Open Data Maturity Report 2021

Making data more accessible and insightful

The European Commission’s latest Open Data Maturity Report, produced for data.europa.eu by a consortium led by Capgemini Invent, shows that more and more European countries are now understanding, monitoring and measuring the impact and value of open data. During 2021 there has been a clear trend towards the use of in-depth research to quantify and verify open data impact, delivering more accurate estimations of the impact on society and the economy as a whole.

The Commission’s 2021 report continues an annual benchmarking exercise begun in 2015. It provides 34 participating countries with an assessment of their open data maturity levels, and documents each country’s year-on-year progress.

Within the EU27, further improvements have been recorded across all four open data assessment dimensions this year – policy, impact, portal and quality, with an overall maturity score of 81%, an increase of 3%-points on 2020 results. France is now Europe’s most mature open data nation, with a score of 97.5%.

Trends in recognising the value of open data

The 2021 report identifies three trends, recognising both the value of open data and the need for countries to collaborate and learn lessons from each other to maximise that value:

• Many EU Member States are now demonstrating their commitment to open data by transposing the contents of the Open Data Directive[1], regulating open data and the re-use of public sector information, into national law
• In 2021, there has been a clear expansion of in-depth research to quantify and verify the impact of open data on European societies and economies
• In 2021, the urgent need to respond to COVID-19 led many countries to start publishing related data and make it more easily understandable and insightful for European citizens, highlighting, for example, national vaccination rates, vaccination production capabilities, protective equipment availabilities and intensive care capacities.

Open data is information that can be freely used, modified and shared by anyone. The information is collected, produced or paid for by public bodies, private organisations and citizens. Open data increases government transparency and accountability as well as delivering tangible social and economic benefits for citizens, businesses and civil society.

Data.europa.eu is the official portal for European open data and integrates the pre-existing European Data Portal and European Union Open Data Portal into a single, coherent core component of the public sector data infrastructure set up by the European Union, its institutions and Member States.

[1] The Directive (EU) 2019/1024 of the European Parliament and of the Council”, see https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32019L1024&from=EN