Supporting the emergence of data markets and the data economy

Topic Description

The lack of trusted and secure platforms and privacy-aware analytics methods for secure sharing of personal data and proprietary/commercial/industrial data hampers the creation of a data market and data economy by limiting data sharing mostly to open data. This need strongly emerges from recent evidence from stakeholders, both for personal data platforms^[1] and for industrial data platforms.^[2],[3],[4] The lack of ICT and Data skills seriously limits the capacity of Europe to respond to the digitisation challenge of industry. Specific attention needs to be put in involving SMEs and give them access to data and technology. IT standardisation faces new challenges as technologies converge and federated systems arise, creating new gaps in interoperability.

All grants under this topic will be subject to Article 30.3 of the grant agreement (Commission right to object to transfers or licensing).

a) Innovation Actions for setting up and operating platforms for secure and controlled sharing of "closed data" (proprietary and/or personal data). The actions should address the necessary technical, organisational, legal and commercial aspects of data sharing/brokerage/trading, and build on existing computing platforms. Proposals shall address one or both of the following sub-topics:

• Personal data platforms shall ensure respect of prevailing legislation and allow data subjects and data owners to remain in control of their data and its subsequent use. Solutions should preserve utility for data analysis and allow for the management of privacy / utility trade-offs, metadata privacy, including query privacy. Solutions should also develop privacy metrics that are easy to understand for data subjects and contribute to the economic value of data by allowing privacy-preserving integration of independently developed data sources.
• Industrial data platforms shall enable and facilitate trusted and secure sharing and trading of proprietary/commercial data assets with automated and robust controls on compliance (including automated contracting) of legal rights and fair remuneration of data owners.

The actions are required to link to and bring in industrial data providers (not necessarily as consortium members) that will populate the platforms. Conditions of use and practical arrangements of data sharing should be regulated.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of between EUR 4 and 6 million would allow this area to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

b) Research and Innovation Actions to advance the state of the art in the scalability and computational efficiency of methods for securing desired levels of privacy of personal data and/or confidentiality of commercial data, particularly when they are combined from multiple owners. Proposals shall also analyse and address, as appropriate, privacy/confidentiality threat models and/or incentive models for the sharing of data assets.

c) CSA proposals are invited to cover both of the following tasks:

• Support the emergence of a data economy by ensuring SME inclusion, entrepreneurial support and trust-building, address the data skills gap. The CSA action shall liaise with and complement related initiatives^[5], and shall support and work in collaboration with the platforms under ICT-13 a).

   

• In line with the Communication on ICT Standardisation Priorities for the Digital Single Market^[6], promote standardization, interoperability and policy support in the field of data and federated/networked computing systems.

One CSA will be funded. The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of EUR 3 million would allow this area to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

a) and b)

• Personal data protection is improved, and compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (and other relevant legislation) is made easier for economic operators
• Citizens' trust is improved as privacy-aware transparency and control features are increasingly streamlined across data platforms and Big Data applications.
• Better value-creation from personal and proprietary/industrial data.
• 20% annual increase in the number of data provider organisations in the personal and industrial data platforms
• 30% annual increase in the number of data user/buyer organisations using industrial data platforms
• 50% annual increase in number of users (data subjects) in the personal data platforms
• 20% annual increase in volume of business (turnover) channelled through the platforms

c)

• Demonstrated success stories among clients as a result of the services offered by the CSA and at least 50 clients (e.g. start-ups, SMEs) served annually in partner finding, matchmaking, venture capital raising, training, coaching etc.
• Improved standardisation and interoperability especially in the context of cross-sector applications and technology convergence (data, Cloud, IoT, connectivity a.o.)

Contractual Public-Private Partnerships (cPPPs)
BigData
Socio-economic science and humanities

[1] See a Commission paper on "Personal information management services – Current state of service offers and challenges" analysing feedback from public consultation

[2] See "Industrial Data Platforms – Key Enablers of Industry Digitization", IDC study report 28/7/2016

[3] See "Report on the alignment of priorities and programmes and mobilisation of investments towards platform/standardisation initiatives" DEI Working Group 2 "Strengthening Leadership in Digital Technologies and in Digital Industrial Platforms across Value Chains in all Sectors of the Economy", to be published in April 2017.

[4] See European Commission Staff working document accompanying the communication "Building the European Data Economy", published in January 2017.

[5]Such as the European Data Science Academy (EDSA), the network of European Centres of Excellence in Big Data, the BDVe project.

[6]https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/communication-ict-standardisation-priorities-digital-single-market