When Data Meets Dialogue at DataWeek workshops in Athens

Panelists of the Navigating Challenges and Strategies for Data Sharins and Integration in the Data Space Era session

The recent Data Week 2025 workshop “Navigating Challenges and strategies for data sharing and integration in the Data Space Era”, in Athens organised by projects under the HORIZON-CL4-2023-DATA-01-02 topic, brought together CyclOps, DS2, CEDAR, NOUS, and PLIADES to address the complexities of data sharing and the potential of Data Spaces. The event focused on identifying critical challenges faced by industries and stakeholders in leveraging Data Spaces across various sectors. Participants explored innovative strategies to overcome these obstacles, drawing from insights gathered both from the projects and the workshop audience. DS2 was represented by VTT and ATC.

The workshop discussions were divided into three key segments. The first segment aimed to understand the diverse user profiles benefiting from data sharing solutions, such as prosumers in universities, agri-food industries, city public services, traffic and mobility solution providers, households, environmental stakeholders, and third-sector organisations. The second segment delved into the barriers these users face, highlighting challenges like data availability, inconsistency in data formats, and lack of common vocabulary. The final segment showcased innovative solutions that projects are developing to address these issues, aligning with the DSSC blueprint and its components.

A recurring theme in the discussions was the importance of user experience, data governance, and secure onboarding processes. Projects highlighted the significance of high-quality graphical user interfaces and solid contractual agreements to foster trust among diverse stakeholders. The DS2 project, in particular, emphasised data productisation to help data owners manage their information as valuable assets effectively.

In conclusion, the workshop underscored the need for cross-project collaboration to create a more interoperable and trustworthy data ecosystem. The exchange of strategies and experiences revealed that AI-driven innovations could address many of the identified pain points, such as enhancing data quality and accelerating solution development. Moving forward, a synergetic approach to co-innovate with AI technologies is suggested to pioneer advancements in Data Spaces, setting a precedent for future EU project clusters.

DS2’s participation to Data Week 2025 in Athens did not stop there as via its partner ATC, DS2 was also a panellist and contributor to the workshop  Focus on cross-data space interoperability: gaps and priorities.

Elias Dakos of ATC presenting DS2 project

The objective of the workshop was to identify and describe the main challenges of interoperability between data spaces and set up an agenda on the steps needed from the community to achieve interoperability across data spaces in practice. Cross-data space interoperability is a must for European Data Economy to flourish. This workshop tackled the current challenges for achieving interoperability and seeks solutions from practical examples of central players in the field. The goal was to define what are the minimum interoperability approaches in cross-data space circumstances and identify recommendations for the data spaces community. The first topic was introduced from a DSSC perspective, and It was followed by actual running data space deployment initiatives, and projects which contribute by presenting their cross-data space designs and approaches.

During the panel discussion, experts and audience members delved into the gaps that hinder effective interoperability. One of the main issues identified was the absence of comprehensive governance models, which results in missing rules and detailed specifications for data models, data products, and data sharing contracts. The lack of standardized metadata and agreement specifications further complicates achieving seamless interoperability. While formats like DCAT-AP and ODRL are recommended, they fall short in defining clear possibilities and limitations, leaving room for ambiguity and inconsistency across data spaces.

Looking ahead, the objective of interoperability within data spaces is clear: to enable the collaboration necessary for the emergence of common European data markets. While not every data space must be interoperable, the overarching vision depends on interconnected systems that can work harmoniously. This requires not only technical interoperability at the connector and protocol levels but also robust governance frameworks, standardised rules, and clearly defined data sharing agreements. By addressing these challenges, the data spaces community can pave the way for a more integrated and efficient European Data Economy.