Open Data Maturity in Europe Report 2018

The 2018 report provides an updated methodology to measure Open Data maturity across Europe. It introduces two new dimensions this year – impact and data quality – to complement the policy and portals dimensions assessed from 2015 to 2017. With this update, the landscaping exercise aims to achieve a deeper granularity in its assessment of Open Data maturity and to better capture its different facets. The 2018 benchmark also aims to incentivize national governments to take measures to boost Open Data efforts in new strategic areas.

Europe is not yet reaching its full potential

With an overall maturity score of 65%, the report reveals that Europe is not yet reaching its full potential. The assessment of the four dimensions shows a mixed picture, with areas of very good progress – such as the policy dimension – and areas in which action is still needed to ensure that countries remain on track towards achieving the goals set at European level.

“We see maturity in the varying speeds and challenges that we’ve assessed and measured this year,” said Gianfranco Cecconi, Principal Consultant at Capgemini Invent managing the European Data Portal on behalf of the European Commission.  “It is an illustration of how the European countries are striving to meaningfully move beyond the basics, such as the right policy and the right portal, to deliver consistent and sustainable impact.”

In terms of policy maturity, an overall maturity of 82% was achieved in the EU28 in 2018, indicating the EU Member States have developed a solid foundation in terms of their Open Data policy frameworks. Against this solid foundation, countries are now setting new focuses: less mature Open Data countries chose to take the natural next step and focus on modernizing their national portals; the more advanced Open Data countries have now shifted to actions to increase the quality of data publication. In Europe’s top performing countries, such as Ireland, Spain and France, the focus is on monitoring and capturing the impact derived from Open Data reuse.

Prioritization now needs to shift to the impact of reusing Open Data

The report concludes by underlying the need for more strategic action to enable faster progress at a national level and the urgency to develop a strategic awareness around Open Data reuse and impact. Demonstrating such impact will remain the main challenge for national Open Data decision makers. At the same time, demonstrating impact remains pivotal to sustaining the required political leadership, enabling further data publication and the fostering of a more intense reuse of available data.

“The EU countries needs to step up the game in order to reap the expected benefits from open data. Targeting certain priority domains to capture and demonstrate the impact will be key. Incentivizing high-quality data publication and understanding how to maximize the reuse of Open Data will also be pivotal to capturing impact in these domains,” concludes Dinand Tinholt, Vice President and EU Lead at Capgemini Invent.

End notes:

• The countries covered by this assessment include the EU28 Member States, as well as the EFTA countries: Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.

The European Data Portal

Open Data refers to the information collected, produced or paid for by public bodies which can be freely used, modified and shared by anyone. The benefits of Open Data include an increase in government transparency and accountability as well tangible financial benefits for citizens, businesses and civil society. The Capgemini study published in 2015 for the launch of the European Data Portal estimated a value of 75.7 billion EUR in market size for Open Data in 2020, with a significant increase by approximately 37% between 2016 and 2020. In this context, the European Union launched the European Data Portal. The Portal collects information about the data made available in each European country. To date, it covers 35 countries, 78 catalogues, links to nearly 870,000 data sets across Europe and offers a variety of learning resources and Open Data use cases. This multi-year engagement is just one of the ways in which the Capgemini Group supports its clients to take strategic insight from multi-faceted data every day.

For more information and to view the reports visit:

• europeandataportal.eu/en/dashboard
• https://www.europeandataportal.eu/sites/default/files/edp_landscaping_insight_report_n4_2018.pdf

About Capgemini Invent

As the digital innovation, consulting and transformation brand of the Capgemini Group, Capgemini Invent helps CxOs envision and build what’s next for their organizations. Located in more than 30 offices and 10 creative studios around the world, its 6,000+ strong team combines strategy, technology, data science and creative design with deep industry expertise and insights, to develop new digital solutions and business models of the future.

Capgemini Invent is an integral part of Capgemini, a global leader in consulting, technology services and digital transformation. The Group is at the forefront of innovation to address the entire breadth of clients’ opportunities in the evolving world of cloud, digital and platforms. Building on its strong 50-year heritage and deep industry-specific expertise, Capgemini enables organizations to realize their business ambitions through an array of services from strategy to operations. Capgemini is driven by the conviction that the business value of technology comes from and through people. It is a multicultural company of 200,000 team members in over 40 countries. The Group reported 2017 global revenues of EUR 12.8 billion. People matter, results count.

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[1] The deployment of the European Data Portal is led by Capgemini Invent in association Intrasoft International, Fraunhofer Fokus, con terra, Sogeti, the University of Southampton, Time.lex, 52 North and the Lisbon Council, on behalf of the European Commission.