i-Spaces

European Data Innovation Spaces, or i-Spaces in short, have been a fundamental part of the Big Data Value Association’s story from the very beginning. Early on, the BDVA community realised the need for a tool to support businesses and researchers in order to extract value out of their data. For this purpose, BDVA created the i-Space label, to distinguish data-driven innovation hubs (DIHs) with the latest knowledge, skills, data assets and software. By federating these qualified DIHs, BDVA enables the creation of a flow of data services to boost innovation in EU member states and lays a path towards European data spaces.

The i-Spaces Task Force focuses on bringing data innovation to small actors at local level, and provide them with tools and elements for experimentation. This, has been traditionally recognized as a big challenge by BDVA, and as such was included in the SRIA, as well as by the EC which identified the concept of DIHs. Hence, this task force is crucial to emphasize the data perspective in this field (innovation, experimentation and deployment) to encourage organizations around data innovation to follow this path, and to foster collaboration between the i-Spaces.