" /><figcaption>Figure 3: Clustering of the 2021 maturity scores of the participating European countries</figcaption></figure>

## Open Data Maturity scores on the four dimensions in 2021

Figure 4 shows the average maturity level of the EU27 on each of the four dimensions and compares it with last year's score. The figure shows that:

* All dimensions show an improvement compared to last year, showing the ongoing efforts that the Member States put into progressing the quality and quantity of open data.

* Similar to last year, policy is the most mature dimension with a score of 87%.

* The impact dimension experienced the most improvements with an increase of 6 percentage points compared to last year. There is an increasing interest in monitoring and measuring the open data re-use and the impact it generates.

* The portal dimension also shows significant improvement with a score of 83% in 2021. The launch of several new national open data portals improved the features, user analytics and sustainability of the portals.

* The quality dimensions improved only limited, making it the least mature dimension of the 2021 assessment.

<figure><img src="image_8.png" /><figcaption>Figure 4: The 2021 maturity scores of the EU27 per dimension compared to last year</figcaption></figure>

## Upcoming revision of the methodology

The currently used methodology was last revised in 2018 based on maturity and focus topics. The last two years, scores of the countries are high and are gradually approaching the 100%. This proves the value of a revision of the methodology. In 2022, the methodology will undergo its next revision, especially in the context of the Open Data Directive<fnref n="4" /> and the implementation of the high value datasets but also to further integrate aspects such as measuring open data impact ensuring high-quality and high-value data. The new methodology will aim to stimulate the Member States to continue to improve and grow beyond the current assessment and ensure consistency and comparability of the results.

<footnote n="4">⁴ https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32019L1024&from=EN</footnote>
# Table of Contents

<table><tr><td>Executive Summary</td><td>3</td></tr><tr><td>Introduction</td><td>8</td></tr><tr><td>Measuring open data maturity</td><td>9</td></tr><tr><td>Chapter 1: Open Data Policy</td><td>11</td></tr><tr><td>1.1 Policy framework</td><td>11</td></tr><tr><td>1.2 Governance of open data</td><td>17</td></tr><tr><td>1.3 Open data implementation</td><td>21</td></tr><tr><td>1.4 Overall performance</td><td>24</td></tr><tr><td>Chapter 2: Open Data Impact</td><td>26</td></tr><tr><td>2.1 Strategic awareness</td><td>27</td></tr><tr><td>2.2 Political impact</td><td>30</td></tr><tr><td>2.3 Social impact</td><td>35</td></tr><tr><td>2.4 Environmental impact</td><td>38</td></tr><tr><td>2.5 Economic impact</td><td>41</td></tr><tr><td>2.6 Overall performance</td><td>44</td></tr><tr><td>Chapter 3: Open Data Portal</td><td>47</td></tr><tr><td>3.1 Portal features</td><td>48</td></tr><tr><td>3.2 Portal usage</td><td>52</td></tr><tr><td>3.3 Data provision</td><td>56</td></tr><tr><td>3.4 Portal sustainability</td><td>59</td></tr><tr><td>3.5 Overall performance</td><td>62</td></tr><tr><td>Chapter 4: Open Data Quality</td><td>64</td></tr><tr><td>4.1 (Meta)data currency and completeness</td><td>64</td></tr><tr><td>4.2 Monitoring and measures</td><td>66</td></tr><tr><td>4.3 DCAT-AP compliance</td><td>69</td></tr><tr><td>4.4 Deployment quality and linked data</td><td>72</td></tr><tr><td>4.5 Overall performance</td><td>75</td></tr><tr><td>Chapter 5: Open Data Maturity in the EFTA and Other Countries</td><td>77</td></tr><tr><td>5.1 Open data policy</td><td>77</td></tr><tr><td>5.2 Open data impact</td><td>80</td></tr><tr><td>5.3 Open data portal</td><td>86</td></tr><tr><td>5.4 Open data quality</td><td>88</td></tr><tr><td>5.5 Overall performance</td><td>91</td></tr><tr><td>Chapter 6: Clustering the Countries</td><td>94</td></tr><tr><td>6.1 Clustering profiles</td><td>94</td></tr><tr><td>6.2 The 2021 clustering</td><td>95</td></tr><tr><td>6.3 Development of the clusters 2015-2021</td><td>97</td></tr><tr><td>Chapter 7: Recommendations for the Countries</td><td>98</td></tr><tr><td>7.1 Trend-setters</td><td>98</td></tr><tr><td>7.2 Fast-trackers</td><td>99</td></tr><tr><td>7.3 Followers</td><td>100</td></tr><tr><td>7.4 Beginners</td><td>101</td></tr><tr><td>Conclusions</td><td>103</td></tr></table>
Introduction

Data.europa.eu is the main point of access for European open data. The portal aims to improve access to open data, foster high-quality open data publication at all levels, and to create impact through open data re-use.

Data.europa.eu (formerly conducted by the European Data Portal) has been conducting an annual benchmarking exercise since 2015, providing European countries with an assessment of their maturity level and documenting their year-on-year progress. The objective of the study is to support the development of countries in terms of their open data practices and enable them to learn from each other.

This report provides an extensive overview of the open data maturity assessment of 2021. Additionally, the report discusses some best practices implemented across Europe that could be transferred to other national and local contexts.

Complementary to this report, the data gathered in this year's assessment – as well as previous editions – are publicly available on the Open Data Maturity Dashboard on data.europa.eu<fnref n="5" />. In addition, country-specific factsheets are provided, which provide a more detailed insight at national level into the results on the four open data dimensions (policy, impact, portal, and quality) in comparison with the average of the Member States and the results from previous years.

The structure of the Open Data Maturity report 2021

The report consists of an introduction, seven chapters analysing the results of the assessment, and finally the conclusions are summarised. In more detail:

* The next section, "measuring open data maturity", summarises how open data maturity is measured within the assessment.

* Chapters 1-4 provide a detailed assessment of the four open data dimensions in the 27 EU Member States: 1) policy, 2) impact, 3) portal, and 4) quality.

* Chapter 5 offers an overview of open data maturity in countries outside the EU27 who participated in the 2021 edition of the assessment. This includes EFTA countries, EaP countries, Montenegro, and the United Kingdom.

* Chapter 6 presents the clustering of the countries into four categories according to their performance: beginner, followers, fast-trackers, and trend-setters. Additionally, the key insights related to the grouping are described.

* Chapter 7 provides a set of recommendations for the countries depending on the cluster they are associated with, providing indicative guidance for policymakers, portal owners, and other stakeholders to push the open data agenda forward.

* Finally, the conclusions are underlined in the final section of the report. This includes main takeaways and reflections from the 2021 landscaping exercise.

<footnote n="5">⁵ https://data.europa.eu/en/impact-studies/open-data-maturity</footnote>
Measuring open data maturity

This is the seventh edition of the annual open data maturity assessment. In the period 2015-2017 the open data maturity measurement was built on two key indicators: “readiness” and “maturity”, covering the policy developments at country level and the level of sophistication of the national open data portals. A major update to the methodology was carried out in 2018 to better reflect the open data developments taking place across Europe. The 2018 methodology became more ambitious and comprehensive and set a stronger focus on the quality of open data as well as the re-use and impact derived by open data. The scope of the assessment has since then been broadened to comprise four dimensions: policy, impact, portal, and quality.<fnref n="6" />

Every year, the data is collected through a questionnaire sent to the national open data representatives working in collaboration with the European Commission and the Public Sector Information Expert Group. The questionnaire is structured along the four open data dimensions and includes detailed metrics for each dimension to assess the level of maturity.<fnref n="7" /> Dimensions and metrics have been maintained since 2018, to improve clarity or address ambiguities in response to the open data representatives' feedback. A revision of the methodology is scheduled for 2022.

The definitions of the four open data dimensions are outlined below. The detailed metrics per dimension are presented in the table below.

**Open Data Policy** focuses on the presence of specific policies and strategies to foster open data at national level. The dimension also analyses the existence of governance structures that allow the participation of private and third sector actors, as well as implementation measures that enable open data initiatives at national, regional, and local level. Furthermore, the dimension looks at training schemes that enhance the data literacy skills of the civil servants working with data and harvesting mechanisms that foster the discoverability of all open data available in the country.

**Open Data Impact** looks at the activities performed to monitor, and measure open data re-use and the impact derived by such re-use. Beyond this first layer of “strategic awareness”, the impact dimension focusses on four areas of sectoral impact: political, social, environmental, and economic. Within these areas, the questionnaire examines the extent to which monitoring is in place to document the re-use of open data published in these fields, the extent to which applications, products, and services have been developed to address challenges in these fields, as well as the extent to which civil society initiatives exist that are based on such open data and supported by government institutions. In addition, the dimension includes the efforts taken to commission and conduct studies that measure the impact created through open data re-use in each of the impact areas.

**Open Data Portal** focuses on advanced portal functions that enable both versed and less versed users to access open data via the national portal and features that enhance the interaction between publishers and re-users (via forum and discussion boards). Additionally, the dimension assesses the extent to which portal managers use web analytics tools to better understand their users’ needs and behaviour and update the portals’ features in line with the insights gained from these analyses. The dimension examines the open data coverage across different domains, as well as the approach and measures in place to ensure the portal’s sustainability.

<footnote n="6">⁶ An extended methodology report can be found on the Open Data Maturity Dashboard, available at https://data.europa.eu/en/impact-studies/open-data-maturity</footnote>

<footnote n="7">⁷ The complete questionnaire used for the assessment can be found on the Open Data Maturity Dashboard, available at https://data.europa.eu/en/impact-studies/open-data-maturity</footnote>
**Open Data Quality** focuses on the measures adopted by portal managers to ensure the systematic harvesting of metadata from sources across the country, as well as the currency of the available metadata and where possible the actual data, the monitoring of the compliance with the DCAT-AP metadata standard as well as the quality of deployment of the published data. The fourth dimension provides impulses for portal managers and policymakers to enable open data publication that is good quality all round: using open data formats, machine-readable, high-quality, and suitable to a linked data approach.

<table><thead><tr><td>Dimension</td><td>Metrics</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td rowspan="3">Open Data Policy</td><td>Policy framework</td></tr><tr><td>Governance of open data</td></tr><tr><td>Open data implementation</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="5">Open Data Impact</td><td>Strategic awareness</td></tr><tr><td>Political impact</td></tr><tr><td>Social impact</td></tr><tr><td>Environmental impact</td></tr><tr><td>Economic impact</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="4">Open Data Portal</td><td>Portal features</td></tr><tr><td>Portal usage</td></tr><tr><td>Data provision</td></tr><tr><td>Portal sustainability</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="4">Open Data Quality</td><td>Currency</td></tr><tr><td>Monitoring and measures</td></tr><tr><td>DCAT-AP compliance</td></tr><tr><td>Deployment quality and linked data</td></tr></tbody></table>
# Chapter 1: Open Data Policy

The first assessment dimension, “open data policy”, focuses on the open data policies and strategies in place at national level, the governance model by which open data is managed in each country, and the measures adopted towards the implementation of these policies and/or strategies.

The policy dimension is composed of the following indicators:

<table><thead><tr><td>Metric</td><td>Key elements</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Policy framework</td><td>Open data policies and strategies are in place at a national level to provide a long-term strategic vision and action plan for open data. The strategies incentivise open data re-use in both the public and private sector.</td></tr><tr><td>Governance of open data</td><td>Governance models and coordination activities are in place that ensure the publication of open data at all government levels and support local and regional open data initiatives.</td></tr><tr><td>Open data implementation</td><td>Data publication plans exist and progress made in line with these plans is monitored. The number of public bodies that charge above marginal costs is also monitored. Training activities for civil servants working with data are in place.</td></tr></tbody></table>

## 1.1 Policy framework

This indicator analyses the open data policies, strategies, and action plans in the EU27 Member States and their scope. It considers the visions and objectives around open data and the actions to implement those. Also, this indicator focuses on measures to support open data re-use by both private organisations as well as public sector bodies, and the necessary data inventories to enable re-use.

The key piece at the centre of the European Union legal framework that regulates open data, and the re-use of public sector information (PSI) is the Directive (EU) 2019/1024 of the European Parliament and of the Council<fnref n="8" /> (further referred to as the Open Data Directive). The Directive, which came into force in July 2019, is the latest visible output of significant and long-term EU policy effort that was inaugurated in 2003 with the first directive<fnref n="9" /> and forms the basis for the re-use of data from the public sector. The Open Data Directive aims to overcome the barriers that still prevent the full re-use of public sector information by encouraging Member States to facilitate the re-use of public sector data with specific focus on publishing datasets that have a high potential economic and societal impact.<fnref n="10" />

Member States had to transpose the Open Data Directive into their national laws by 17 July 2021. Most countries reported that they are in the process of transposing the Directive into national law or already completed it, examples can be found in section 1.1.1 Open data policies. The Commission is inviting countries to complete the process.<fnref n="11" />

<footnote n="8">⁸ https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32019L1024&from=EN</footnote>

<footnote n="9">⁹ Directive 2003/98/EC on the re-use of public sector information available at https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX%3A32003L0098</footnote>

<footnote n="10">¹⁰ More information about the objectives of the Open Data Directive and the barriers to overcome is available at https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/psi-open-data</footnote>

<footnote n="11">¹¹ The European Commission send a letter of formal notice to 19 countries to express their concerns as stated in their daily news of 30 September 2021. Find more information on: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/mex_21_4962</footnote>
The Open Data Directive requires the adoption by the European Commission, via a future "Implementing Regulation", of a list of high-value datasets (i.e., datasets whose re-use can have major benefits for society and the economy).<fnref n="12" /> The procedure towards the adoption of the implementing regulation is still ongoing and expected for early 2022. Before its adoption by the European Commission, internal validation of the draft implementing regulation needs to be completed, then it will be open to a one-month public consultation and finally it will be submitted for opinion to the Open Data Committee composed of Member States representatives. Although the implementing act is not yet publicly available, this indicator provides a first glimpse of the approach Member States will use to implement the upcoming regulation.

### 1.1.1 Open data policies

Open data policies in the EU27 Member States vary from laws that are put into effect by implementing earlier EU Directives to extensive policy frameworks dedicated to open data or embedded into the broader legislative framework on data and digital developments. All EU27 Member States have a policy framework in place, 81% of the countries created an open data policy within their country, while the remaining 19% use other documentation to structure their open data practices. Additionally, 78% of the EU27 Member States indicate that their open data policy or strategy have been updated within the past 24 months. Many countries indicate they have recently completed, or are still in the process of, transposing the aforementioned Open Data Directive into national law.

In Bulgaria, the open data policy is included in the 'Access to Public Information Act'<fnref n="13" /> and the 'Ordinance on the standard terms and conditions for public sector information reuse and its publishing in open format'<fnref n="14" />. The Act and the Ordinance settle the social relationships regarding the right of access to public information, as well as the reuse of the public sector information. Similar to other countries, they indicate that the transposition of the new Open Data Directive in national legislation is forthcoming.<fnref n="15" />

In Germany, the national open data policy for the federal level has been part of the national E-Government act, which passed by the parliament in May 2017.<fnref n="16" /> In February 2021, the federal government adopted a Second Open Data Act and a Data Use Act (DNG) (corresponding to the transposition of the Open Data Directive into national law).<fnref n="17" /> The goal is to extensively expand the availability of open administrative data for the federal administration and to simplify and improve the possibilities for using publicly financed open data.

In Ireland, the transposition to the Open Data Directive by Statutory Instrument was published in July 2021. It offers guidance to all public sector bodies to coincide with the publication of the new statutory instrument. The Irish open data policy aims to encourage and drive the publication, uptake and use of open data. This will add value to the economy by increasing transparency, stimulating new business

<footnote n="12">¹² More information about the act and the adoption of it is available at: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/12111-Open-data-availability-of-public-datasets_en</footnote>

<footnote n="13">¹³ https://e-gov.bg/wps/portal/agency/home/data/opendata/opendata-legal/opendata-legal-national/data-opendata-act%20eng</footnote>

<footnote n="14">¹⁴ https://e-gov.bg/wps/portal/agency/home/data/opendata/opendata-legal/opendata-legal-national/data-opendata-naredba</footnote>

<footnote n="15">¹⁵ https://e-gov.bg/wps/portal/agency/home/data/opendata/opendata-legal/opendata-legal-national</footnote>

<footnote n="16">¹⁶ http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/egovg/</footnote>

<footnote n="17">¹⁷ https://www.bmwi.de/Redaktion/DE/Artikel/Service/Gesetzesvorhaben/zweites-open-data-gesetz-und-datennutzungsgesetz.html</footnote>
applications, building trust in government, and improving the lives of citizens by delivering better services.

In Slovenia, the open data policy framework consists of the provisions of the Access to Public Information Act which implements the former PSI Directive.<fnref n="18" /> A proposal for the amendments to the Access to Public Information Act has been under preparation in order to implement the Open Data Directive. The proposal is in the consultation process with various stakeholders. After the consultation, the proposal can be accepted by the government and adoption by the National Assembly.

In Sweden, there is an open by default and open data policy in place through a number of policy instruments at different levels:

- The national principles for 'Open by Default'<fnref n="19" />, established by the Agency for Digital Government (DIGG)<fnref n="20" /> to support the whole public sector. It includes seven principles to increase the capabilities in the public sector to publish data for re-use.

- The European interoperability framework (EIF)<fnref n="21" /> is nationally implemented to Sweden, governed by the Agency for digital government (DIGG). According to the framework, "data is a common resource that can be reused for purposes other than what they were originally intended for." Therefore, showing the importance of open data re-use.

- The Open Data Directive is being transposed into Swedish legislation by "The PSI law – the law of re-use for official electronic information".<fnref n="22" /> The law was, at the moment of filling in the questionnaire, on review and will be updated to transposition the revised Open Data Directive.

- The Swedish Fundamental Law states in the principle of public access that, as far as possible, the activities of government agencies, the parliament, and local government decision-making bodies should be open and official information is available for re-use.<fnref n="23" />

### 1.1.2 Open data strategies

Similar to last year's assessment, 96% of the EU27 Member States indicated to have adopted an open data strategy or an equivalent. Not all countries have developed a dedicated strategy exclusively focusing on open data, but rather have the open data aspect embedded into broader digital and data related strategies for open government or have it incorporated in their open data policy documentation.

