While the potential of data as a driver for economic growth, innovation, productivity, and competitiveness is well recognised, data generation, access, and sharing remain stunted in Europe, and work remains to unleash the full potential of data-enabled technologies and services. Legal and technical issues combined with a lack of trust, create barriers to data sharing within and across sectors in Europe, undermining the digital transformation of industries and the public sector, as well as hindering the deployment of disruptive, data-powered technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence. To tackle these issues, several major interlinked regulatory initiatives have emerged at EU level focussed on data availability, quality, usability, governance, sharing, and interoperability, and the associated necessary supporting infrastructure.

This conference will explore the extent to which these policy initiatives (The Data Act, The Data Governance Act, rules to create Common Data Spaces) can support the development of innovative business services and solutions to address the underutilisation of data at EU level. Highlighting the possibilities and the existing constraints of data sharing, it will discuss what more is needed at both regulatory and practical levels to meet the data governance and sovereignty requirements necessary to stimulate a thriving, fair and competitive single market for data that is developed with European values at its heart, while supporting the digital transformation of Europe in line with the 2030 Digital Decade ambitions.