From Local Silos to European Network: Your Roadmap for Sustainable and Interoperable European Communities
The DS4SSCC-DEP initiative is working towards a trustworthy, federated data ecosystem to solve our most pressing urban challenges, from climate change to social inequality, through the European Data Space for Smart Communities. At the heart of this ambition lies data sharing calling on technical, legal, and organisational measures.
But how do you build a secure, interconnected data network across diverse European municipalities? The DS4SSCC preparatory action, funded by the Digital Europe Programme, delivered a high-level guide to translate a diverse set of stakeholders’ vision of a European data space for smart communities into an actionable plan. Working with local data space pilots under the DS4SSCC deployment phase allowed us to move beyond theoretical discussions and evolve the blueprint based on real-life experience. This helped us define the roadmap for transitioning from siloed, local data projects to a powerful, shared infrastructure where the collective value of data is made available for public good.
This DS4SSCC blueprint evolution maps what needs to be taken into account and what paths are available to establish a well-governed, federated data space for smart and sustainable cities and communities across Europe. It also reinforces a core idea: data should be treated as a critical resource for tackling public challenges, including climate action. It builds on the sector-agnostic Data Spaces Support Centre (DSSC) blueprint, while also incorporating the unique characteristics of the smart communities domain, supported by the learnings from the practical implementation of 11 cross-sector pilots. The blueprint primarily targets a wide range of local, national, and European stakeholders, providing guidance on business, governance, legal, and technical dimensions; it seeks to foster responsible, sustainable, and inclusive data collaboration within this diverse ecosystem.
The blueprint is structured around Business, Governance, Legal, and Technical implications, based on federation as a central vision for all aspects of the blueprint, enabling seamless data transactions between multiple, distinct local data spaces based on common, agreed-upon rules. In our upcoming blogposts, we will explore the specific components of the DS4SSCC Blueprint evolution in greater depth, including the following:
🌍 “Societal value drives the business model”
The primary focus of the Data Space for Smart Communities is on creating societal value and public benefits, differentiating it from purely commercial data spaces.
🏛️ “Governance requires clarity in multi-layered roles”
Effective governance provides structure and accountability, and supports compliance in the complex urban ecosystem.
⚖️ “Regulatory compliance is an early-stage priority, to build up upon”
A suitable legal framework ensures the data space complies with a growing body of EU digital legislation, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Data Governance Act (DGA), or Data Act (DA), besides national and regional regulation. Equally, a contractual framework is necessary to formalise agreements between participants, covering institutional rules, data-sharing conditions, and service provision.
💻 “Interoperable technical implementation builds on existing solutions”
The underlying technical architecture is designed to evolve from existing solutions, emphasising interoperability, data sovereignty, and decentralisation, relying on a modular approach using "building blocks" laying the ground for federation.
🤝 “Federation is the ultimate goal, the intermediary model is the best starting point”
The main goal for the European Data Space for Smart Communities is to create a large-scale, federated data space, enabling seamless, rule-based data transactions between participants of multiple smart communities’ local data sharing initiatives, and supporting the exchange of potentially different local stacks through intermediaries.
Read the full Blueprint Evolution here