In Germany, the Federal Government adopted and published a data strategy in January 2021.<fnref n="24" /> The data strategy contains a dedicated chapter for the government as role model in data provision and usage. In addition, the Federal Government's new "Open Data Strategy for the Federal Cabinet" was published in the summer of 2021.<fnref n="25" />

<footnote n="18">¹⁸ http://pisrs.si/Pis.web/pregledPredpisa?id=ZAKO3336</footnote>

<footnote n="19">¹⁹ https://www.digg.se/utveckling-av-digital-forvaltning/oppna-och-delade-data/offentliga-aktorer/nationella-principer</footnote>

<footnote n="20">²⁰ Agency for Digital Government (DIGG): https://www.government.se/government-agencies/the-agency-for-digital-government/</footnote>

<footnote n="21">²¹ https://ec.europa.eu/isa2/eif_en</footnote>

<footnote n="22">²² https://www.riksdagen.se/sv/dokument-lagar/dokument/svensk-forfattningssamling/lag-2010566-om-vidareutnyttjande-av-handlingar_sfs-2010-566</footnote>

<footnote n="23">²³ https://www.regeringen.se/other-languages/english---how-sweden-is-governed/</footnote>

<footnote n="24">²⁴ https://www.bundesregierung.de/resource/blob/992814/1845634/f073096a398e59573c7526feaadd43c4/da tenstrategie-der-bundesregierung-download-bpa-data.pdf?download=1</footnote>

<footnote n="25">²⁵ https://www.bundesregierung.de/resource/blob/992814/1940386/1d269a2ad1b6346fcf60663bdea9c9f8/20 21-07-07-open-data-strategie-data.pdf?download=1</footnote>
In Lithuania, an open data strategy was defined in the Information Society Development Programme for 2014-2020, the "Digital agenda for the Republic of Lithuania".<fnref n="26" /> Currently, the new Lithuanian Open Data Strategy, the “Lithuanian Digitization Development Program for 2021–2030” is under preparation. One of the objectives is to promote data availability and reuse.

In the Netherlands, the open data strategy is part of the National Data Strategy of the Netherlands.<fnref n="27" /> An overarching data strategy is being developed, incorporating dealing with open data into this strategy in line with the EU Data Strategy<fnref n="28" />. The Dutch government provides guidance on how to implement the EU Data Strategy.<fnref n="29" />

In Poland, the Ministry of Digital Affaires (CPM)<fnref n="30" /> implemented first open data strategy five years ago, the Open Data Programme 2016-2020. In 2020, the CPM developed a new open data strategy, the Open Data Programme 2021-2027. The Programme implements key issues related to open data and data management, e.g., increasing the number of dynamic and high-value datasets published by API on the national open data portal, increasing re-use and exchange of data, offering open data related education, and the consolidation of a network of open data officers. <fnref n="31" />

### 1.1.3 Open data action plans

Clear action plans and criteria by which their delivery is measured support in ensuring that the vision and goals defined in the national open data strategies are reached. Action plans are therefore often incorporated in open data policy and strategy documentation to make the next steps in the field of open data more concrete. In 2021, 25 of the EU27 Member States indicate that their national open data policy or strategy includes an action plan with different types of measures to support their open data mission.

In 2020, an "Austrian Digital Action Plan" has been formulated by the Federal Ministry for Digital and Economic Affairs (BMDW)<fnref n="32" />. The aim of the action plan is to position Austria as digital innovation location. Data solidarity should be achieved through sharing data. Main actions to be taken are, for example, increase social and economic added value through better use of data, improve data literacy through education and training, position Austria as an attractive data location for science and the economy, and ensure transparency and traceability of the data. <fnref n="33" />

In Spain, the Aporta Initiative<fnref n="34" /> developed a national open data strategy including action plans which are reviewed periodically. This plan sets out annually added action for each of the seven lines of action included in the Aporta Initiative.<fnref n="35" /> This global action plan is complemented by a plan that encourages

<footnote n="26">²⁶ https://eimin.lrv.lt/uploads/eimin/documents/files/30310_LRV%20nutarimas(en).pdf</footnote>

<footnote n="27">²⁷ https://www.digitaleoverheid.nl/overzicht-van-alle-onderwerpen/nieuwe-technologieen-data-en-ethiek/data-agenda-overheid/</footnote>

<footnote n="28">²⁸ https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/europe-fit-digital-age/european-data-strategy_en</footnote>

<footnote n="29">²⁹ https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten/rapporten/2020/04/14/mededeling-over-een-europese-datastrategie</footnote>

<footnote n="30">³⁰ Ministry of Digital Affairs (CPM): https://www.gov.pl/web/digitalization</footnote>

<footnote n="31">³¹ https://dane.gov.pl/pl/knowledgebase/useful-materials/program-otwierania-danych-na-lata-2021-2027 or https://dane.gov.pl/pl/article/1281, nowy-program-otwierania-danych-na-lata-2021-2027</footnote>

<footnote n="32">³² Federal Ministry for Digital and Economic Affairs (BMDW): https://www.bmdw.gv.at/en.html</footnote>

<footnote n="33">³³ https://www.digitalaustria.gv.at/aktionsplan.html</footnote>

<footnote n="34">³⁴ Aporta Initiative: https://datos.gob.es/en/about-aporta-initiative</footnote>

<footnote n="35">³⁵ https://datos.gob.es/sites/default/files/datosgobes/iniciativaaporta_planaccionglobal_2021_2022.pdf</footnote>
open data re-use<fnref n="36" />, and a plan associated with the platform datos.gob.es, the national open data portal<fnref n="37" />.

In Estonia, the "Open Data and Data Management action plans for 2021-2022" aims to reach the general goal of publishing public sector data as open by default. The action plan includes 12 actions to be implemented, such as developing a new open data portal, setting up working groups, etc.<fnref n="38" />

In Slovakia, the "Open Government Partnership National Action Plan of the Slovak Republic 2020 – 2021" was recently adopted.<fnref n="39" /> The plan follows up on the action plan of previous years preserving the main objectives.<fnref n="40" /> The new plan has fewer commitments in individual chapters in order to focus more on improving the quality of commitment implementation by strengthening mutual cooperation among the Office of the Plenipotentiary of the Government for the Development of Civil Society<fnref n="41" />, individual Ministries, other central authorities, and civil society.

### 1.1.4 Access to real-time and dynamic data

Real-time or “dynamic” data is information whose nature makes it the most useful when it is, without delay, provided for re-use after collection. It has become more widespread with the popularity of the Internet of Things, sensors in smart devices and the social media analysis. Examples could be a weather system, which automatically retrieves real-time data from weather stations to continuously improve and update its forecast, or a public transport app that informs passengers not just of timetables, but of the actual position of the bus they are waiting for as well as the estimated time of arrival. Application Programming Interface (API) is the most popular technology used for the distribution of real-time data, and a key topic in the new Open Data Directive.

A specific focus on enabling real-time data is evident in the policies of many countries as well. In 2021, 85% of the Member States indicate that the national strategies and policies outline measures to incentivise the publication of and access to real-time data.

In Austria, the "Framework for Open Government Data platforms" determines that data available in real time needs to be retrievable through an API. The published records should be available to the public within an adequate period in a timely manner. They have to be published as soon as they are collected and compiled.<fnref n="42" /> Also, the current national efforts on implementing EU high value datasets and national core datasets aim to give a stimulus to the availability of dynamic data.

The Finnish "The Opening Up and Using Public Data" project contains several measures regarding open APIs, technical and semantic interoperability, as well as data quality in order to incentivise and support

<footnote n="36">³⁶ https://datos.gob.es/sites/default/files/datosgobes/iniciativaaporta_planacciondinamizacion_2021_2022.pdf</footnote>

<footnote n="37">³⁷ https://datos.gob.es/sites/default/files/datosgobes/iniciativaaporta_planacciondatos.gob.es_2021_2022.pdf</footnote>

<footnote n="38">³⁸ https://avaandmed.eesti.ee/instructions/action-plans-for-open-data-and-data-management-2021-2022</footnote>

<footnote n="39">³⁹ https://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Slovakia SILVER PLAN 2019-2021_EN.pdf</footnote>

<footnote n="40">⁴⁰ https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/slovak-republic-national-action-plan-2017-2019-english-slovak/</footnote>

<footnote n="41">⁴¹ Office of the Plenipotentiary of the Government for the Development of Civil Society:
https://www.minv.sk/?the-office-of-the-plenipotentiary-for-the-development-of-the-civil-society</footnote>

<footnote n="42">⁴² https://neu.ref.wien.gv.at/at.gv.wien.ref-live/documents/20189/68315/Framework_for_Open_Government_Data_Platforms_1.3_fin.pdf/0cfc7d99-feca-447b-8628-e6106ffc84ad</footnote>
the publication of and access to real-time or dynamic data. The project has been creating API policies by adapting the JCR API Framework<fnref n="43" /> into Finnish public administration.<fnref n="44" />

In Romania, the technical team of the national open data portal is collaborating with dynamic data holders to assist them with API usage. In doing so, they offer guides created for the developers.<fnref n="45" />

In Slovenia, the recently adopted "Strategic Working Plan for Open Data 2020-2021"<fnref n="46" /> includes an IoT call for smart cities that will encourage local communities to establish a real-time data flow through IoT sensors. Also, a proposal for the amendments to the Access to Public Information Act has been under preparation in order to implement the Open Data Directive. The law states that bodies that create or obtain dynamic data in the performance of public tasks shall enable their re-use immediately after they are collected and enable their mass transfer or transfer via application programming interfaces.

The Swedish national digitisation strategy outlines the importance and value of dynamic and real-time data. Specifically, "the possibilities of using real-time data to develop, for example, decision support, crisis management or transport systems are very large and should be utilised".<fnref n="47" />

### 1.1.5 Supporting the re-use of open data

The Open Data Directive focuses on stimulating open data re-use, which is visible in the national open data instruments of the Member States. In 2021, 89% of the countries indicate that their open data policy of strategy outline measures to support the re-use of open data by the public sector, and 85% also indicate to have measures in place to support re-use of open data by the private sector.

To ensure the possibility of open data re-use, 93% of the Member States' open data policy or strategy mandates carrying out and maintaining a data inventory by public bodies, whether at national or local levels. Out of this group, 81% indicate that these data inventories also include the data collected by public bodies that cannot be published as open data.

In Denmark, all parties of the "Basic Data Programme" are obliged to maintain their data inventories.<fnref n="48" /> To stimulate the re-use of these inventories by both public and private organisations, the national digital strategy is measured and followed by strong governance.<fnref n="49" />

The French Prime Minister Jean Castex ordered each Ministry to develop a data strategy roadmap in his April 2021 circular.<fnref n="50" /> Such roadmaps will list the objectives related to steering, opening, circulation, and sharing of data. He asked ministries to reference open data on the national portal data.gouv.fr. Within this framework, Ministries are drafting data inventories in order to comply with the government objectives. Also, the Prime Minister reiterated the need for public administrations to strive for open data circulation and re-use. One of the roles of the ministerial chief data officers will be to monitor such measures.

<footnote n="43">⁴³ https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/api4dt/news/api-framework-implemented-finland</footnote>

<footnote n="44">⁴⁴ https://docs.google.com/document/d/1I4G3o2GL4VV086mOpn2B3rcZJigMdJuP/edit#heading=h.gjdgxs</footnote>

<footnote n="45">⁴⁵ https://data.gov.ro/pages/developers</footnote>

<footnote n="46">⁴⁶ https://podatki.gov.si/sites/default/files/reports/Open%20Data_Strates%CC%8Cki%20delovni%20plan_julij2020.pdf</footnote>

<footnote n="47">⁴⁷ https://www.regeringen.se/regeringens-politik/digitaliseringsstrategin/</footnote>

<footnote n="48">⁴⁸ https://digst.dk/data/grunddata/organisering/</footnote>

<footnote n="49">⁴⁹ https://digst.dk/strategier/digitaliseringsstrategien/</footnote>

<footnote n="50">⁵⁰ https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/circulaire/id/45162</footnote>
The Latvian Open Data Strategy<fnref n="51" />, describes scenarios for open data re-use, highlights its benefits, and recommends institutions that support with the re-use of open data for both private and public sector organisations. Also, the action plan, included in the strategy, lists activities to support entrepreneurs in creating innovations using open data.

## Prioritising high-value datasets

As already mentioned, the European Commission is in the process of developing EU regulation concerning a list of high-value datasets held by the public sector.<fnref n="52" /> 24 of the EU27 Member States (89%) indicate to have high-value domains or datasets identified and prioritised for publication. All Member States have measures in place to assist their stakeholder's involvement in this prioritisation process, often in the form of meetings, working groups, or discussion forums.

In Austria, the Cooperation OGD Austria represents the official forum for exchange and action for regular improvement on open government data. All public sector bodies (ministries, states, cities, and municipalities) and stakeholders are welcome to contribute within this framework and the joint implementation of priorities.

The Bulgarian open data team indicated that many non-governmental organisations, institutes and universities, as well as businesses declare their desire to support the high-value datasets prioritisation process. Joint working groups are being set up in different areas in order to identify as accurately as possible those datasets that are of greatest interest.

In Germany, various data providers and data users were involved in the identification of appropriate datasets through an online survey and workshops in order to prepare for the recently commissioned study 'High Value Datasets in Germany'<fnref n="53" />.

In Lithuania, the Information Society Development Committee<fnref n="54" /> carries out regular consultations with public bodies on the preparation of a prioritised list of open datasets in each domain. The Committee is currently working on the second stage of the project, data opening. During the project, a list of 583 prioritised open datasets is prepared in collaboration with 51 data owners and will be openly available by 2023.

## 1.2 Governance of open data

This indicator considers the governance models in place that ensure the publication of open data at all government levels. In addition, the indicator considers the appointment of official roles in civil service that are dedicated to open data and the extent to which open data activities are organised throughout the country to foster the exchange of knowledge on the topic.

### 1.2.1 Governance structures

All 27 EU Member States indicate to have a governance structure in place to enable the participation and inclusion of various open data stakeholders. The governance structure mainly serves the goal of

<footnote n="51">⁵¹ http://tap.mk.gov.lv/lv/mk/tap/?pid=40472319</footnote>

<footnote n="52">⁵² More information about the act and the adoption of it is available at: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/12111-Open-data-availability-of-public-datasets_en</footnote>

<footnote n="53">⁵³ https://www.bmwi.de/Redaktion/DE/Publikationen/Studien/studie-hochwertige-datensaetze-in-deutschland.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=16</footnote>

<footnote n="54">⁵⁴ Information Society Development Committee: https://ivpk.lrv.lt/en/</footnote>
assisting data providers with their open data publication process. In many countries (93%), the governance structure and operating model are published online and accessible to the public.

In Germany, the Competence Center for Open Data (CCOD)<fnref n="55" /> is responsible for promoting and assisting the data publication process at national level and provides help and assistance for the states. Furthermore, the German government is working on a technical solution to connect all existing German data portals with govdata.de, the national portal, being the central entry point for open data requests. The new open data strategy includes an overview of all stakeholders involved with open data.<fnref n="56" />

In Estonia, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications (MoEAC)<fnref n="57" /> is responsible for open data policy in Estonia. The public sector inter-departmental open data working group involves members from different interested ministries and other public sector organisations. The working group meets at least 6 times a year and participation is open to non-members as well (e.g., civil society, private companies, academia). The working group discusses broad issues, from organisations' practical needs to strategic open data policy issues.<fnref n="58" />

The Government of Hungary adopted the "Artificial Intelligence Strategy"<fnref n="59" /> while simultaneously instituting the Hungarian Data Asset Agency (NAVÜ)<fnref n="60" />. The NAVÜ establishes the structured institutional framework of government tasks related to the development of the digital ecosystem of Hungary. The most important task of the agency is to make public databases available in a regulated framework. The aim is to make public administration more effective, and the development of the economy and enterprises substantiate. The NAVÜ's tasks include operating the national public data portal and supporting data providers in the process of publishing open data.<fnref n="61" />

The open data governance structure can take many forms. For example, there could be a strong central coordination (top-down) or a more decentralised structure in which initiatives are developed and pursued at the local level, with little need for central guidance if not coordination (bottom-up). The great majority (81%) of Member States use a hybrid model for governing open data in their countries. The remaining group of countries (19%) implemented a top-down approach. None of the EU27 Member States opted for an exclusive bottom-up model.

In Ireland, a top-down approach is used for governing open data. The open data policy is set and coordinated at the national level by the Department Public Expenditure and Reform (DPER)<fnref n="62" /> and is a key element of the government's reform agenda. DPER is responsible for the implementation of government reform across all levels of government, both central and regional. The positioning of the governance structures for open data within DPER provides the structure and ability to drive the policy

<footnote n="55">⁵⁵ Competence Center for Open Data (CCOD): https://www.bva.bund.de/DE/Services/Behoerden/Beratung/Beratungszentrum/OpenData/opendata_node.html</footnote>

<footnote n="56">⁵⁶ https://www.bmi.bund.de/SharedDocs/downloads/DE/publikationen/themen/moderne-verwaltung/open-data-strategie-der-bundesregierung.pdf?blob=publicationFile&v=4</footnote>

<footnote n="57">⁵⁷ Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications (MoEAC): https://www.mkm.ee/en</footnote>

<footnote n="58">⁵⁸ https://avaandmed.eesti.ee/instructions/avaandmete-poliitika</footnote>

<footnote n="59">⁵⁹ https://ati.ec.europa.eu/news/hungary-has-published-its-strategy-artificial-intelligence</footnote>

<footnote n="60">⁶⁰ Hungarian Data Asset Agency (NAVÜ): https://www.navu.hu/</footnote>

<footnote n="61">⁶¹ https://knowledge4policy.ec.europa.eu/ai-watch/hungary-ai-strategy-report_en</footnote>

<footnote n="62">⁶² Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (DPER): https://www.gov.ie/en/organisation/department-of-public-expenditure-and-reform/</footnote>
as national policy with central government departments, local government, government agencies, and all public bodies.

The Spanish government uses a hybrid data governance model. The coordination of different data initiatives, at the ministerial and regional government, takes place through sectoral groups (top-down). In parallel, the government is proactive towards requests of local entities and events hosted by organisations closely linked to citizens, such as the association of infomediary companies (ASEDIE) (bottom-up).

### 1.2.2 Network of open data officers

To promote and encourage open data publication by public bodies across a country, and to ensure an active dialogue between the national open data team and public administrations, it is beneficial to set up a network of open data ambassadors. These roles, sometimes called open data or PSI "liaison officers", or "data stewards", act as contact points across government for all matters related to open data. Their function often entails promoting and supporting the publication of open data within their organisation, maintaining an active dialogue with other liaison officers and the national open data team, exchanging knowledge, and ensuring publication on the national portal. In 2021, 89% of Member States use open data officers as part of their governance models.

In Czech Republic, the Council of Government for Information Society<fnref n="63" /> established the "Open Data Working Group". The group consists of 14 open data coordinators from ministries and public bodies from both a regional and national level. A priority list is regularly presented and discussed with members of the Open Data Working Group. The group also provides open data training for civil servants, workshops and consultation for introducing open data policy into all public bodies.

In France, two types of actors are appointed within ministerial organisations, "Chief Data Officers" and "Open Data Officers". Chief data officers (CDOs) are proactively appointed by ministries, as asked by the Prime Minister in his April 2021 circular. They are in charge of the data policy within their ministries. Etalab leads the network of CDOs and supports them in the implementation of their missions, including the opening and circulation of its data.<fnref n="64" /> Open data officer is not a mandatory role, since open data is a prerogative of the CDO. Nevertheless, some ministries and inter-ministerial services choose to appoint open data officers alongside the CDOs, with the specific role of instilling the open data policy within their structure. The open data officer's missions are to identify the databases whose opening would have the greatest impact, to act as an intermediary between Etalab and the divisions of his ministry and to report needs and feedback to the CDO.

In Lithuania, all public bodies are obliged to appoint a person responsible for organizing the opening of the authority's data, the "Open data Coordinator". The assigned coordinator has to ensure the process of opening of data, its supervision and compliance with the requirements laid down in the "Law on the Right to Receive Information from State and Municipal Institutions and Agencies"<fnref n="65" />.

