1. Open Data Technologies in FP7
Stefano Bertolo
European Commission
DG INFSO, E2, Technologies for Information Management
8 April 2010, Vienna, Austria
data.gv.at - meetup

2. Our view
• Re-use of government data is
increasingly being recognized as an
opportunity for economic growth and
job creation, and as a way to bring
Governments closer to citizens, more
democracy, greater accountability,
increased transparency, etc.

3. What will this bring?
• Wider access to government data
• New products and services
• Greater choice for consumers
• New businesses
• New jobs
• Economic growth

4. The role of the European Commission
• A common EU legislative framework (PSI
Directive in 2003; review in 2009; more
legislation in 2012?)
• Monitoring its implementation and application
(SW, IT and POL infringements)
• Funding of projects
• Economic analysis
• ePSIplatform
• PSI Group

5. More information on policy
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society
/policy/psi/index_en.htm
www.epsiplatform.eu

6. Where are we?
• Legislation in place: PSI Directive
• Very active group of MS (UK, ES, NL, DK, FR)
…but…
• Limited number of success stories
UK - http://data.gov.uk/
DK - http://digitaliser.dk
ES – http://www.aporta.es

7. What have these initiatives in
common?
• Recognition of the big potential value
of government data
• Key political support and commitment
• Promises (and actions) to provide
better services to citizens and business

8. Why is this not happening
(yet) elsewhere?
• Limited political support
• Resistance to change (traditions)
• Financial issues (cost recovery; no
money for PSI portals)
• Market position of “commercial” PSBs
vs. Reusers
• Practical issues (where is the data?)

9. Technical difficulties
• Coordination
• Conceptual modelling
• Quality
• Integration
• Scalability
• Documentation, training

10. Coordination
• http://www.okkam.org
– Reusing identifiers
– Entity centric web http://sig.ma
• http://www.neon-project.org
– Reusing ontologies

11. Conceptual modelling
• http://www.okkam.org
– Reusing identifiers
• http://www.neon-project.org
– Reusing ontologies

12. Quality
Curation problem
http://blog.freebase.com/2010/03/26/preview-freebase-gridworks/
Linking problem: sparseness, precision,
freshness
– Anonymous 1
• Linking, lots of EU PSI linking
– Anonymous 2
• Linking, lots of EU national PSI linking

13. Integration
• Push: RDF publishing of pre-existing
resources (e.g. databases, corpora)
– http://www.neon-project.org
– Anonymous 2
• Pull: Working with established
software stacks
– http://www.iks-project.eu (Salzburg!!)

14. Scalability
• Reasoning at web scale
– http://www.larkc.eu (Innsbrück!!)
• Bridging the RDF performance gap
– Anonymous 2

15. Documentation, training
• Anonymous 1
• Obligatory section of all projects we
fund

16. The near Future
• ICT 2010 Brussels 26-29 Sept
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/
• PSI open data networking
session

17. The FP7 Future
• FP7 Work Programme 2011-12
• To be unveiled at ICT 2010
• DG INFSO/E2
– Focus on technology, performance
• DG INFSO/H2
– Government applications

18. Conclusion 1
• Large funding investment in FP6,
FP7: we are glad to see it used
• Uneven state of open data
developments across EU countries:
we’d like to see it reduced
• Hopes for a EU-wide data commons
as a foundation for transparency,
understanding and services

19. Conclusion 2
• We are always interested in your
ideas: get in touch
• We talk to a lot of people: we can
help you find partners
• Get involved in our operations: you
may discover opportunities, people,
ideas

20. Thank you
stefano.bertolo@ec.europa.eu