### 1.2.3 Fostering open data initiatives throughout the country

In order to foster open data re-use and stimulate data publishing, governments often support institutions in facilitating open data initiatives. These open data initiatives can include operating

<footnote n="63">⁶³ Council of Government for Information Society: https://www.vlada.cz/en/ppov/rvis/government-council-for-information-society-74186/</footnote>

<footnote n="64">⁶⁴ https://www.data.gouv.fr/fr/datasets/liste-des-administrateurs-ministeriels-des-donnees/</footnote>

<footnote n="65">⁶⁵ https://e-seimas.lrs.lt/portal/legalAct/lt/TAD/TAIS.440732?jfwid=-fxdp8hxk#:~:text=Obtaining%20Private%20Information-,1.,information%20shall%20not%20be%20provided.</footnote>
regional or local portals for municipalities or cities as well as activities to boost re-use, such as hackathons, conferences, re-user meetings, competitions and studies into benefits and challenges of publication and re-use. In 2021, all EU27 Member States indicate that, at least some of the open data initiatives, either local, regional, or national, are facilitated or supported at the national level.

In 96% of Member States, local and regional public bodies conduct open data initiatives. In 85%, the national open data policy incentivises and supports these local or regional initiatives. Figure 5 shows a small increase in the amount of local and regional public bodies to conduct open data initiatives compared to last year.

<figure><img src="image_9.png" /><figcaption>Figure 5: The amount of local or regional public bodies to conduct open data initiatives compared to 2020</figcaption></figure>

A regular exchange of knowledge or experiences among public sector bodies occurs in all EU27 Member States and in 96% of the countries takes the exchange of knowledge also place between public sector bodies and open data re-users. This exchange of knowledge mostly happens during open data events such as hackathons, conferences, or user meetups.

In Germany, the Federal Chancellery<fnref n="66" /> hosted a multi-stakeholder forum in the context of the national Open Government Partnership process, inviting representatives of civil society to talk about the use of open data and data quality.<fnref n="67" /> Furthermore, the Federal Chancellery invited experts from the civil society for an expert-workshop to discuss ideas regarding open government and open data in Germany.<fnref n="68" />

The Greek Ministry organised the “OGP Greece Ideathon” in July 2020.<fnref n="69" /> The aim of the event is to gather innovative proposals for open government, including ideas about the open data required in order to improve the function and monitoring of public. Following that event, in December 2020 they

<footnote n="66">⁶⁶ Federal Chancellery: https://www.bundeskanzlerin.de/bkin-en/chancellery</footnote>

<footnote n="67">⁶⁷ https://www.open-government-deutschland.de/opengov-de/zeitplan-und-konsultation-zum-3-nationalen-aktionsplan-1847194</footnote>

<footnote n="68">⁶⁸ https://www.open-government-deutschland.de/opengov-de/open-government-partnership/mitmachen</footnote>

<footnote n="69">⁶⁹ https://mindigital.gr/archives/1511</footnote>
organised a workshop aiming at gathering feedback from both public sector entities and open data re-
users.<fnref n="70" />

In Romania, all open data initiatives are supported by the national open data team through one-to-one assistance, webinars, facilitation of collaboration with re-users, provision of available resources and standards. The national portal team holds monthly webinars on open data subjects, both for institutions only and mixed, for institutions and re-users. These allow re-users and public bodies to exchange good practices on re-use examples, but also priorities high-value datasets and facilitates collaboration on specific domains.<fnref n="71" />

1.3 Open data implementation

This indicator looks at implementation measures in place that enable open data initiatives at national, regional, and local level. More specifically, the indicator analyses the extent to which guidance is provided by means of guidelines or guidebooks that foster the release of open data within the country as well as the availability of data publication plans and the monitoring of progress against these plans. Also, it considers the extent to which arrangements are in place so that the data from regional and local sources can be systematically harvested by the national portals. Additionally, the indicator looks at training activities that enhance the data literacy and skills of the civil servants working with open data.

1.3.1 Guidelines and guidebooks

To foster publication, guidance and assistance on the implementation process of open data plans is
often provided in the form of guidelines and guidebooks. All EU27 Member States indicate to have a
national document or tool to assist data providers in their publication process. Often, these
guidelines are published on the national open data portals.

In Finland, the “Data Owner’s Guide” is available in Finnish, English and Swedish.<fnref n="72" /> The guide provides an introduction to the concept of open data, supports data producers that plan to open their data, explains how to get insights into the re-use of their data, and guidelines on the Share-PSI 2.0 practise.

In Poland, guidelines are spread over a series of documents. The “Open data standards”<fnref n="73" /> which provides information on legal, security, technical and API related topics, a good practice guide<fnref n="74" />, and a guide for data providers<fnref n="75" />.

In Sweden, an extensive online guide package for open data publication has been established in 2020.
This includes several different perspectives, such as societal values, generic data user profiles as well as
in depth organisational, technical and legal guidance. The package includes guidance on how to publish

<footnote n="70">70 https://covidhackgr.gov.gr/ogp/</footnote>

<footnote n="71">⁷¹ https://data.gov.ro/blog</footnote>

<footnote n="72">⁷² https://www.avoindata.fi/fi/opas/avoimen-datan-opas</footnote>

<footnote n="73">⁷³ First version of the Open data standards (2018): https://dane.gov.pl/knowledgebase/useful-materials/standardy-otwartosci-danych. Open data standards after evaluation and public consultations (2020): https://dane.gov.pl/article/article-1264,standardy-otwartosci-danych-po-konsultacjach-publicznych</footnote>

<footnote n="74">⁷⁴ https://dane.gov.pl/knowledgebase/useful-materials/ministerstwo-cyfryzacji-pomaga-urzedom-w-otwieran/</footnote>

<footnote n="75">⁷⁵ https://dane.gov.pl/knowledgebase/useful-materials/nowy-przewodnik-dla-dostawcow-danych</footnote>
according to the DCAT-AP specification to the national portal, legal advice, and clarifications on the Open Data Directive.<fnref n="76" />

### 1.3.2 Monitoring data publication

Data publication plans and related monitoring mechanisms serve as tools to oversee progress across national and local public administrations. Moreover, it helps define effective interventions where necessary in order to overcome barriers. In 2021, 96% of Member States indicate to have data publication plans in place, often embedded in national open data policy or strategy documentation. In addition, 96% of Member States indicate to have some form of processes run at the national level to ensure that the open data strategy and actions are implemented, e.g., through monitoring mechanisms. The majority (67%) indicates the status of implementation as satisfactory, another 26% as neutral, and the remaining 7% as unsatisfactory. Some countries indicated to be content of what was achieved this far, yet express the feeling of not wanting to relax, as there is always more progress to be made.

In Germany, the Federal Government has to report the progress of open data implementation to the federal parliament every two years. As part of the open government national action plan a tool is created to monitor its implementation, presenting the quarterly implementation status of all obligations.<fnref n="77" />

In Slovenia, the publication plans are included in the "Strategic Work Plan for Open Data 2020-2021"<fnref n="78" /> with the focus on municipalities' data and the start of including other bodies as well, such as companies providing public services, in line with the Open Data Directive. Every month the open data portal team reports to the project office at the Ministry of Public Administration<fnref n="79" /> on the progress made. The implementation according to the action plan is also recorded in an annual report.

### 1.3.3 Harvesting data from regional and local data sources

Looking at countries harvesting from regional and local data sources, similar trends as last year can be observed. In 2021, all national portals of Member States, where applicable, harvested data from local and regional portals. In countries such as Cyprus or Malta, where there are no regional portals, all data is instead published directly on the national open data portals. Interesting is that by 2021, Romania officially launched local activities which the national portal harvests. Figure 6 compares the degree to which existing local and regional sources are harvested by the national open data portal to last year's numbers. It can be observed that the number of countries harvesting all local and regional datasets increased in 2021.

<footnote n="76">⁷⁶ https://www.digg.se/utveckling-av-digital-forvaltning/oppna-och-delade-data</footnote>

<footnote n="77">⁷⁷ https://www.open-government-deutschland.de/opengov-de/aktionsplaene-und-berichte/zweiter-nationaler-aktionsplan-1591034</footnote>

<footnote n="78">⁷⁸</footnote>

<footnote>https://podatki.gov.si/sites/default/files/reports/Open%20Data_Strates%CC%8Cki%20delovni%20plan_julij2020.pdf</footnote>

<footnote n="79">⁷⁹ Ministry of Public Administration: https://www.gov.si/en/state-authorities/ministries/ministry-of-public-administration/</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_10.png" /><figcaption>Figure 6: The degree to which existing local or regional sources are harvested compared to 2020</figcaption></figure>

### 1.3.4 Open data training

In 2021, 26 of the 27 Member States provide training activities to develop the necessary data literacy and skills to support and enable civil servants working with open data. Out of this group, like last year, 19 countries indicate that these training activities also offer a publicly recognised certification and formal recognition as professional development training within public bodies.

The Austrian Federal Administration Academy (VAB)<fnref n="80" /> is the training and further education institute for employees of the federal service. The academy offers the “School of Data Public Services” where a certificate can be earned by students who successfully attend 10 training days in the dedicated curriculum.<fnref n="81" />

In Cyprus, the open data team in collaboration with the Open University of Cyprus<fnref n="82" /> offers an “Open Data Training Programme” for PSI liaison offices where they offer trainings on a variety of topics, such as data publishing, licensing, (meta-)data quality, APIs, etc. Participants of the programme receive a formal certification, which is considered part of the employees’ qualification for promotion purposes within the public service.

In Poland, the “Open Data Academy” provides a series of eight free three-month courses for employees of ministries and entities, such as central offices, but also scientific and research institutions.<fnref n="83" /> To continue learning during the pandemic, the academy offered online courses. Each trainee receives a certificate confirming the acquired competences which is formally recognised by relevant institutions.

<footnote n="80">⁸⁰ Federal Administration Academy (VAB): https://www.oeffentlicherdienst.gv.at/vab/index.html</footnote>

<footnote n="81">⁸¹ School of Data Public Services: https://www.oeffentlicherdienst.gv.at/vab/seminarprogramm/verwaltung_verstehen_und_gestalten/public Management_2021.html. The curriculum is available at https://www.oeffentlicherdienst.gv.at/vab_dokumente/2019/vab2019-pm-school-of-data-public-services.pdf</footnote>

<footnote n="82">⁸² Open University of Cyprus: https://www.ouc.ac.cy/index.php/en/</footnote>

<footnote n="83">⁸³ https://dane.gov.pl/article/1259,otwieramy-akademie-otwartych-danych</footnote>
## 1.4 Overall performance

In this final section, the overall performance of the EU27 Member States is evaluated based on the indicators of the policy dimension discussed throughout the chapter. Similar to previous years, the policy dimension is the most mature dimension of the assessment. In 2021, the overall maturity in the policy dimension of the Member States is 87%, which is an improvement of 2 percentage points compared to last year (see figure 7).

<figure><img src="image_11.png" /><figcaption>Figure 7: Development in maturity of the EU27 in the policy dimension over the last years</figcaption></figure>

Interestingly, the most mature indicator is the 'governance of open data', where last year this was the 'policy framework' indicator. Countries improved their efforts to support data providers in their publication process. These efforts almost always involve the set-up of a network of open data liaison officers, which enables processes for implementing the open data strategies. An increasing number of countries foster open data initiatives on local and regional level as well as on the national level. Also, the open data implementation indicator shows an improvement, indicating that countries successfully execute and monitor the implementation of their open data strategies and action plans. Figure 8 shows the average scores on each of the policy indicators compared to last year.

<figure><img src="image_12.png" /><figcaption>Figure 8: Maturity score per policy indicator compared to last year</figcaption></figure>
Finally, figure 9 shows the country raking of the EU 27 Member States of the policy dimension. The majority of countries score above the EU27 average of 87%, as only 9 countries scored below. Remarkable is the improvement that Slovenia experienced in 2021, climbing from the 15th place to the 1st place, with a score of 99%. Countries completing the list with highest maturity score are Denmark, France, and Italy with a score of 98%.

<figure><img src="image_13.png" /><figcaption>Figure 9: Country ranking for the policy dimension</figcaption></figure>
## Chapter 2: Open Data Impact

The second dimension, “open data impact”, analyses the existing approaches and methodologies developed at country and public body level to monitor and measure the re-use and impact of open data. By re-using open data, innovative products can be developed and services to citizens can be improved. The impact created by open data re-use generally refers to some kind of value for citizens, businesses, and society as a whole, for instance, efficiency gains through time or cost savings, or environmental benefits<fnref n="84" />.

As discussed before, the Open Data Directive<fnref n="85" /> encourages Member States to facilitate the re-use of public sector data by publishing those datasets that have a high potential to create economic and societal impact. Making these datasets available will stimulate the development of innovative solutions such as mobility apps, increase transparency by providing access to publicly funded research data, and support new technologies, including artificial intelligence. Open data is a valuable resource that can contribute to the growth of the European economy and to overcoming political, societal, economic, and environmental challenges.

This year, European countries focus more on measuring open data impact and monitoring open data re-use than before. This could be an effect of the Open Data Directive or an increased demand of open data providers and re-users to better understand impact. Many countries have recently conducted research to assess the country's open data impact, both qualitatively and quantitatively.

Measuring the impact of open data is complex, and there is no consolidated and generally accepted methodology available that enables attempting that on a large scale, for example, at the European or national level. In the context of the Open Data Maturity assessment, the impact dimension focuses on the extent to which countries are *aware* of impact and systematically monitor open data re-use and attempt to measure impact created in selected fields of interest.

The following key elements are explored as part of the impact dimension:

<table><thead><tr><td>Metric</td><td>Key elements</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Strategic awareness</td><td>Monitoring mechanisms are in place at national and public body level to monitor open data re-use. Methods are in place to measure the impact that can be derived from re-using open data.</td></tr><tr><td>Political impact</td><td>Various re-use examples can be provided and the re-use of the open data available in this field is systematically monitored.</td></tr><tr><td>Social impact</td><td>Various re-use examples can be provided and the re-use of the open data available in this field is systematically monitored.</td></tr><tr><td>Environmental impact</td><td>Various re-use examples can be provided and the re-use of the open data available in this field is systematically monitored.</td></tr><tr><td>Economic impact</td><td>Studies that focus on the macro and microeconomic impact of open data are commissioned or conducted by Government. Other studies that focus on the economic impact of open data in a particular sector are available.</td></tr></tbody></table>

<footnote n="84">⁸⁴ For an in-depth analysis of the impact of open data, read the data.europa.eu's "The Economic Impact of Open Data" report, published in January 2020 at https://data.europa.eu/sites/default/files/the-economic-impact-of-open-data.pdf</footnote>

<footnote n="85">⁸⁵ https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A32019L1024</footnote>
## 2.1 Strategic awareness

The first indicator, strategic awareness, emphasises the importance of a structured approach to monitoring and measuring open data re-use and impact. It provides insights into the extent to which public sector bodies measure the re-use of their data and if there are activities in place to support and incentivise public sector bodies to do so. As measuring open data impact is a complex topic, this indicator aims to go beyond monitoring re-use, and also aims to assess whether countries have a definition of 'open data impact' and if there is a methodology in place to measure it.

### 2.1.1 Monitoring and boosting open data re-use

Researchers, journalists, developers, public and private organisations, etc., all re-use open data to create socio-economic value. For example, public bodies often re-use data from other public sector bodies, enabling these organisations to become more effective and efficient, to make more informed decisions, and to improve their services to citizens. Others use open data to develop innovative products and services, which result in, for example, social or environmental benefits. To learn more about the products that are being developed, and the impact that is being created, it is important to measure open data re-use.

Interestingly, almost all EU27 Member States (96%) have processes in place to estimate the level of open data re-use in their country, often in the form of user analytics, surveys, or training programmes. Additionally, 74% of the countries have incentives or obligations in place for public bodies or civil servants to estimate the level of re-use of their own open data. Some countries incentivise public bodies by offering workshops or writing success stories about open data re-use, while others have incorporated in their governance structure a way for open data officers to monitor and report back on open data re-use.

These processes not only monitor the level of re-use, but also show an increasing interest and focus on understanding open data re-use. This becomes apparent by the increasing number of participants in open data trainings sessions, conferences, and hackathons, newly initiated research projects or surveys, or an increased and wider spread interest in re-use statistics. A large share of the Member States (70%) indicate that they observe a strong focus on understanding the level of re-use of open data within their country. This is, for example, represented by dedicating a larger section of a country's new open data strategy to understanding open data re-use or increased interest from other governmental institutions.

The Danish Agency for Data Supply and Efficiency<sup>86</sup> offers the Data Distributor, which aims to distribute basic data easily and in a straightforward manner. To highlight the potential of public information, they generate monthly reports on the use of the data they provide.<sup>87</sup>

In Estonia, most public bodies request and re-use data from other public bodies using the secure national data exchange infrastructure X-tee (which relies on the X-Road technology)<sup>88</sup>. The X-tee allows for tracking the exact number of data requests coming from each organisation. The general usage statistics of the X-tee (including frequency of data exchange between different organisations) is made publicly available.<sup>89</sup>

<footnote n="86"><sup>86</sup> The Danish Agency for Data Supply and Efficiency: https://sdfe.dk/om-os</footnote>

<footnote n="87"><sup>87</sup> https://sdfe.dk/data-skaber-vaerdi/maanedens-anvender-cases-og-temaer</footnote>

<footnote n="88"><sup>88</sup> https://logs.x-tee.ee/EE/gui/</footnote>

<footnote n="89"><sup>89</sup> https://logs.x-tee.ee/visualizer/EE/</footnote>
The German coalition agreement of the current government states that the publication of open data will be part of the daily tasks in public bodies. Also, a new open data policy, in which monitoring open data re-use and use cases will be a central part, is being developed.

Italy implemented a tool to support and incentivise public bodies in measuring the re-use of their own and other public bodies' open data. It is a KPI tool that allows data publishers to monitor their datasets, show when the data was uploaded, what was deleted and what the currency of their data is.<fnref n="90" /> It provides public bodies with the possibility to compare the quality of their data with others and monitor their own progress over time.

In Poland, The Chancellery of the Prime Minister (CPM)<fnref n="91" /> monitors the re-use of open data by public bodies via appointed open data officers per ministry, who are responsible for monitoring re-use of their data and reporting yearly to the CPM. The Open Data Programme<fnref n="92" /> implementation reports are based on their contribution. The reports comprise sections showcasing examples of such re-use.<fnref n="93" />

In Spain, the Aporta Initiative<fnref n="94" /> conducts an annual national survey asking public bodies, from national, regional, and local institutions about the monitoring of their data usage.<fnref n="95" /> The results of the survey serve to confirm the answers for data.europa.eu's annual Open Data Maturity landscaping exercise.

### 2.1.2 Measuring open data impact

Similar to last year, 78% of the Member States have indicated they have specified a definition for 'impact of open data'. Although most countries do not have an official definition of open data impact, they do stress its importance in official documentation such as strategy documents, and mention that this impact can be observed in the political, societal, environmental, and economic domain.

In France, the latest report of the Open Data Mission<fnref n="96" /> includes a recommendation to evaluate the economic, social, and scientific impact of the opening and sharing of data and source codes. The mission also highlights four impact areas of open data: scientific as a vector of knowledge, economic as a driver of innovation, democratic to improve public service, and political to restore people's confidence in public action. This view is coherent with the ministerial strategy on open data, which advocates for more openness, i.e., more public open data to foster innovation, and transparency, to enhance the external evaluation of governmental policy and the democratic debate.

The Dutch National portal has defined impact by stating that "impact stands for the extent to which making data available, and sharing has an effect on processes and solving issues."<fnref n="97" /> The incentive is that datasets that are more visible, get more attention and at the end provide value.

<footnote n="90">⁹⁰ https://bit.ly/3BJKGhx</footnote>

<footnote n="91">⁹¹ The Chancellery of the Prime Minister (former Ministry of Digital Affairs - MDA): https://www.gov.pl/web/digitalization/about-us1</footnote>

<footnote n="92">⁹² The Open Data Programme: https://www.dane.gov.pl/media/resources/20171201/Program-EN.doc</footnote>

<footnote n="93">⁹³ https://dane.gov.pl/pl/knowledgebase/useful-materials/raporty-na-temat-rezultatow-wdrazania-programu-otwierania-danych-publicznych</footnote>

<footnote n="94">⁹⁴ The Aporta Initiative: https://datos.gob.es/en/about-aporta-initiative</footnote>

<footnote n="95">⁹⁵ https://datos.gob.es/es/evaluacion-del-ecosistema-de-los-datos-publicos-reutilizables-en-espana</footnote>

<footnote n="96">⁹⁶ https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/open-source-observatory-osor/news/french-report-prime-minister-open-data-and-open-source</footnote>

<footnote n="97">⁹⁷ https://data.overheid.nl/impact</footnote>
In Slovenia, a definition is provided in their Strategic Working Plan for Open Data 2020-2021.<fnref n="98" /> It states that open data impact is primarily present in four main areas: 1) transparency of the work of public institutions (anti-corruption; political impact), 2) innovative digital economy, 3) solving environment related problems (smart cities), 4) efficient functioning and data-driven decisions of the public institutions.

Although there is no generally accepted methodology to measure open data impact, 70% of the Member States indicate they have developed a methodology within their own country. Additionally, 70% of the Member States conducted studies in the past year that focus on assessing the impact of open data.

During last years' assessment, open data impact was mostly measured by the number of downloads. This year, we observed a trend towards more in-depth research, which will likely result in a more accurate estimation of the impact created by open data. Moving forward, this increased interest in open data impact can have a positive effect on society and the developments within the open data community.

A student from the Johannes Kepler Universität Linz<fnref n="99" /> in Austria wrote a master's thesis on open data and the developments and effects on organisations in Austria.<fnref n="100" />

In Croatia, the project Adjustment of Public Authorities Information Systems to the Open Data Portal analysed open data system in Croatia. The used methodology assesses the effect of improving the open data system. Results of the analysis consisted of recommendations to improve the open data system and a methodology for evaluating data values in Croatia.<fnref n="101" />

In Romania, a methodology is developed to enable recurrent impact evaluations, offer recommendations for the public bodies on how to measure the impact of their own data.<fnref n="102" /> It uses several layers to assess impact, looking at the main publishers and re-user categories, but also using several data collection methods: user surveys, comparative analyses, portal usage, expert surveys, and case studies. The impact measurement methodology and evaluation study<fnref n="103" /> are designed to act as a toolbox that can be used by public bodies as well, to conduct their own measuring.

In 2020, the Swedish Lantmäteriet<fnref n="104" /> (the national geodata authority) investigated the value of releasing a number of important data sets from a range of authorities free of charge.<fnref n="105" /> This study revealed that the economic impact of approximately 300 identified high-value datasets had a total value of 10-21 billion Swedish Kronor (SEK).

### 2.1.3 Civil-society initiatives and collaboration between government and civil society

All Member States indicate that their governments collaborate with civil society or academia to create open data impact whether political, social, environmental, or economic. Also, 26 out of the 27 Member

<footnote n="98">⁹⁸ https://podatki.gov.si/sites/default/files/reports/Open%20Data_Strates%CC%8Cki%20delovni%20plan_julij2020.pdf</footnote>

<footnote n="99">⁹⁹ The Johannes Kepler Universität Linz: https://epub.jku.at/</footnote>

<footnote n="100">¹⁰⁰ https://epub.jku.at/obvulihs/content/titleinfo/5676861</footnote>

<footnote n="101">¹⁰¹ https://data.gov.hr/hr/standardi-i-prirucnici</footnote>

<footnote n="102">¹⁰² https://data.gov.ro/uploads/page_images/2020-07-17-124412.755459Metodologie-OD2020.docx</footnote>

<footnote n="103">¹⁰³ https://data.gov.ro/uploads/page_images/2021-04-15-084014.114635Evaluare-impact-data.gov.ro.pdf</footnote>

<footnote n="104">¹⁰⁴ Lantmäteriet: https://www.lantmateriet.se/</footnote>

<footnote n="105">¹⁰⁵ https://www.lantmateriet.se/en/about-lantmateriet/Samverkan-med-andra/psi---regeringsuppdrag-till-lantmateriet/</footnote>
States offer civil society initiatives that are open data driven and aim to create impact, whether political, social, environmental, or economic. A great example of open data driven initiatives are the COVID-19 dashboards that are developed within the Member States as a response to the current pandemic. As an extension to these dashboards, many countries are offering visuals and statistics about national, regional, and local vaccination rates as well.

The Open Society Fund Prague<fnref n="106" /> is a foundation that supports the opening of data in the Czech Republic. In order to incentives to open and re-use data they organise the annual national competition 'Together We Open Data'.<fnref n="107" /> The foundation also organises the international conference 'Open Data Expo', with the aim to increase the interest and impact of open data.

In Germany, there are 31 ‘OK Labs’ (Open Knowledge Labs) all over the country, which operate under the leadership of Code for Germany. These Labs work with open data on a daily basis and create several projects, applications, and use cases.<fnref n="108" />

The Open Government Partnership (OGP)<fnref n="109" /> of Portugal aims to guarantee concrete commitments from governments to promote transparency, encourage public participation, fight corruption, and use new technologies to strengthen participatory democracy.<fnref n="110" /> An example is Arquivo.pt<fnref n="111" />, which organises an annual contest for innovative works based on open data<fnref n="112" />.

In Spain, the Valencian Government has entered into agreements with all public universities in the Valencian Community (Universitat Jaume I, Universitat de València, Universitat Politècnica de València, Universitat de Alicante and Universidad Miguel Hernández) to collaborate in training and research activities on transparency and open data. It will have a budget of €70,000 earmarked for awareness-raising, information, and research training activities.<fnref n="113" />

The Civic Tech Sweden<fnref n="114" /> supports people to advocate for more open data and does that in three different themes: 1) Power to the people (a democracy and transparency perspective), 2) Sharing is caring (collaborative economy, common resources, and sustainable development), and 3) I like to move it (focus on transports and mobility).<fnref n="115" />

## 2.2 Political impact

The indicator political impact considers the impact of open data on the public sector and citizen engagement and the extent to which countries are monitoring this kind of impact. It focuses on the benefits that open data has in three domains: improving government efficiency, improving government effectiveness, and increasing transparency and accountability. In figure 10, an overview is presented of the perceived level of impact of these domains. The figure shows that in the majority of

<footnote n="106">¹⁰⁶ Open Society Fund Prague: https://osf.cz/en/</footnote>

<footnote n="107">¹⁰⁷ https://osf.cz/en/programmes/living-democracy/our-state-our-data/together-we-open-data-competition/</footnote>

<footnote n="108">¹⁰⁸ https://www.codefor.de/</footnote>

<footnote n="109">¹⁰⁹ Open Government Partnership: https://www.opengovpartnership.org/members/portugal/</footnote>

<footnote n="110">¹¹⁰ https://ogp.eportugal.gov.pt/inicio</footnote>

<footnote n="111">¹¹¹ Arquivo.pt: https://arquivo.pt/</footnote>

<footnote n="112">¹¹² https://sobre.arquivo.pt/pt/colabore/premios-arquivo-pt/premio-arquivo-pt-2021/</footnote>

<footnote n="113">¹¹³ http://participacio.gva.es/es/inicio/area_de_prensa/not//notios Area prensa?Id=933769</footnote>

<footnote n="114">¹¹⁴ Civic Tech Sweden: https://civictech.se/</footnote>

<footnote n="115">¹¹⁵ https://civictech.se/en/</footnote>
the Member States, open data strongly impacts political topics, especially in terms of increasing transparency and accountability.

<figure><img src="image_14.png" /><figcaption>Figure 10: Level of political impact of open data in the EU27 Member States</figcaption></figure>

## 2.2.1 Monitoring the political impact of open data

In 2021, 81% of the Member States performed activities in the last year to assess the political impact of open data, often in the form of conducting surveys, tracking portal user statistics, and collecting use cases.

In Belgium, a survey was conducted to assess the culture of data in Walloon towns and municipalities, through four themes: the governance of data within the municipality, the compliance with GDPR, open data, and the re-use of data by the municipality.<fnref n="116" />

In Poland, a ministerial task force publishes yearly reports about the impact of the implementation of the Open Data Programme.<fnref n="117" /> <fnref n="118" />

In Sweden an analysis was performed on high-value datasets (HVD), consisting of approximately 300 high-value datasets.<fnref n="119" /> The report estimated, among other topics, the need for political budgetary decisions for making open data free of charge, even for the public bodies that are financing a big part of their organisation by fees. These questions are politically sensitive in Sweden, to the extent that the discussion reached the Swedish parliament.

## 2.2.2 Increasing government efficiency

Open data can improve the efficiency of government processes, such as lowering operational costs. Government efficiency can be boosted with open data because it helps public bodies across many dimensions, from making decisions to spending less time on certain tasks. Publishing data under an open licence takes away the need for re-users, such as local administrations or citizens, to explicitly request the data, without compromising on personal data privacy or confidentiality in general.

<footnote n="116">¹¹⁶ http://www.futurocite.be/activites/enquete-culture-de-donnee/resultats-2020/</footnote>

<footnote n="117">¹¹⁷ https://dane.gov.pl/pl/knowledgebase/useful-materials/raporty-na-temat-rezultatow-wdrazania-programu-otwierania-danych-publicznych</footnote>

<footnote n="118">¹¹⁸ https://data.europa.eu/pl/news/how-poland-fosters-open-data-implementation</footnote>

<footnote n="119">¹¹⁹ https://www.lantmateriet.se/contentassets/e16a59e08cb744149c878776256560e6/bilaga-2_-vardet-av-oppna-data---samhallsekonomisk-nyttoanalys-av-vardefulla-datamangder.pdf</footnote>
at this from the perspective of the data provider, time can be saved as they do not have to answer
data requests, which ultimately reduces operational costs. Publishing data in an open format, such as
CSV, which is typical for tabular data, reduces or eliminates the costs, efforts and skills that required
to transform the data into a suitable format for re-use.

Similar to last year, 56% of Member States indicate that open data has a high impact on increasing government efficiency in their country, 22% indicate a medium impact and 11% a low impact. Countries often observe value added when new datasets are being shared by public or private organisations, as it allows administrations to learn from each other and avoids redundant work in case multiple organisations work on similar topics.

In Italy, the LINKORD project (Linked Open Research Data) provides best practices gathered by the Tuscany Region for the realisation of a policy intelligence tool for research and innovation (R&I) policies. The aim of the project is to enable the public administrators to carry out system interventions in the medium- to long-term themselves and to favour new solutions for economic-entrepreneurial development and public-private collaborations, based on access to and re-use of open data.<fnref n="120" />

In Luxembourg, 102 municipality administrations have saved high costs for data acquisition by using open data cadastral map data, topographic databases, and official national orthophoto data provided by Administration du Cadastre et de la Topographie<fnref n="121" />.

In Poland, the Integrated Analytical Platform provides a central system for analysing data that is collected and created by public administrations and other sources. The aim of the project is to improve the effectiveness of the public health sector by optimising the use of public funds that are spent on, for example, social insurance for people employed in agriculture, health protection, rehabilitation, and benefits paid by various institutions.<fnref n="122" />

### 2.2.3 Increasing government effectiveness

In addition to improving the efficiency of government processes, open data can also improve government effectiveness, especially in helping them to deliver better public services. Public service delivery can be improved, for example, by making it easier for citizens to interact with the government. Open data can also support public administrators in their daily operations, decision-making processes, problem identification and policy making. A number of examples will be presented throughout this paragraph.

In 2021, more than half of the Member States (56%) indicated that open data has a high impact on increasing government effectiveness. Furthermore, 22% of Member States indicate a medium impact, and 11% a low impact. In the countries' responses it is apparent that high quality of service can be achieved using a citizen-centric approach, for example, by involving citizens in the developments of new initiatives, or by providing easy access to highly demanded public information.

In Denmark, the Styrelsen for Dataforsyning og Effektivisering (SDFE)<fnref n="123" /> launched Dataforsyningen last year. This is a gateway to free public geodata, functionality, and information about data and its

<footnote n="120">¹²⁰ http://www.pongovernance1420.gov.it/it/ocpa-2020/linkord-linked-open-research-data-uno-strumento-innovativo-di-policy-intelligence-per-ricerca-e-innovazione/</footnote>

<footnote n="121">¹²¹ https://act public.lu/fr.html</footnote>

<footnote n="122">¹²² https://www.gov.pl/web/cyfryzacja/zintegrowana-platforma-analityczna</footnote>

<footnote n="123">¹²³ Styrelsen for Dataforsyning og Effektivisering : https://sdfe.dk/</footnote>
application possibilities. To optimise the usability of the project, the SDFE collected and incorporated input from users during the development of Dataforsyningen.<fnref n="124" />

In France, the Inter-ministerial Directorate for Digital Affairs<fnref n="125" /> has developed an observatory<fnref n="126" /> where citizens can check how the 250 top administrative procedures score on 8 criteria, including satisfaction and accessibility. Publishing the evaluation of the main procedures helps improve the delivery of services and increase transparency for citizens.<fnref n="127" />

In Slovenia, the application Erar<fnref n="128" />, developed by the Commission for Prevention of Corruption<fnref n="129" />, provides the general public with free-of-charge and user-friendly access to information on business transactions of public sector bodies. The application received the United Nations award for excellence of public service in 2013 and has been one of the most prominent public databases in Slovenia for nearly 10 years. Currently, Erar contains data on approximately 180 million financial transactions from both government and local agencies dating back to 2003. The system increases the level of responsibility of public office holders for effective and efficient use of public finance, decreases risks for illicit management of funds, and limits systemic corruption.

### 2.2.4 Increasing transparency and accountability

Open data can increase government transparency by enabling citizens to hold their representatives accountable and to value them for their achievements and integrity. Government transparency is increased, for example, by opening up public spending or by offering insights into the elections or the behaviours of politicians. In 2021, an increase in the impact of open data on transparency and accountability was observed, where 74% of the Member States define the impact as high, 11% as medium, and 7% as a low.

An example from Cyprus is the NomosPlatform, which is an online platform that provides information about the activities of the parliament, with a focus on bills that are submitted and voted into laws.<fnref n="130" /> The NomosPlatform offers citizens a complete overview of pending bills and bill proposals in the parliament.

The State Electoral Commission of the Republic of Croatia offers data on all elections held in Croatia since 1990, such as parliamentary, presidential, local, and regional elections, as well as elections for minority councils and for the EU Parliament.<fnref n="131" />

In 2020, the Lithuanian Public Procurement Office (PPO)<fnref n="132" /> has opened up data on public contracts regarding the supplies and services aimed at combating COVID-19. The dashboard covers several groups of purchases, such as protective equipment, testing materials, and transportation services. It also contains data on the buyer, supplier, closing of contracts, and prices.<fnref n="133" />

<footnote n="124">¹²⁴ https://dataforsyningen.dk/</footnote>

<footnote n="125">¹²⁵ Inter-ministerial Directorate for Digital Affairs (DINUM): https://www.numerique.gouv.fr/dinum/</footnote>

<footnote n="126">¹²⁶ https://observatoire.numerique.gouv.fr/observatoire/</footnote>

<footnote n="127">¹²⁷ https://www.data.gouv.fr/fr/datasets/observatoire-de-la-qualite-des-demarches-en-ligne/</footnote>

<footnote n="128">¹²⁸ https://erar.si/</footnote>

<footnote n="129">¹²⁹ Commission for Prevention of Corruption (KPK): https://www.kpk-rs.si/en/</footnote>

<footnote n="130">¹³⁰ https://oxygono.org/nomoplatform/</footnote>

<footnote n="131">¹³¹ https://www.izbori.hr/arhiva-izbora/#/app/home</footnote>

<footnote n="132">¹³² Public Procurement Office: https://vpt.lrv.lt/en/</footnote>

<footnote n="133">¹³³ https://vpt.lrv.lt/kovai-su-covid-19-sudarytos-sutartys</footnote>
Another example is provided by Estonia, where the country's national institute for statistics <fnref n="134" /> created an application giving an overview of all salaries in Estonia. The app shows the number of employees and gross monthly salaries of the most represented occupational groups in Estonia <fnref n="135" />

In Portugal, the Transparency Portal was recently launched, an online portal that provides insights into the European funds' execution process. <fnref n="136" /> The portal will identify, in real-time, measures and projects financed or co-financed by European funds, related to NextGenerationEU and the Multiannual Financial Framework 2021-2027¹³⁷, for which data will be automatically extracted from the national open data portal.

### 2.2.5 Open data in policy-making processes

85% of the Member States indicate that open data is used in the policy-making processes in their country, for example as evidence for problem identification and policy formulation. Also, 89% of Member States indicate that open data is used in decision-making processes, for example public administrations making use of open data in their daily operations.

In Greece, most of the drafted legislation or even policy initiatives of the government, are posted on a blog-like platform prior to their submission to parliament. Citizens and organisations can post their comments, suggestions, and criticisms article-by-article. Everyone is invited to provide comments, which have to be considered where applicable. <fnref n="138" />

In Ireland, the Public Policy is a not-profit organisation, which analyses policy documents and formulates deductions and conclusions. They aim to provide independent evidence to inform economic, social, and environmental policies and to communicate relevant research findings to policy makers and interested citizens. <fnref n="139" />

In Portugal, the Education Data Platform gathers data from the Ministry of Education regarding schools, teaching staff, financial records, students, etc. The goal is to provide the needed information in a timely way for municipalities and education authorities to enable them to make policy decisions in an informed way.

The Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth<fnref n="140" /> has used data analytics on 6,7 million job advertisements released as open data by the Swedish Public Employment Service<fnref n="141" />, to create condensed insights about the evolvement of jobs related to digitalisation. The result was used to support a decision support related to the planning of future educations that could enable the digitalisation in society. <fnref n="142" />

<footnote n="134">¹³⁴ Statistics Estonia: https://www.stat.ee/</footnote>

<footnote n="135">¹³⁵ https://andmestikud.stat.ee/ametipalk/</footnote>

<footnote n="136">¹³⁶ https://transparencia.gov.pt/</footnote>

<footnote n="137">¹³⁷ https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/eu-budget/long-term-eu-budget/2021-2027_en</footnote>

<footnote n="138">¹³⁸ http://www.opengov.gr/home/</footnote>

<footnote n="139">¹³⁹ http://www publicpolicy ie/</footnote>

<footnote n="140">¹⁴⁰ Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth: https://www.government.se/government-agencies/swedish-agency-for-economic-and-regional-growth/</footnote>

<footnote n="141">¹⁴¹ Swedish Public Employment Service: https://www.government.se/government-agencies/swedish-public-employment-service/</footnote>

<footnote n="142">¹⁴² https://tillvaxtverket.se/om-tillvaxtverket/bloggen/bloggartiklar/2021-03-02-hur-laser-man-67-miljoner-jobbannonser.html</footnote>
## 2.3 Social impact

The social impact indicator relates to the impact of open data on society as a whole, but also if and how countries monitor the impact in the social field. It assesses the extent to which open data has an impact on societal challenges, such as the inclusion of marginalised groups in society, raising awareness on housing in urban areas, and health and well-being related issues. The re-use examples discussed in this section illustrate how open data impact our society on different levels. In figure 11, an overview is presented of the perceived level of impact of open data on these topics. What stands out is that open data proved to be of high value during the current COVID-19 pandemic, as 89% of the countries indicate there is a high open data impact on this year's newly added category of health and well-being.

<figure><img src="image_15.png" /><figcaption>Figure 11: Level of social impact of open data in the EU27 Member States</figcaption></figure>

### 2.3.1 Monitoring the social impact of open data

In 67% of the Member States, activities are performed to monitor the social impact of open data, such as systematic monitoring, tracking user statistics, or conducting studies and surveys.

The Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare<fnref n="143" /> conducted a research to assess the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on gender equality in Finland. They utilised several open datasets to provide information on the gendered impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on different socio-demographic groups and its consequences for gender equality in Finland.<fnref n="144" />

In Germany, the #SmartDevelopmentHack was launched by the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)<fnref n="145" /> and the European Commission.<fnref n="146" /> This initiative aimed to seek out digital approaches to cope with the challenges caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The impact of each solution was evaluated, and nine winning projects were appointed. It is expected that the BMZ will carry out evaluations upon project completion to measure the actual impact achieved.

In Spain, the publication "Open data and artificial intelligence, tools for gender equality", explains the concept of gender equality with the current influence of new technologies in our society and policies. A team of female journalists coordinates a volume of interviews with ten women with in-depth experience

<footnote n="143">143 Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare: https://thl.fi/en/web/thlfi-en</footnote>

<footnote n="144">144 https://thl.fi/en/web/thlfi-en/research-and-development/research-and-projects/the-impact-of-the-covid-19-crisis-on-gender-equality-in-finland</footnote>

<footnote n="145">145 German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ): https://www.bmz.de/en</footnote>

<footnote n="146">146 https://toolkit-digitalisierung.de/en/smartdevelopmenthack/</footnote>
and knowledge on two key elements for the future: the realisation of the importance and potential of open data, and public policies made on the basis of data representing society as a whole and not just 50%.<fnref n="147" />

### 2.3.2 Increasing the inclusion of marginalised groups in society

A wide variety of open data-based applications and services have been developed to encourage the inclusion of marginalised groups into society. Individuals or entire communities, whose participation in politics and society was originally challenged, should be enabled to exercise their rights, take opportunities, and benefit from available resources to equally partake in social, cultural, and political life. In 2021, with a steep increase of 11 percentage-points compared to last year, 59% of the Member States indicated that open data highly impacts the inclusion of marginalised groups into society.

An often-mentioned group that is supported by open data-based applications are people with disabilities. For example, the Polish 'ParkDots' locates nearby parking spaces<fnref n="148" />, and the French platform 'Acceslibre'<fnref n="149" /> and the German 'einfach teilhaben'<fnref n="150" /> both show if and how institutions support people with disabilities.

In Belgium, an open data-based dashboard was launched to promote gender equality in Brussels' street names by highlighting which names are appointed to males, females, transgender males, or transgender females.<fnref n="151" />

Tusla, the Child and Family Agency<fnref n="152" /> in Ireland, launched a comprehensive Open Data Portal to allow access to its data on child services, child protection and welfare, family support and domestic violence. They now have 708 datasets on the portal and are one of the most viewed publishers.<fnref n="153" />

### 2.3.3 Raising awareness on housing in urban areas

Websites and applications that provide information on housing, such as neighbourhood facilities and characteristics, are available in European countries to enable citizens to make informed decisions about where to live and where to do business. The majority of 63% of the Member States indicate that open data has a high impact on raising awareness on housing in cities, 11% estimated the impact as medium, and 19% as low.

In the Netherlands, the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS)<fnref n="154" /> offers the application 'Monitor Koopwoningmarkt'. This application offers visualisations about the current state of owner-occupied homes, by using various indicators divided over six housing market themes.<fnref n="155" />

The Spanish web application Inspide uses open data to show whether a city like Madrid adapts to the current requirements of social distancing. Inspide shows, for example, the width of the pavements

<footnote n="147">147 https://governobert.gencat.cat/ca/que-es/Publicacions/colleccio-govern-obert/intelligencia-artificial/index.html</footnote>

<footnote n="148">148 https://www.wroclaw.pl/smartcity/latwiejsze-parkowanie-dla-aut-osob-z-niepelnosprawnosciami-i-autokarow</footnote>

<footnote n="149">149 https://acceslibre.beta.gouv.fr/</footnote>

<footnote n="150">150 https://www.einfach-teilhaben.de/DE/AS/Home/alltagssprache_node.html</footnote>

<footnote n="151">151 https://equalstreetnames.brussels/</footnote>

<footnote n="152">152 Tusla Child and Family Agency: https://www.tusla.ie/</footnote>

<footnote n="153">153 https://data.gov.ie/organization/tusla</footnote>

<footnote n="154">154 Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS): https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl</footnote>

<footnote n="155">155 https://data.overheid.nl/community/application/monitor-koopwoningmarkt</footnote>
represented with colours, and provides figures indicating whether their width is sufficient to maintain the required distance between pedestrians.<fnref n="156" />

A Swedish open data portal, called Open Data Umeå, offers freely available data about the city of Umeå.<fnref n="157" /> It provides, for example, insights into the estimated processing time for applying for a building permit, and when it is smart to send in the application for a faster process.

### 2.3.4 Raising awareness on health and well-being (e.g., COVID-19)

The COVID-19 pandemic brought about a renewed emphasis on the importance of systematically collecting and making data available to the public. The need to responding to the emergency led many countries to start publishing related data and developing initiatives and dashboards to make the data more easily understandable and insightful. In 2021, to respond to the current pandemic, the landscaping exercise introduced an assessment of the level of open data impact on raising awareness on health and well-being. An overwhelming share of Member States (89%) recognise a high impact on this category, 7% indicated a medium impact, and the remaining 4% indicated a low impact. In the beginning of the pandemic, numerous dashboards were created to visualise the global and national spread of the COVID-19 virus, which proved to be of high value to both citizens and policymakers.<fnref n="158" /> In 2021, when the vaccines got approved, many dashboards were extended to also track the global and national vaccination rates.

Great examples of COVID-19 open data-based national dashboards which are complemented by vaccination data can be found in, for example, Bulgaria<fnref n="159" />, Cyprus<fnref n="160" />, Czech Republic<fnref n="161" />, Denmark<fnref n="162" />, Estonia<fnref n="163" />, France<fnref n="164" />, Germany<fnref n="165" />, Greece<fnref n="166" />, Ireland<fnref n="167" />, the Netherlands<fnref n="168" />, Portugal<fnref n="169" />, Romania<fnref n="170" />, Slovenia<fnref n="171" />, and Slovakia<fnref n="172" />. Some countries created dashboards dedicated to vaccination rates only, such as Austria<fnref n="173" /> or Belgium<fnref n="174" />.

<footnote n="156">¹⁵⁶ https://distanciamiento.inspide.com/</footnote>

<footnote n="157">¹⁵⁷ https://opendata.umea.se/pages/startsid/</footnote>

<footnote n="158">¹⁵⁸ https://data.europa.eu/en/impact-studies/covid-19/global-and-european-dashboards-mapping-spread-covid-19</footnote>

<footnote n="159">¹⁵⁹ https://coronavirus.bg</footnote>

<footnote n="160">¹⁶⁰ https://covid19.ucy.ac.cy/</footnote>

<footnote n="161">¹⁶¹ https://onemocneni-aktualne.mzcr.cz/covid-19</footnote>

<footnote n="162">¹⁶² https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/aa41b29149f24e20a4007a0c4e13db1d</footnote>

<footnote n="163">¹⁶³ https://koroonakaart.ee/en</footnote>

<footnote n="164">¹⁶⁴ https://www.gouvernement.fr/info-coronavirus/carte-et-donnees</footnote>

<footnote n="165">¹⁶⁵ https://www dashboard-deutschland.de/#/themen/gesundheit/gesundheit</footnote>

<footnote n="166">¹⁶⁶ For example, https://covid19.gov.gr/covid19-live-analytics or https://covid19.gov.gr/covid-map-en/</footnote>

<footnote n="167">¹⁶⁷ https://covid19ireland-geohive.hub.arcgis.com/</footnote>

<footnote n="168">¹⁶⁸ https://coronadashboard.rijksoverheid.nl/</footnote>

<footnote n="169">¹⁶⁹ https://insights.cotec.pt/</footnote>

<footnote n="170">¹⁷⁰ https://coronavirus.casajurnalistului.ro/en/</footnote>

<footnote n="171">¹⁷¹ For example, https://covid19.alpaka.si/en/ or https://covid-19.sledilnik.org/sl/stats</footnote>

<footnote n="172">¹⁷² https://korona.gov.sk/</footnote>

<footnote n="173">¹⁷³ https://info.gesundheitsministerium.gv.at/</footnote>

<footnote n="174">¹⁷⁴ https://covid-vaccinatie.be/en</footnote>
In Italy, the "Vaccines for All" is an experimental non-governmental application that allows to estimate the progress of the vaccination campaign in Italy on the basis of the institutional open data of the COVID-19 emergency.¹⁷⁵

In Sweden, the service "Jag vill ha vaccin nu" (I want vaccine now) collects data about vaccine booking possibilities from a number of public places and visualises where it is possible to book a vaccine appointment.<fnref n="176" />

## 2.4 Environmental impact

This indicator relates to the impact of open data on the environment. It considers aspects such as raising awareness on the water and air quality, noise levels in cities, waste management systems, environmental-friendly transport systems, and the extent to which the impact of open data on these aspects are monitored. In figure 12, an overview is presented of the perceived level of impact of open data on these topics.

<figure><img src="image_16.png" /><figcaption>Figure 12: Level of environmental impact of open data in the EU27 Member States</figcaption></figure>

### 2.4.1 Monitoring the environmental impact of open data

In 74% of the Member States, public sector stakeholders were active in the open data field launch or performed activities to monitor the environmental impact of open data, such as systematic monitoring, commissioning studies, or conducting surveys.

In Austria, the Federal Environment Agency<fnref n="177" /> calculated two scenarios up to the year 2030 as a basis for the evaluation and revision of the Climate Strategy 2020 and for the monitoring mechanism on the development of greenhouse gas emissions.<fnref n="178" /> That is, one scenario with measures, and one scenario

<footnote>175</footnote>

<footnote>https://ondata.github.io/vaccinipertutti/?fbclid=IwAR0CGThSOvJ5A8INGkCqS8xIs565YmqKdU5c8RnOOYHWEiiWpDwwNidcPGo#</footnote>

<footnote n="176">176 https://jagvillhavaccin.nu/</footnote>

<footnote n="177">177 Umweltbundesamt, the Federal Environment Agency: https://www.umweltbundesamt.at/en</footnote>

<footnote n="178">178 https://www.umweltbundesamt.at/fileadmin/site/publikationen/REP0333.pdf</footnote>
with additional measures including measures listed in the Energy Strategy Austria<fnref n="179" />. To trace back greenhouse gas emissions to type and amount of energy used, basic energy data was used to create the scenarios.

In France, as part of the implementation of a law relating to the fight against waste and to stimulate the circular economy, stakeholders have been collaborating to ensure better visibility on the opening process and to collect data re-use in a more efficient way, to better measure the impact. They, for example, created an inventory of data that needs to be opened up, are developing a web page to display the information, and will organise a workshop to establish a dialogue between stakeholders.

In preparation of the release of the list with high-value datasets for the Open Data Directive, the Swedish National Geological Survey Agency<fnref n="180" /> calculated the value of geological and geospatial data. Geological data was valued at 800 million SEK/year and geospatial data was valued at 5400 million SEK/year, where both types of data consist for a large quantity of environmental information.<fnref n="181" />

## 2.4.2 Raising awareness on water and air quality

Several initiatives across Europe have been set up to provide insights into the quality of air and water. The data and visualisations made available have made environmental phenomena more easily understandable and help to increase awareness amongst European citizens of the quality differences in a given area, as well as the impact humans have on the environment. In 2021, 70% of the Member States indicate that open data had a high impact on raising awareness on the water or air quality, 22% of the countries indicated a medium impact, and 4% a low impact.

The BelAIR app indicates via a score, from 'very good' to 'extremely bad', how the current air quality is at each location in Belgium.<fnref n="182" /> The app also makes a forecast of the air quality for the next few days and gives an idea of the evolution of the air quality in the long term. The app is based on open data from the Belgian Interregional Environment Agency.<fnref n="183" />

The Finnish Meteorological Institute has made its global and local air quality datasets freely available for public use and are available in machine-readable, digital format.<fnref n="184" />

The Pegel-Online app<fnref n="185" /> is an open data-based online platform offered by the German Federal Waterways and Shipping Administration <fnref n="186" /> that provides information on the water level of more than 7300 km rivers and canals in Germany. It is used as decision-making input by citizens living nearby and by public agencies and officials working on water-related issues in Germany such as construction, flooding emergency response, etc.

## 2.4.3 Raising awareness on noise levels in cities

Noise pollution from roads, railways, airports, and industry can have negative effects on the well-being of citizens and wildlife. Long-term exposure to noise can lead to a variety of health issues such as sleep

<footnote n="179">¹⁷⁹ https://www.iea.org/policies/8509-climate-and-energy-strategy-mission-2030</footnote>

<footnote n="180">¹⁸⁰ Geological Survey Agency: https://www.sgu.se/en/</footnote>

<footnote n="181">¹⁸¹ https://www.lantmateriet.se/contentassets/e16a59e08cb744149c878776256560e6/slutrapport---tillgangliggorande-av-sarskilt-vardefulla-datamangder.pdf</footnote>

<footnote n="182">¹⁸² https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=be.irceline.aqmobile</footnote>

<footnote n="183">¹⁸³ Belgian Interregional Environment Agency: https://www.irceline.be/en</footnote>

<footnote n="184">¹⁸⁴ https://en.ilmatieteenlaitos.fi/open-data</footnote>

<footnote n="185">¹⁸⁵ http://pegelonline.wsv.de/gast/start</footnote>

<footnote n="186">¹⁸⁶ Federal Waterways and Shipping Administration: https://www.gdws.wsv.bund.de/DE/startseite/startseite_node.html</footnote>
disturbance and mental health problems.<fnref n="187" /> Noise problems can be assessed when countries, regions, and cities measure and collect the relevant data and document and communicate the phenomenon in ways accessible to citizens.

Many countries communicate information on noise pollution via interactive maps. Great examples can be found in Croatia and Hungary who offer strategic noise maps. The Croatian strategic noise map forms a basis for the development of spatial plans and play a role in the process of strategic assessment of the impact of the plan and program on the environment.<fnref n="188" /> The Hungarian strategic noise map is an information database produced by model calculations, considering parameters that determine the noise emissions of road, rail, aviation and IPPC plants.<fnref n="189" /> In both cases is the data used to create the maps freely available for public use.

### 2.4.4 Waste management

Open data can be used to reduce waste and improve waste management, for example, by enabling citizens to recycle more and supporting local services such as garbage collection and disposal. In 2021, a slight reduction was observed compared to last year, did 67% of Member States indicate that open data has a high impact on dealing with waste management. 11% of the countries indicate the impact to be medium, and 15% to be low.

In Austria, the ‘Müll-Checker’ uses open data on waste collection points in Salzburg, to stimulate waste separation. With the waste free regulation in Salzburg, it can become financially rewarding to separate or avoid waste, the app explains how to save money.<fnref n="190" />

In the Czech Republic, the application ‘Kam s nim?’ (where to put it?) is a non-profit project of Czech Association Let’s Clean<fnref n="191" />. It is an interactive map that allows to find locations where people can legally dispose of unwanted goods and waste, such as expired medicines, tires, batteries, lamps, bulk waste, or hazardous waste.<fnref n="192" />

In Ireland, the Environment Protection Agency<fnref n="193" /> offers national waste statistics and reports about waste management. These are used for reporting on Ireland’s performance in meeting its legal obligations, for policy and waste management planning purposes and to inform the public.

### 2.4.5 Environmental-friendly transport systems

To promote and support environmentally friendly transport systems, numerous applications, services, and platforms based on open data are available that aim to raise awareness on the different sustainable mobility offers. In 2021, 78% of Member States indicated a high impact of open data on enabling more environmental-friendly transport systems in their countries. This is an increase of 12% compared to last year. 15% of the countries estimated the impact as medium, and 4% as low.

In France, as a response to the Mobility Orientation Law (Loi d'orientation des mobilités)<fnref n="194" />, a national transport data access point has been created, 'transport.data.gouv.fr', in order to provide a centralised

<footnote n="187">¹⁸⁷ https://www.eea.europa.eu/articles/noise-pollution-is-a-major</footnote>

<footnote n="188">¹⁸⁸ http://buka.azo.hr/</footnote>

<footnote n="189">¹⁸⁹ https://zajterkepek.hu/index.html</footnote>

<footnote n="190">¹⁹⁰ https://www.data.gv.at/anwendungen/muell-checker/</footnote>

<footnote n="191">¹⁹¹ Czech Association Let's Clean: https://www.kamsnim.cz/en/organization</footnote>

<footnote n="192">¹⁹² https://www.kamsnim.cz/en</footnote>

<footnote n="193">¹⁹³ Environment Protection Agency: https://www.epa.ie/</footnote>

<footnote n="194">¹⁹⁴ https://www.ecologie.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/lom_mesures_cles_2019_v2.pdf</footnote>
point for publishing such data.<fnref n="195" /> Data providers from different administrations are accompanied to easily publish their transport data.

From this centralised transport data platform, mobility applications can integrate this data into their system and thus propose a complete sustainable mobility service offer.

Dublin Bikes<fnref n="196" /> is a shared bike scheme with stations distributed throughout the city centre to enable easy access and optimal use. Dublin Bikes publishes an API to provide real-time information on the availability of bikes.<fnref n="197" /> The open data unit has developed an impact story showing the use of Dublin Bikes over a period of time.<fnref n="198" />

The Slovenian portal "Gremo na pot" (Lets go) provides information on the paths for walking, cycling, and jogging. The goal of the portal is to encourage people to go hiking and cycling as part of sustainable mobility, both for daily activities and healthy lifestyles in general and to make them aware of the need for environmental protection.<fnref n="199" />

## 2.5 Economic impact

Quantifying and showcasing the economic impact of open data is a key element for countries to rally support for open data and to trigger publication and re-use. Economic impact can be measured using different approaches and indicators and go beyond the re-users' financial saving of not having to purchase specific data or produce it themselves. Indirect benefits can also be identified, for example through jobs created, resources saved, or productivity gained.

The economic indicator considers aspects such as macro- and micro economic impact, economic benefits for public administrations, and the extent to which the impact of open data on these aspects are monitored. In figure 13, an overview is presented of the perceived level of impact of the EU27 Member States. The figure shows that, relative to the already discussed indicators, the economic impact of open data is less often perceived as high. The majority of the Member States indicate the economic impact is medium, low, or there is no clear understanding of the economic impact yet.

<footnote n="195">¹⁹⁵ https://transport.data.gouv.fr/</footnote>

<footnote n="196">¹⁹⁶ Dublin Bikes: https://www.dublinbikes.ie/</footnote>

<footnote n="197">¹⁹⁷ https://data.gov.ie/showcase/dublin-bike-real-time-information</footnote>

<footnote n="198">¹⁹⁸ https://data.gov.ie/impact/dublinbikes. The Dundalk Institute of Technology also performed an analysis on the bike sharing service:</footnote>

<footnote>https://www.researchgate.net/publication/350133458_Analysis_on_thelegaldemandofBike-SharingServiceinDublin</footnote>

<footnote n="199">¹⁹⁹ http://www.gremonapot.si/</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_17.png" /><figcaption>Figure 13: Level of economic impact of open data in the EU27 Member States</figcaption></figure>

## 2.5.1 Monitoring the economic impact of open data

Measuring the economic benefit is, due to its complexity, challenging. Nevertheless, most of the Member States (74%) reported activities in the past year to monitor the economic impact of open data. Most activities consist of studies on economic aspects of open data related topics, such as strategy, impact, or digitalisation.

The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy<fnref n="200" /> conducted a study to give an overview of the impact of open data. The study explores the conditions and potential for provision and re-use of public sector data. <fnref n="201" />

In Poland, a report on open data impact on businesses has been created by conducting a nationwide survey on a sample of 600 company representatives. The report estimates the size of the market for the re-use of public data, determines the level of business interest in access to open public data, researches the market trends in this area, and identifies barriers limiting the re-use of public data.<fnref n="202" />

Recently, a report on the economic impact of open data in Slovenia was published.<fnref n="203" /> The main objective of the report is to quantitatively estimate the economic-social impact of open data in Slovenia in all those fields, where relevant data for Slovenia is currently available. The analysis is based on a direct application of data.europa.eu's report, "The Economic Impact of Open Data". <fnref n="204" />

## 2.5.2 The macro-economic impact of open data

Opening up essential databases enables economic growth at the macro-economic level. In 2021, 44% of the EU27 Member States indicate that open data had a high impact at macro-economic level.

<footnote n="200">²⁰⁰ Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy: https://www.bmwi.de/Navigation/EN/Home/home.html</footnote>

<footnote n="201">²⁰¹ https://www.digitale-technologien.de/DT/Redaktion/DE/Downloads/Publikation/SSW/2020/SSW_OpenData_in_Deutschland.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=11</footnote>

<footnote n="202">²⁰² https://dane.gov.pl/pl/knowledgebase/useful-materials/raport-z-badania-wsrod-przedsiebiorcow-na-temat-wielkosci-i-charakterystyki-rynku-ponownego-wykorzystania-danych-publicznych-w-polsce</footnote>

<footnote n="203">²⁰³ https://podatki.gov.si/sites/default/files/reports/Economic-social%20impact%20of%20open%20data%20in%20Slovenia.pdf</footnote>

<footnote n="204">²⁰⁴ https://data.europa.eu/en/impact-studies/open-data-impact</footnote>
Furthermore, in 19% of the countries open data had a medium impact and in 22% of the countries the impact was low.

Statistic Estonia created an application, in cooperation with the Ministry of Social Affairs<fnref n="205" />, which visualises labour policy indicators between 2005-2020. The data used to calculate the indicators is gathered by the Estonian Labour Force Survey<fnref n="206" />, and available for download from the application's website.<fnref n="207" />

Ireland, the Dublin Economic Monitor offers the data accompanies their quarterly economic reports. The Dublin Economic Monitor is a joint initiative on behalf of the four Dublin local authorities to track developments in the capital's economy. A key objective of the initiative is to develop and publish new data series each quarter to increase our understanding of the performance of the Dublin economy.<fnref n="208" />

In Italy, 'Osservatori.net' organised an event aimed to present the results of the research conducted by the eGovernment Observatory on all local public administrations and on Italian companies. The survey carried out by Unioncamere<fnref n="209" /> on 222 manufacturing companies reveals a strong prospective interest in the use of open data from public administrations' sources in the business sector, even if the ability to use the important amount of data open that the public administrations make usable is only at the beginning.<fnref n="210" />

In Lithuania, the State Social Insurance Fund opened up its data. The statistical data website containing the data is aimed at observing and analysing income and expenses of the fund, the tendencies of fluctuation of the number of insurers, average amounts of benefits, as well as structural changes. The detailed and aggregate data is updated on a regular basis.<fnref n="211" />

### 2.5.3 The micro-economic impact of open data

To explore the benefits of open data on a micro-economic level, several projects and studies are set up in various sectors, such as transport, forestry, and tourism, or in terms of specific data, such as geospatial. In 2021, 44% of the Member States indicate that open data had a high impact at micro-economic level. This is an increase of 11% compared to last year. Furthermore, 26% indicate that open data had a medium impact, and 11% indicate that the impact on micro-economic level was low. Re-use examples with micro-economic impact often target SMEs and start-ups. Company information is collected and shared to support entrepreneurs in finding their feet in the business world.

A Belgian start-up created the online tool "Open-The-Box", which let you discover your business network. The tool is created using a combination of open datasets about mandates, addresses, company info and annual accounts. It allows you to look inside the web of connections between companies, individuals, and politicians in Belgium.<fnref n="212" />

<footnote n="205">²⁰⁵ Ministry of Social Affairs: https://www.sm.ee/en</footnote>

<footnote n="206">²⁰⁶ Labour Force Survey: https://www.stat.ee/en/find-statistics/methodology-and-quality/esms-metadata/40701</footnote>

<footnote n="207">²⁰⁷ https://arhiivtooturg.stat.ee/</footnote>

<footnote n="208">²⁰⁸ https://www.dublineconomy.ie/</footnote>

<footnote n="209">²⁰⁹ Unioncamere: https://www.unioncamere.gov.it/</footnote>

<footnote n="210">²¹⁰ https://www.osservatori.net/it_it/evento-approfondimento-open-data</footnote>

<footnote n="211">²¹¹ https://atvira.sodra.lt/en-eur/</footnote>

<footnote n="212">²¹² https://openthebox.be/</footnote>
In France, using open data on companies, Etalab has developed “The Business Directory” (Annuaire des entreprises). This directory provides an easy way to access public data on any company registered in France.<fnref n="213" />

Associations in the tourism industry in Germany have joined forces to open up data and to re-use open data strategically for the entire German tourism industry. The objective is to efficiently use the possibilities of digital technologies, for example AI, in tourism marketing.

### 2.5.4 Economic benefits for public administrations

Some examples of open data re-use focus specifically on creating economic impact for the public sector. 48% of the EU27 Member States indicate that open data has a high economic benefit for public administrations within their country. 19% of the Member States claim that the impact is medium, and 15% that impact is low.

In Cyprus, a COVID-19 platform was developed, which is called the “Emergency Management System for Handling Emergency Covid-19 Cases”. This platform is currently being utilised by the health professionals at the Ministry of Health, doctors, clinical labs, and the 1420 hotline for recording and analysing all incidents and managing the virus spread situation in Cyprus.<fnref n="214" />

In France, one of the main rationales for opening public sector information is the efficiency it brings to the government. France's administrative organisation is complex, making data circulation between actors timely and costly, especially before the Digital Republic Bill<fnref n="215" />, when administrations could charge for access to their data. Therefore, open data resulted in considerable economic savings for public finances.

In Sweden, research on open data in the traffic data domain reports that several public organisations have increased their own efficiency by starting to re-use their own open data. As a result, a Stockholm public transport company increased their capacity to locate faults, thereby lowering costs and improving their SLA-work (service level agreements). Another result of the research shows that the Swedish Transport Administration (Trafikverket) has improved their SLA-levels towards external data users due to the re-use of their own data.

## 2.6 Overall performance

In this final section, the overall performance of the EU27 Member States is evaluated based on the indicators of the impact dimension discussed throughout the chapter. In 2021, the performance of the EU27 Member States experienced the highest level of growth compared all other dimensions. On average in 2021, the maturity level of the impact dimension of the EU27 is 78%, which is an increase of 6 percentage points compared to last year (see figure 14). Recent years impact was often measured by monitoring user analytics of national open data portals or by keeping a list of use cases. This year, a clear trend towards conducting in-depth research such as desk research or surveys is observed. This

<footnote n="213">²¹³ https://annuaire-entreprises.data.gouv.fr/</footnote>

<footnote n="214">²¹⁴ https://www.kios.ucy.ac.cy/news-a-events/latest-news/615-the-kios-center-of-excellence-contributes-significantly-to-the-efforts-of-the-republic-of-cyprus-to-tackle-covid-19-in-cyprus.html</footnote>

<footnote n="215">²¹⁵ https://www.republique-numerique.fr/pages/in-english</footnote>
will, in the long-term, result in a structured approach on measuring open data impact and more accurate estimations of the impact on the society as a whole.

<figure><img src="image_18.png" /><figcaption>Figure 14: Development in maturity of the impact dimension over the last years</figcaption></figure>

In figure 15, the average scores on each of the indicators of the impact dimension are shown for 2020 and 2021. The EU27 Member States show increasing scores on most indicators, only the indicator for the economic impact of open data shows a small decline. Overall, the countries show a greater strategic awareness to monitor the re-use of open data and the impact that is created as a result. In several countries, studies were commissioned to assess the impact of open data in general or specific to a certain area, for example the political and environmental. The biggest improvement is observed for the social impact indicator. This is likely attributed to this year's addition of assessing the open impact on health and well-being. Last year, data on COVID-19 was systematically made available and re-used to create a better understanding of the pandemic by means of dashboards and other initiatives. The high social impact of these dashboards led countries to continue to improve these initiatives and often complement it with recent developments in terms of national vaccination rates.

<figure><img src="image_19.png" /><figcaption>Figure 15: Maturity score per impact indicator compared to last year</figcaption></figure>
Figure 16 shows the country ranking of the impact dimension. It shows that the majority of Member States score above the EU27 average of 78%. Also, seven countries indicated that open data highly impacts all aforementioned indicators, therefore scoring full points for this dimension. This shows that the focus on monitoring and estimating open data re-use and open data impact is becoming increasingly important for Member States.

<figure><img src="image_20.png" /><figcaption>Figure 16: Country ranking for the impact dimension</figcaption></figure>
## Chapter 3: Open Data Portal

To enable people to easily find openly available datasets, European countries have national data portals in place. EU Member States offer open data at all levels of government, through numerous and heterogeneous data sources, publication points and arrangements in general. Though this is not always optimal, it is also a natural consequence of how rich and varying the spectrum of government bodies and agencies producing and offering data are. The complexity of making data available and discoverable often grows with the size of government or the levels of if, for example, states in a federation are highly autonomous in dealing with their own data. National open data portals address this complexity and ensure that the richness and diversity of this data is discoverable from the original source and via a single, coherent central gateway. The third dimension of this study, “open data portal”, focuses on the level of maturity of the national open data portals, including considerations around their functionality, usage (user analytics), variety of data featured, and the approach to ensuring the portal’s sustainability. The following key elements are explored as part of the portal dimension:

<table><thead><tr><td>Metric</td><td>Key elements</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Portal features</td><td>Portal features ensure access to datasets and relevant content, including more advanced features such as SPARQL search, discussion forum, rating of datasets, requesting datasets, and providing transparency on the progress status of requested datasets.</td></tr><tr><td>Portal usage</td><td>Traffic to the portal is monitored and analytics tools are used to gain insights into users' behaviour and the most and least consulted data categories. In addition, the portal offers APIs through which advanced users can access the metadata programmatically.</td></tr><tr><td>Data provision</td><td>The majority of data publishers can contribute data and its metadata to the national portal and actions are taken to enable publication from data publishers. In addition, access to real-time data is enabled via the portal and data that does not stem from official sources can be uploaded.</td></tr><tr><td>Portal sustainability</td><td>A sustainability strategy for the portal has been defined and activities are conducted to ensure the portal's visibility, including social media presence. In addition, user surveys are conducted regularly, and feed into reviewing process of improving the portal.</td></tr></tbody></table>

All EU27 countries have a national data portal in place, and all of them are suitable to be used from both desktop computers and mobile devices. A few interesting developments were discovered this year. In June 2021, Hungary launched a new open data portal. As introduced last year, Estonia launched their new open data portal by the end of 2020 and their latest insights are included in this year's assessment. Finally, in Greece, a new open data portal was published in December 2020. However, the answers to this assessment still reflect the previous implementation.

Similar to last year, all countries have one centralised national data portal, with the exception of Denmark. Aside from a central open government data portal that provides the most essential data, the Danish government offers a variety of smaller, specialised portals that focus on different areas. There is for instance an environment portal, a portal that provides geodata, and a portal for the country's official statistics.
## 3.1 Portal features

This first indicator evaluates the functionalities on the national open data portals and investigates both basic features as well as more advanced features. Basic portal features include, for instance, search functions that enable filtering, searching by one of the many characteristics of datasets described in their metadata, or by data domain, such as "agriculture" or "economy". The more advanced portals also enable users to search data via more complex tools such as SPARQL queries. Furthermore, this indicator examines portal features, such as the possibility for visitors to request and rate datasets, and studies whether portals offer use cases, whether originated by research performed by the national open data teams' research or submitted by the users themselves. More advanced portals often additionally provide a higher degree of transparency towards visitors by presenting the progress status of data requests. The indicator also examines whether portals have features in place that foster the online interaction between publishers and re-users, such as discussion forums, feedback channels, and the possibility of notifications when new datasets become available.

### 3.1.1 Searching for datasets

All EU27 Member States have a national portal that makes open data available. These national portals offer advanced data search functions with features such as filter options, and multiple field search, and allow users to download datasets from the portal. With the exception of Malta, all national portals enable users to search for datasets by file format. For Hungary and Estonia this is a new feature this year. In addition, all but the Slovakian national portal, enable users to search by data domain.

In order to address more advanced search needs, the presence of a SPARQL search query function was examined. SPARQL is a semantic query language for databases that enable the more advanced users to search deeply and precisely in the metadata offered - whether from the original source portals or data.europa.eu itself. Moreover, it can enable access to metadata that is not directly visible to users by using the website interactively. Users can also use SPARQL as an API and embed the query into their own software to automatically interrogate the data portal, for example, to identify the availability of new datasets. Compared to last year, this year marks a significant improvement in terms of the availability of a SPARQL search query feature. In 2020, 33 % of the national portals reported to having a SPARQL endpoint in place, now that number rose to 78 %, which translates to 21 portals. This demonstrates that overall, the Member States have made substantial progress in terms of data searchability.

### High-value datasets

As mentioned in chapter 1.1 Open data policy, the Open Data Directive requires the adoption by the European Commission, via a future implementing regulation, of a list of high-value datasets (i.e., datasets whose re-use can have major benefits for society and the economy). Nearly all (93 %) national portals indicate they aim to promote in the future or are already promoting high-value datasets (HVD), often in the form of labelling datasets to enable filtering or by providing editorial content regarding high-value datasets.

*The Cypriot open data portal team plans to develop a dedicated section on the portal for HVDs, have extensive editorial content on HVDs, and employ tags to filter for HVDs.*

*In Estonia, there will be separate filtering options on the national portal to distinguish high-value datasets and there will be separate blog posts. Additionally, the topic will be covered during group meetings concentrating on raising awareness on such datasets.*
In Finland, plans to promote HVDs on the portal include:

- Adding a graphical symbol to identify a dataset as HVD

- Incorporating the option to manually tag a dataset as HVD as part of meta-data

- In the future, adjust the data opener's guide with information about high-value datasets

- In the future, identify harvested datasets that are HVDs, but this requires national coordination.

In Luxembourg, the team plans to start with displaying high-value datasets in the section "Featured datasets" and promoting them via their social media accounts. In a second step, as an update to their search function, corresponding filtering features can be added.

The Dutch portal already attached their implementation of a searchable "high-value" label to datasets.<fnref n="216" /> Stakeholders are consulted in sessions to identify these high-value datasets. The outcome is cross checked with the site statistics to define which datasets are visited and used most in applications. A yearly update cycle is implemented to update the high-value dataset lists for each government level. The Netherlands has 3 levels of high value data: national, regional, and local (communities).

### 3.1.2 Requesting datasets

The search functions discussed above support users in finding what they are looking for. When a specific dataset is not (yet) published on the national portal, users can send in a request. With the exception of Germany, all national portals offer the possibility for users to request a dataset. Most of the requests (37%) come in on a monthly basis. For a full overview of the frequency of incoming data requests, see figure 16. The approach on how users can place their request differs per portal. Nevertheless, the most common way is by using a designated request form. Another frequently used method is by responding to the portals' general contact information.

26 national portals that offer the data request functionality, also monitor the extent to which these requests result, down the line, in the publication of data. For 10 national portals (37%) this occurs roughly half of the time. For 7 national portals (26%) more than half of the requests are honoured. Only one portal reports to publish all requests, Slovenia. The proportion of datasets from incoming data request that are eventually published are illustrated in figure 17.

Austria for example has a landing page "Frag den Staat" where requests and statuses of the requests can be monitored, and users can be notified of updates through RSS and ATOM feeds<fnref n="217" />.

France provides a user-centric example of monitoring user feedback. Via an interactive support form<fnref n="218" />, the portal assesses to which target audience the user belongs and how they can best offer support.

On the Latvian national portal users can, apart from adding their own requests, also vote for existing requests from other users. This creates a list of "trending" topics. On the one hand this is beneficial for those who manage the portal to keep track of what users need, on the other hand it also inspires users to bring forward their questions or ideas.

<footnote n="216">²¹⁶https://data.overheid.nl/datasets?sort=score%20desc%2Csys_modified%20desc&facet_classification%5B0%5D=high_value</footnote>

<footnote n="217">²¹⁷https://fragdenstaat.at/anfragen/?q=&status=erfolgreich&jurisdiction=&campaign=&category=&publicbody=&tag=</footnote>

<footnote n="218">²¹⁸ https://support.data.gouv.fr/</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_21.png" /><figcaption>Figure 17: Frequency of user requests across the EU27
Member States</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_22.png" /><figcaption>Figure 18: Amount of user-requested datasets that are published on the respective national portals</figcaption></figure>

### 3.1.3 Providing transparency

From the 26 national portals that offer a data request functionality, 18 portals showcase these requests in a transparent way on their portal.

Spain for example offers an elaborate overview<fnref n="219" /> of user requests, responses, and statuses. Their national portal provides an overview of the incoming request, organised by category and status of the request, see figure 1918. Users can monitor data requests by other users, and these requests are allocated to the public body responsible for publishing this dataset. That body will respond to the request and update its status, which is all visible to the user.

<figure><img src="image_23.png" /><figcaption>Figure 19: Data request section of the Spanish open data portal</figcaption></figure>

<footnote n="219">219 https://datos.gob.es/es/peticiones-datos</footnote>
Additionally, in order to enhance transparency, 17 national portals (63 %) allow users to see which data exists but cannot be made available as open data for reasons of confidentiality or privacy for example.

Spain for example, provides a "not feasible" label in their data availability section for those datasets that cannot be published due restrictions or unavailability<sup>220</sup>. The reasons why the data cannot be made available are detailed in the response to each request.

### 3.1.4 Enabling interaction

In order to meaningfully interact with their users, Member States often offer tools for collecting feedback, or input from their users. Interaction between re-users and data publishers is highly valued by the national portals. Rather than establishing a direct connection between the data re-user and its source, it can be useful for the national portals to be involved in support as an intermediary, as it enables them to monitor the feedback that comes in, identify patterns, and develop a better understanding of their users' and the general open data community's needs.

#### Feedback

In most cases providing feedback can be done in one of two ways. Either by using a contact form or by responding to a dedicated commenting section at the bottom of the dataset information page. Especially the latter allows users to express their opinions about the published dataset and make it possible to report areas for improvement to the data provider.

With the exception of the Czech Republic, all portals provide a general feedback mechanism for users. Additionally, the majority (89%) of Member States, i.e., 24 national portals, have a mechanism in place that allows for feedback on a specific dataset.

Many portals even go a step further regarding opportunities to respond to datasets by allowing users to rate datasets. This can be through likes (thumbs up or down), or numerical ratings. 12 national portals (44 %) offer such a functionality. In addition to ratings and commentary, 24 portals (89 %) allow user to link documentation and supporting materials to a given data set.

An example is offered by the French national portal, which enables users to provide qualitative input. That is, a discussion module where users can express their opinion on the published dataset, both positive and negative. This discussion module not only provides the user with an option to share their input, it also makes it easier to find anomalies or areas for improvement for the producer.

#### Community engagement

To engage with the open data community and interact with the portal users, 21 Member States offer a general forum where users can discuss a variety of topics and express their opinions that are not related to a specific dataset.

The German data portal offers an open discussion forum on GitHub<sup>221</sup>.

The Lithuanian national portal has an open data discussion group<sup>222</sup> that allows users to interact with each other via Google docs. Users can comment on a given dataset but also express their views and exchange ideas.

<footnote n="220"><sup>220</sup> https://datos.gob.es/en/peticiones-datos?f%5B0%5D=field_request_tx_status%3A1977</footnote>

<footnote n="221"><sup>221</sup> https://github.com/GovDataOfficial/DCAT-AP.de</footnote>

<footnote n="222"><sup>222</sup> https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdhN96KdzhwGszzTc2E3Ubc_JgscrctmbUE_OHA--7U7C_hbQ/viewform</footnote>
Additionally, to increase user interaction, 25 national portals offer the possibility for users to receive notifications when new datasets are made available using, for example, RSS, ATOM feeds, or e-mail notifications. In most cases users can follow datasets or data publishers and receive notifications whenever new data is published, or existing data is updated.

Some portals are also developing tools for publishers to support them in entering, validating, and publishing quality data. This is the case for the French national portal<sup>223</sup>, as well as the Irish portal. The latter launched the Data Audit Tool<sup>224</sup> this year, guiding open data publisher through the publication process and ensuring the required metadata is completed.

### 3.1.5 Providing examples of open data re-use

All national data portals promote and support open data re-use. 25 of the EU27 national portals have a designated section to promote applications that make use of open data. Additionally, 23 Member States provide the possibility for users to submit their own use case examples. In most instances (85%), those portals that have a dedicated use case section on the portal also reference the datasets that the use cases are based on.

Last year, we already observed that more and more portals had implemented a dedicated page for users to add their use cases rather than referring them to a general contact form. In 2021, 16 national portals (59%) have such a dedicated page in place.

In terms of more advanced previewing features and data viewing options, 22 portals (81%) have a preview feature for tabular data, and 19 portals (70%) also have a preview function for geospatial data, typically in the form of a map. This is an important feature as it allows all users, experts, and non-experts alike, to visualise the data and get an initial understanding of it. Through previewing and visualisations users can experience and explore the data interactively.

*The French national portal offers the possibility to preview CSV-files, and Etalab, the French open data portal team, is currently working on a prototype for previewing a data analysis report from the URL of the file.*

## 3.2 Portal usage

Portal managers need to regularly assess if the portal design and features, as well as the available data, meet the user's need. The feedback received directly by users is valuable, though anecdotal. Deeper insight is created by observing systematically the usage of the portal to better understand users' behaviour. The analysis to the needs of the users is enabled by monitoring the number of unique visitors, the typical user profiles, the most consulted datasets, the most popular data domains, or traffic generated via the portal's API. The effort spent in this direction is what is examined by this second indicator.

### 3.2.1 User analytics

All national portals except the Slovak portal, monitor the portal's usage through analytical tools such as Matomo or Google Analytics. In 2021, some portals also indicated to use the analytics provided by social media platforms such as Twitter and LinkedIn. The majority of them (89%) indicate that these insights are used to improve the portal. Some countries found interesting insights from these analyses.

<footnote n="223"><sup>223</sup> https://publier.etalab.studio/</footnote>

<footnote n="224"><sup>224</sup> http://audit.data.gov.ie/</footnote>
The Dutch data portal team noticed that there is a growing need for a more interactive data community platform and is investigating how best to tailor to that need.

Spain reports using advanced tools like “Talkwalker”<fnref n="225" /> to measure social impact, “Hotjar”<fnref n="226" /> for web analytics and usability, and “SEMrush”<fnref n="227" /> for monitoring their SEO positioning.

### 3.2.2 Portal visitors

When trying to capture portal usage, the number of unique visitors<fnref n="228" /> per month is one of the most common measures used. Apart from the Czech Republic and Slovakia, national data portals keep track of the average unique visitors per month.

The Member States are vastly different when it comes to the number of visitors on the portals. In absolute numbers, the French national portal has the highest number of unique visitors (1 million), the Lithuanian national portal records the lowest number (1.4 k). Though this is an interesting finding for drawing cross-country comparisons, the indicator is more meaningful when taking population numbers into account. If we correct for population, we find the numbers as shown in figure 19. Similar to last year, France records the highest number of unique visitors relative to the population size. Last year's second position: Cyprus, dropped one position to the 3rd place, and Austria came in second this year, whilst being 6th last year.

<figure><img src="image_24.png" /><figcaption>Figure 20: The share of unique visitors per month reported as percentage of total population</figcaption></figure>

<footnote n="225">²²⁵ https://www.talkwalker.com/</footnote>

<footnote n="226">²²⁶ https://www.hotjar.com/</footnote>

<footnote n="227">²²⁷ https://www.semrush.com/</footnote>

<footnote n="228">²²⁸ ‘Unique visitors’ refer to the number of distinct individuals accessing pages of a website during a given period, regardless of how often they visit that website in the given period.</footnote>
Additionally, 26 Member States monitor the share of portal visits<fnref n="229" /> that come in from abroad. Usage from abroad shows how advanced and entrepreneurial data re-users take the opportunity to discover data internationally and seek to gather datasets as close to the sources as they can reasonably get.

In figure 20, the full overview of the proportion of foreign visits is displayed. Similar to last year, Austria reports a very high share of foreign visitors (50 %). Estonia witnessed a serious drop in the number of foreign visits (from 51% to 17.5%). Lithuania and Denmark report the lowest number of foreign visits (< 2 %).

<figure><img src="image_25.png" /><figcaption>Figure 21: The proportion of open data portal visitors from abroad</figcaption></figure>

Most portals (93%) indicate that they are aware of the background of their users and indicate that the audience is diverse. This is in line with their target group in most cases, as many portals indicate the aim to cater to citizens, businesses, and administrations but also scientists, journalists, NGOs, and developers. For example, the Maltese national portal is predominantly used by users from the public sector, similar to the Estonian national portal. The latter also indicates that they wish to attract more interest from the business sector as well as NGOs as they can add significant social and economic value through the reuse of data.

### 3.2.3 Most popular data domains

Of the EU27 countries, 22 national portals (81%) monitor which keywords are used to search data and content, and 24 portals (89%) also take measures to optimise the search and discoverability of content.

<footnote n="229">²²⁹ 'Visits' refer to the number of times a website is visited, independent of the numbers of visitors that access the website.</footnote>
Some do so via modules on the portal itself, for instance through Google Dataset Search indexing<fnref n="230" /> in Bulgaria or through search engine optimisation (SEO), while others use dedicated training sessions on the basis of user feedback.

In 2021, Croatia has implemented a fuzzy-search mechanism for search results and the option to search via API. Fuzzy search is a mechanism that finds results that are likely to be relevant to a search argument, even when the argument is not entirely identical.

The Irish open data portal featured datasets that are deemed to be particularly relevant, for example about COVID-19.

In Spain, key datasets are highlighted through editorial content (e.g., articles and newsletters) to optimise the search and discoverability of content. The Spanish portal has incorporated methods to improve the sorting of data catalogue results and will give special attention to high-value datasets (HVDs) through a new future section of the portal.

23 national portals (85%) report to monitor the most and least consulted pages. In order to assess the most popular data domains, the assessment asked countries to provide the top 5 data categories consulted on the portal. The categories are the ones specified in the DCAT-AP standard. In 2021, the number 1 category of visited datasets was 'Health'. 9 national portals (33%) reported this as the most popular category. As last year "Environment" was the number 1 category for 16 national portals, this change is most likely the result of the current pandemic. Together, "Population & society", and "Government & public sector" are the number 1 category for 8 of the portals (30%). Only Croatia, Portugal, and Sweden list the category "Environment" as their most popular category.

It is important to note that there is no way to discern whether one category is "unpopular" because the portals' audience is uninterested in it, or because the countries are not in condition to offer enough relevant and valuable data on those topics.

For those portals who report "Health" as the most popular category, COVID-19 related datasets make up most of the top-five popular datasets. Other popular datasets across Europe include traffic information, cadastral plans and postal code registers, commercial registers, water quantities, population statistics, road and street (infrastructure), housing, and financial indicators.

What is noteworthy is that in Spain, the top-five of most popular datasets is quite diverse. After the evolution of COVID-19, datasets on fuel prices, lottery ticket kiosks, the operational fisheries fleet census, and the commercial registry are the most popular datasets. Another interesting finding is that in Lithuania, the number 2 dataset is data of gambling business bodies.

### 3.2.4 Application Programming Interface (API)

On 25 of the EU27 national portals (93%) is the metadata available in clear plain language, as to allow humans to read it as well, in addition to machines. Portugal and Bulgaria indicate that this is not possible on their portals. Additionally, 21 (78%) of the open data teams monitor API usage, for instance by running analytics on the respective log files. The API enables advanced users to access the metadata programmatically, for example by writing software that performs searches automatically, to identify new datasets.

API usage can increase the traffic on the portal, and 15 national portals monitor if this is indeed the case. Poland reports the highest number of outgoing portal traffic, Spain the lowest. The full overview of portal traffic resulting from API usage is displayed in figure 21. Poland reports the highest number

<footnote n="230">²³⁰ https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/structured-data/dataset</footnote>
of outgoing portal traffic, Spain the lowest. For Poland, Luxembourg, and Denmark, at least half of the portal traffic results from API usage alone. This suggests that substantial open data re-use is taking place programmatically.

<figure><img src="image_26.png" /><figcaption>Figure 22: Percentage of outgoing portal traffic generated by API usage</figcaption></figure>

Estonia states that they are undertaking efforts to provide a detailed overview of different API usage. Currently, they gather information through Google Analytics and find that API usage is still very low, but relevant for mobility and geodata in particular. To improve and encourage API usage they are currently creating guidelines for APIs, for example Postman<fnref n="231" />, and investigating how to use it to add datasets to the portal.

## 3.3 Data provision

This indicator analyses the extent to which data publishers contribute to the national open data portals and which actions are taken to foster their contribution. This indicator looks at challenges that countries face in order to harvest all national open data and the methods they use to overcome these challenges.

### 3.3.1 Data publishers

In terms of the share of data publishers that make their data discoverable via the national portal - be it by harvesting of the metadata or direct upload mechanisms - only 7 countries of EU27 (26%) report that all data publishers in the country contribute to the portal. This is a significant drop from the 12 portals that reported this last year. The spread of data publishers contributing the national data portals is shown in figure 22. Most portals find that the majority of data publishers in their country contribute to the portal and these publishers cover a wide spectrum of public administration (state, regional, local), but also research institutes like universities. Czech Republic, Malta, and Portugal indicate that

<footnote n="231">²³¹ https://www.postman.com/</footnote>
only few data publishers do so. In many countries, data publishers are not obligated to publish their data on the national portal but are encouraged to do so.

<figure><img src="image_27.png" /><figcaption>Figure 23: Number of data publishers that contribute to the national portals</figcaption></figure>

### Non-official data publishers

Additionally, 14 (52 %) of the EU27 Member States offer the possibility to publish non-official data – that is data that does not stem from official sources, for instance crowdsourced or community-contributed data. Most of these national portals have a separate section where, for example, private enterprises or NGO's can publish their data.

The countries that do not offer this possibility argue that the publication of data from public sources guarantees that the information is correct and objective. They want to make sure that the user knows that all data is provided by official government organisations, because that type of agreement does not include non-official or non-government data.

### 3.3.2 Challenges in data provision

Many countries report that the difficulties in publishing data stem from a lack of time or resources, knowledge funds, governance structure, or awareness. Especially smaller public bodies and institutions often lack the capacity to invest in open data publication. Aside from these issues, technical difficulties are also often reported by the Member States, for example by Malta.

Czech Republic indicates that there are roughly 10.000 public sector data providers but there are only 45 of them on the portal, as most of them are small municipalities who do not have the resources to deal with publishing open data.

In Germany, data from nearly all regional states is available, the two missing portals have difficulties publishing data for political reasons. Moreover, not all public sector bodies and institutions prioritise or are willing to prioritise open data publication.

With the exception of Belgium, all national portals identify which data providers are not yet publishing data on the national portal. To assist these data providers with their publication process, Member States offer a variety of solutions. For example, providing documentation such as a handbook, through individual support, tailored workshops and trainings, technical integration, or events that promote open data and its re-use.
The German data portal team developed an experimental tool, ‘the Open Data Process Guide (GUIDO)’. This minimal viable product of a guided processing tool for publishing open data was developed by a project team within the framework of the Tech4Germany initiative.<fnref n="232" />

In Ireland, most public service bodies do publish their data and the few who do not, might not have the capacity to publish yet or have little data to release due to GDPR concerns. They are actively working with them to address these issues. There is a network of open data liaison officers across public service organisations and their Open Data Unit is in regular contact with this network to support them and encourage them to publish their data in open format.

In Portugal, an approach is used that includes the creation of a governance structure, the implementation of an ‘Open Data National Strategy’, the creation of data catalogues detailing which data cannot be opened, and which data can be opened but is not yet published. Moreover, they survey data maturity, set-up webinars to raise awareness on the concept of open data concept and its benefits, define methodologies to monitor and evaluate the impact of open data, and design a user satisfaction survey.

The Swedish PSI law states that all public actors have to publish a catalogue for PSI and open data that is publicly available for re-use, though this is not strictly enforced. In some cases, public actors have open data on their website, but they have not published metadata to the national portal in DCAT-AP. Ultimately, the aim is that all open data and PSI is harvested by the portal.

### 3.3.3 Access to real-time and dynamic data

Another aspect assessed under this dimension is the level at which the national open data infrastructure also provides access to real-time and dynamic data. 25 (85%) of the EU27 Member States offer real-time or dynamic data on their portal. This can include for example air quality data, weather data, traffic information, or even data of recently born babies (Latvia). The only two countries for which this is not yet the case are Hungary and Portugal.

The 25 portals that offer real-time and dynamic data were asked what percentage of the metadata on their portal links to such data, the results can be found in figure 23. The figure shows that, similar to last year, most countries have <10 % of the metadata linked to real-time or dynamic data. Only Denmark, Latvia, and the Netherlands report having more than 30% of the metadata linked to real-time or dynamic data.

<figure><img src="image_28.png" /><figcaption>Figure 24: Share of real-time or dynamic data as share of total metadata</figcaption></figure>

<footnote n="232">²³² https://tech.4germany.org/project/open-data-portal</footnote>
## 3.4 Portal sustainability

This indicator analyses the extent to which the national open data teams have set up a strategy to ensure the long-term sustainability of the portal, and the measures in place to ensure that the portal caters to the needs and brings an added value to the main audience. In 2021, all Member States except Belgium report to have a strategy in place that ensures the portal's sustainability. Hungary, Portugal, and Romania all implemented this over the past year. Of those, 21 (78 %) include a description of the portal's target audience and measures to reach this audience.

### 3.4.1 Enhancing visibility

To ensure sustainability of the national portals, it is important to attract new visitors, and engage them to make sure the portal stays relevant and interesting for them. All portals indicate to take action to enhance the visibility of the portal by promoting their available features and data.

Mostly these activities include events such as conferences, webinars, interviews, hackathons, and working groups, but also through editorial content such as news pieces, newsletters, promotion campaigns, success stories, press releases, and social media. Slovenia, for instance, hosted several hackathons<sup>233</sup>. France also hosted several events, for example, a hackathon on non-profit data<sup>234</sup>, the "DataFin hackathon"<sup>235</sup>, and the "RenovAction hackathon"<sup>236</sup>. Poland hosted the online conference "The Future is Data"<sup>237</sup> last year focusing on data management and data sharing in the context of EU initiatives. Lithuania created a channel for open data enthusiasts on MS Teams.

In terms of social media, all national data portals, apart from Hungary, Malta, and Greece have an active social media account to assist with communication and awareness-raising. Belgium, Lithuania, and Portugal engage with their audience on social media through alternative accounts, for instance via personal accounts of the project team, or via a government account for digitalisation.

The most widely used channel is Twitter, mentioned by 16 Member States. Some portals also mention to use Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Spain additionally uses Flickr<sup>238</sup>, and image and video hosting service and online community. France mentions to use Mastodon<sup>239</sup>, an open source decentralised social network.

25 of the EU27 national portals also enhance the visibility of their work through publishing source code, and other relevant documentation and artifacts. 23 of those countries use sharing platforms such as GitLab or GitHub to publish the contents and get in touch with developers in the field. The Irish national portal for example publishes the source-code on a CKAN platform<sup>240</sup>.

### 3.4.2 User satisfaction

To understand user's needs and gauge satisfaction with the portal, 16 of the EU27 portals conducted a satisfaction survey. These are slightly less portals than last year (20). Though we cannot be certain,

<footnote n="233"><sup>233</sup> See https://www.tp-lj.si/sl/novice/horizon4-so-zmagovalci-podnebnega-hackathona-2020-11-09 or https://transformation-lighthouse.com/hackathon-zivljenje-s-podnebnimi-spremembami/vec-o-hackathonu/</footnote>

<footnote n="234"><sup>234</sup> https://www.data.gouv.fr/fr/posts/les-jeux-de-donnees-des-associations/</footnote>

<footnote n="235"><sup>235</sup> https://www.etalab.gouv.fr/hackathon-datafin-participez-a-lexploitation-des-donnees-financieres-des-collectivites-locales</footnote>

<footnote n="236"><sup>236</sup> https://www.hackathon-renovaction.fr/program/hackathon</footnote>

<footnote n="237"><sup>237</sup> https://thefutureisdata.pl/en/</footnote>

<footnote n="238"><sup>238</sup> https://www.flickr.com/</footnote>

<footnote n="239"><sup>239</sup> https://joinmastodon.org/</footnote>

<footnote n="240"><sup>240</sup> https://data.gov.ie/developer</footnote>
we assume this has to do with the pandemic. The popularity of COVID-19 related content might indicate that data publication has had a higher priority than gauging user satisfaction.

From the surveys, it appears that some portals do well in terms of user-friendliness, for instance through providing intuitive search (Spain), while others might improve this (Slovakia). Spain found that, on their portal, the most useful opportunities for promoting the reuse of data are the competitions and challenge they offer.

The Dutch portal noticed, from their survey, that users would appreciate a stronger focus on specific data domains and topics, both on the portal and in their regular user meetings. They are currently working to improve this by explicitly relating datasets to data requests, applications, organisations, and impact stories.

Apart from surveys, gauging satisfaction can also be achieved through interviews, contact forms, or mailboxes, an option which Estonia for instance makes use of.

Some Member States provide the option for users to give continuous feedback. In Denmark for example, the Agency for Data Supply and Efficiency (SDFE)<fnref n="241" />, who administers Danish basic data, continually assesses user demands through a business analytics-setup<fnref n="242" />, for instance in the user forum for the data distribution service Datafordeleren.<fnref n="243" />

A way to make sure portals cater the user's need is by reviewing and continuously improve the portal and its functionality. 25 Member States indicate to have a process in place for reviewing and improving the portal. Figure 24 shows the frequency that countries review and improve their national portal. It shows that more than half of the countries review their portal quarterly, while other review annually or bi-annually. Only Luxembourg indicates to review their national portal less frequently than once a year.

<figure><img src="image_29.png" /><figcaption>Figure 25: Frequency of that the EU27 review their national portal</figcaption></figure>

Many Member States review their portal through working-group meetings or sessions. Those can be both strategic and focus on general improvements, or more pragmatic and focus on issues raised by

<footnote n="241">²⁴¹ Agency for Data Supply and Efficiency (SDFE): https://eng.sdfe.dk/about-us/organisation/data-bank/</footnote>

<footnote n="242">²⁴² https://sdfe.dk/data-skaber-vaerdi/nyheder/nyhedsarkiv/2018/jan/sdfe-skal-taettere-paa-brugerne/</footnote>

<footnote n="243">²⁴³ https://datafordeler.dk/vejledning/grunddata/</footnote>
users. In many cases, they are a combination of both. In addition, safety tests, accessibility tests and general maintenance are also in place to optimise and refine the portals.

Italy specifically mentions that they update the portal every two years, and a new release came out in February. A new revision is planned after the release of the implementing regulation regarding the high-value datasets.

Lithuania provides an example of an open-source approach to implementing feedback. User feedback and comments on the portal's functionality are collected and recorded in GitLab, where they are reviewed and submitted to the portal's maintainers on a weekly basis.

### 3.4.3 Monitoring performance

The awareness of the portal's performance and usage can be used to prove the importance of the continuity of activities. Portal teams can use that information to ensure a continuous flow of sufficient funding from their governments to continue their efforts. In order to monitor the portals' performance, 22 (81%) of EU27 portals offer a monitoring tool such as a dashboard to showcase the main key performance indexes related to, for example, the number of datasets published, the distribution across categories, the number of visitors or how these numbers change over time. In some cases, elaborated dashboards are created showcasing results on various levels such as increase in metadata over time, broken links, metadata formats and distribution of licences.

The Irish data portal has, in addition to the statistics overview page, implemented a KPI tool<sup>244</sup> this year which allows further analysis of datasets.

In Luxembourg a back-office tool for data providers is developed showing the detail of its datasets and resources, as well as the number of views and downloads, and metadata quality.

Going one step further, 22 (71%) of EU27 national portals offer additional features that also allow data publishers to monitor their own activity on the portal, which is two more than last year. This type of monitoring tools can create "positive competition" amongst public bodies and nudge the lesser performers to improve the volume and quality of their publication. At the same time, such features can also help identify data providers that are top performers and enable the creation of channels for knowledge transfer between them and other publishers. In some cases, such features also enable publishers to see the popularity of their own datasets and inform them about the applications that are based on their data. Many portals offering this feature requires the users to log-in before they can see the statistics.

Germany has a dashboard using the SHACL Validator<sup>245</sup> which gives the data providers links how to improve their metadata quality and their performance on the national portal.

The Italian portal has a validator in place to let the data providers to know the metadata quality.

Sweden also offers a nice example. On the admin tool for the portal publishers, in-depth statistics are offered<sup>246</sup>. Each data producer now has as "metadata health checker" to check status, information, and statistics. Statistics on metadata quality and completeness is also offered by the public agency "The Swedish Energy Markets Inspector"<sup>247</sup>.

<footnote n="244"><sup>244</sup> https://data.gov.ie/kpi-report</footnote>

<footnote n="245"><sup>245</sup> https://www.itb.ec.europa.eu/shacl/dcat-ap.de/upload</footnote>

<footnote n="246"><sup>246</sup> https://admin.dataportal.se/status/overview</footnote>

<footnote n="247"><sup>247</sup> https://admin.dataportal.se/organization/174/statistics</footnote>
## 3.5 Overall performance

In this final section, the overall performance of the EU27 Member States is evaluated based on the indicators of the open data portal dimension discussed throughout the chapter. On average in 2021, the maturity level of the impact dimension of the EU27 is 83%, which is an increase of 4 percentage points compared to last year (see figure 25). Last year, it was presumed that the desire to respond to the open data demand related to the COVID-19 pandemic stimulated and accelerated development. Although a steep increase like last year is not observed in 2021, continuous developments show with new and redesigned portal being launched, the ongoing preparations for the list of high-value datasets, and the increased offering of real-time and dynamic data.

<figure><img src="image_30.png" /><figcaption>Figure 26: Development in maturity of the portal dimension over the last years</figcaption></figure>

Figure 26 shows the EU27 average maturity score on each of the 4 indicators of the open data portal dimension. All indicators show an improvement compared to last year, where data provision showed the highest increase in score (+7 percentage points). This underlines the focus to ensure all public sector bodies publish their data on the portal and the increased focus on offering real-time and dynamic data. Similar to last year, the most mature indicator within the portal dimension is deriving insights into portal usage (88%).

<figure><img src="image_31.png" /><figcaption>Figure 27: Maturity score per portal indicator compared to last year</figcaption></figure>
Finally, the country ranking of the portal dimension can be observed in figure 27. The figure shows that the majority of 17 Member States score above the EU27 average of 83% and 10 Member States scored below. The countries with the highest maturity levels on the portal dimension are France (98%), Poland (97%), and the Netherlands (96%), where the Netherlands showed an increase of 8 percentage points, jumping from 14th to 3rd place in the ranking. Also, the new portals of Estonia and Hungary resulted in great improvements in their score, +7% and +25% respectively.

<figure><img src="image_32.png" /><figcaption>Figure 28: Country ranking for the portal dimension</figcaption></figure>
## Chapter 4: Open Data Quality

The quality of data and metadata has been gaining importance for some time now. The key focus area in many European countries is no longer the sheer quantity of data that is being made publicly available. It is rather the quality of that data which is a crucial focus area to enable proper application and re-use of data to enable the distillation of insights and creation of new services. The fourth assessment dimension "open data quality" focuses on measures and monitoring mechanisms adopted to ensure the quality of data and metadata. This includes the measures adopted to ensure the systematic and timely harvesting of metadata as well as monitoring mechanisms that are in place to ensure high-quality publication of metadata, compliant with the DCAT-AP standard and compliant with several deployment quality requirements. Deployment quality refers to using open data licences, open and machine-readable data formats, using Unique Resource Identifiers, and enabling a linked data approach.

The following key elements are explored as part of the quality dimension:

<table><thead><tr><td>Metric</td><td>Key elements</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>(Meta)data currency and completeness</td><td>A systematic approach in place to ensure that metadata is up to date. Harvesters are programmed to ensure that changes at the source are reflected with the least amount of delay on the national portal.</td></tr><tr><td>Monitoring and measures</td><td>Mechanisms are in place to monitor the quality of the metadata and the compliance level in terms of correct licensing information. Measures are in place to assist publishers in publishing in high-quality metadata and choosing the right type of licence for their data.</td></tr><tr><td>DCAT-AP compliance</td><td>Compliance to the DCAT-AP standard in terms of mandatory, recommended and optional classes is monitored. Guidelines and learning materials help publishers in ensuring compliance with DCAT-AP.</td></tr><tr><td>Deployment and linked data</td><td>An open data model is used to assess the quality of data deployment. Percentage of published open data that complies with certain deployment quality requirements.</td></tr></tbody></table>

### 4.1 (Meta)data currency and completeness

This indicator analyses to what extent countries have a systematic approach in place to ensure that metadata, and where applicable the actual data, is up to date. The indicator looks specifically at automatic harvesting processes to ensure that changes at the source of the data are reflected with the least amount of delay on the national portal.

#### 4.1.1 Up-to-date metadata

In 2021, 74% of Member States indicate that on average, the metadata describing the datasets available on the national portal is updated within one day from the moment its primary source is updated. The other 26% indicates that this is on average updated within one week. This is ensured by having a pre-defined approach for updating metadata and aided by automatic harvesting processes.

85% of Member States have a pre-defined approach in place to ensure that the metadata is kept up to date. Up-to-date metadata on the national portals is critical for users to obtain correct information about the data. Some countries indicate that it is the responsibility of the original sources and providers
of datasets – government bodies institutions at all levels – to ensure up-to-date metadata and the
national teams support them to do so.

In the Netherlands, there is a clearly defined approach to ensure that metadata conforms to DCAT standards. The data management team of the portal checks if the metadata is correct and in case any datasets are missing, the team contacts the data providers. The data providers can also check if the metadata is up to date conform the standard. The documentation is published for anyone to validate against the Dutch DCAT application profile.<fnref n="248" />

In Sweden, each data provider has a "metadata health checker dashboard"<fnref n="249" /> to check statistics such as quality and completeness. This data is also aggregated to give portal administrators at the Agency for Digital Government<fnref n="250" /> a general, aggregated view. Complementary to the dashboard, the agency also gets quarterly reports on qualitative and quantitative status on the portal including metadata status, new publishers, errors etc. Data providers have the possibility to get automatic notifications in case there is a metadata harvesting error or if there are any broken links.

Automatic metadata sourcing

The ability to keep the metadata up to date depends, among others, on the extent to which metadata
is obtained from its source automatically.

<figure><img src="image_33.png" /><figcaption>Figure 29: Percentage of metadata obtained automatically by the EU27</figcaption></figure>

Figure 29 shows the percentage of the metadata that is obtained from its source automatically for the Member States. In 6 countries (22%)– Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Italy, Malta and Sweden – all metadata is uploaded in an automated way to the national portal. Additionally, 6 countries (22%) obtain between 90% and 99% of their metadata from the source automatically. It is also shown that 5 countries (19%) obtain less than 30% of their metadata from its source automatically. The distribution clearly shows two clusters of countries: the ones who are investing significantly in automation and the ones that – for any reason, whether it is lack of funding, skills, etc. – are lagging behind. This means that most of the metadata in the latter group is edited manually to some degree, which is more time

<footnote n="248">²⁴⁸ https://data.overheid.nl/en/ondersteuning/open-data/dcat</footnote>

<footnote n="249">²⁴⁹ For more information see https://registrera.oppnadata.se/organization/174/statistics</footnote>

<footnote n="250">²⁵⁰ Agency for Digital Government: https://www.government.se/government-agencies/the-agency-for-digital-government/</footnote>
consuming and may create friction to scale up as the amount and complexity of data grows. Moreover, manual editing of metadata easily allows for human error.

### 4.1.2 Up-to-date datasets

Together with the metadata, the currency of the data itself if critical for re-users. Ideally, datasets are up to date if they represent fairly *in time* the phenomenon they are intended to describe and enable application. For example, data describing live weather or traffic needs to be updated in real-time, by the hour – possibly by the minute or by the second – to enable complex applications such as forecasting. On the other side, data from a population census that is run every 10 years needs to be updated only following completion, or when mistakes are discovered, and corrections issued.

Also, gaps in the time series significantly compromises its usability. In case of annual data, for example, the dataset is considered up to date in case it contains data until last year. In case of daily data, a dataset is up to date in case it included data until yesterday.

Figure 30 shows the degree to which datasets cover the full period from when they were first published until today. Only 2 Member States indicated that all datasets on their portal cover the full period from when they were first published until today – Greece and Slovenia. 13 Member States indicate the majority of datasets and 7 Member States indicate approximately half of the datasets, whereas 5 say only few datasets available on their portal are up to date.

<figure><img src="image_34.png" /><figcaption>Figure 30: The extent to which datasets are up to date</figcaption></figure>

## 4.2 Monitoring and measures

This indicator analyses the extent to which mechanisms are in place to assess and boost the quality of metadata and the compliance level in terms of correct licensing information. In addition, the indicator looks at support, guidelines, and tools available to assist data publishers in publishing high-quality metadata and in choosing the right type of licence for their data.

### 4.2.1 Monitoring the quality of metadata

96% of Member States monitor the quality of metadata on their national portals – only Malta indicates that metadata quality is not monitored. The great majority (70%) of Member States also publishes
information on the quality of the metadata on their portal. Countries indicate using a variety of tools
to monitor and validate the metadata.

In Austria, data quality checks are possible via platform tools such as bulk exports. An updated ADEQUATE (Analytics & Data Enrichment to improve the QUALITY of Open Data) data quality checking instrument for metadata is envisaged for the future.

In Cyprus, public sector bodies are required to provide a number of mandatory metadata items when publishing data on the national open data portal. The internal mechanics of the portal are set in such a way that no dataset can be submitted for publication on the portal unless the mandatory metadata fields are completed. The submitted dataset and the related metadata then undergo a quality review for format compliance and metadata completeness before being published on the portal.

In Germany, a dashboard is available which provides information about the published data, such as
compliance with the DCAT-AP.de standard, broken links, etc. The dashboard is currently in a trial period
and available to registered users.

In Spain, the quality of the metadata is checked at the time of registration and when updates take place. Datasets that do not meet the quality standards established in the "Technical Interoperability Standard for Reuse of Information Resources"<fnref n="251" /> are not accepted. Data providers receive warnings when they do not comply with these standards so that the metadata can be adjusted accordingly, and changes are not saved until they are correct. In the last year a process of individualised auditing of publishers on the quality of metadata currently published on the portal by each organisation<fnref n="252" /> has been initiated. This audit follows the methodological approach of the Metadata Quality Assessment (MQA) proposed by data.europa.eu<fnref n="253" />, assessing metadata quality based on three complementary dimensions: discovery, interoperability and context. In addition, distribution URLs are evaluated on a weekly basis to inform data managers of possible broken links. This analysis generates a report on the portal for the managing users and is also sent monthly by email to the data providers.

In Lithuania, data providers are obligated to ensure data accuracy and completeness. Also, portal users'
comments on the accuracy and errors of the data must be reviewed and, if justified, adjusted. The
implementation of DCAT requirements is ensured by setting mandatory fields, keeping the consistency
and completeness of their completion. A dataset is given the status "open data" only when the required
metadata is fully completed.

4.2.2 Licences

In order for data to be open, it should be accessible and licensed for anyone to access, use, and share.
An open data licence provides users with certainty that the data can be used and shared for a wide
range of purposes. Without a licence, data may be publicly available, but users will not have clarity
around what permission they have to access, use, and share it under copyright or database laws.

In 2021, 85% of Member States indicate that more than 90% of open data available on the national portal is accompanied by licensing information. Member States are aware of the importance of providing licensing information, as all Member States assist publishers in choosing appropriate licences by publishing guidelines. In the vast majority of Member States (89%), the guidelines provide recommendations for the use of standard licences, such as the Creative Commons (CC) ones.

<footnote n="251">251 https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/egovernment/document/es-technical-interoperability-standard-public-sector-information-reuse</footnote>

<footnote n="252">²⁵² https://datos.gob.es/sites/default/files/datosgobes/dimension1_evidenciapregunta13.jpg</footnote>

<footnote n="253">²⁵³ https://data.europa.eu/mqa/?locale=en</footnote>
The spectrum of licence choices varies significantly between countries. The focus of this assessment in evaluating the countries' maturity is on the effort spent on promoting licence *standardisation*, rather than on the choice of a licence rather than another. The objective is streamlining open data re-use, without the added complication of non-standard licences that need to be investigated by re-users on a case-by-case basis. In some countries, the use of standard licences is prescribed by law, while in others it is just a recommendation.

In several countries, such as Croatia, Italy, Luxembourg, the use of CC licences is not prescribed by law but recommended.

In Belgium, the law does not impose CC licences explicitly, but the law describes a set of rules that makes CC licences fit in naturally.

In Latvia, only CC-0 licence is available.

In the Netherlands, CC licences are used and the default license is CC-0. It is mandatory to set the licence for a dataset for publication on the national portal.

In Poland, it is required to select a CC licence for each dataset. Most datasets are available on the portal without any conditions, CC-0, or under minimum conditions and such information is always provided for a given dataset.

Some countries (26%) have introduced national licences such as Czech Republic and Germany.

In Germany, in cooperation with the Federal Government, the Länder and local associations, a recommendation on uniform usage rules for administrative data in Germany is developed, which is now available in version 2.0 of the "data licence for Germany"<fnref n="254" />. This national licence is recommended to be used by public bodies. This version is also officially recognised as an open licence by the Open Definition Expert Council.

Even though countries may have introduced national licences, some have also started promoting the use of CC licences more recently.

In Italy, a national licence, IODL<fnref n="255" /> (Italian Open Data Licence), was developed. More recently, in line with the recommendations of the European Commission, the use of CC licences is promoted.

Similarly, in Spain, a national licence<fnref n="256" /> was developed based on a decree published in 2011²⁵⁷, when the use of CC licences was not yet common practice for data. Therefore, simple conditions of use were designed for reusing public sector information. The conditions of the national licence are similar to CC-BY 4.0. Currently, the use of CC licences for public sector information is promoted in the publishing guidelines, though these provide information about both the Spanish and the CC licences, so that data managers can establish the most suitable option.

## Support activities

In addition to providing guidelines, 96% of Member States conduct regular activities to incentivise and assist data providers in the publication of data accompanied by high-quality metadata. These include

<footnote n="254">²⁵⁴ https://www.govdata.de/dl-de/by-2-0</footnote>

<footnote n="255">²⁵⁵ https://www.dati.gov.it/content/italian-open-data-license-v20</footnote>

<footnote n="256">²⁵⁶ https://datos.gob.es/es/avisolegal</footnote>

<footnote n="257">²⁵⁷ https://www.boe.es/diario_boe/txt.php?id=BOE-A-2011-17560</footnote>