DSSC: entering the second stage with a renewed focus on scaling European data spaces

Last week, the Data Spaces Support Centre (DSSC) kicked off its second phase at the Fraunhofer office in Brussels, with meetings held on 12 and 13 May. The project, set for a 3-year period, brings together a renewed consortium of key European organisations actively shaping the data spaces landscape.

BDVA Vice-President Laure Le Bars attended the in-person gathering, along with the Data Ecosystem Senior Project Manager, Savvas Rogotis, and the Senior Communications Lead, Daniel Djamo.

Building on the foundations established during the first phase, the DSSC is now moving from a focus on technology stacks, ecosystem formation, feasibility work and pilots towards stability, by putting a stronger emphasis on scaling. This next stage will prioritise:  

• growth, business viability, and return on investment, supporting the broader deployment and long-term sustainability of European data spaces by clarifying value propositions and incentives for participants

• adoption and network effects resolving remaining technical and infrastructural gaps

The second phase of the DSSC is expected to drive the next wave of impact: supporting stakeholders in operationalising data spaces at scale and enabling cross-sector integration.

The Data Spaces Support Centre plans to achieve data sustainability thanks to productivity, the nurturing and promotion of the already developed assets, supporting the growth of European Data Economy.

BDVA will play a leading role in fostering engagement with data-sharing communities, strengthening liaisons with stakeholders and initiatives across the AI, cloud, standards and research ecosystems. As part of this work, BDVA will continue to lead the European Data Space Awards, an initiative launched during the predecessor project and widely recognised as a successful community-building activity. 

In parallel, BDVA is actively contributing to several activities linked to the European AI Continent Action Plan, with particular attention to the smooth integration of AI Factories and their data labs with the Common European Data Spaces. 

DSSC second stage consortium partners: Fraunhofer ISST, BDVA – Big Data Value Association, Capgemini, Gaia-X Association for Data and Cloud (AISBL), International Data Spaces Association (IDSA), iSHARE Foundation, Centre for IT & IP Law (CiTiP) @KU Leuven, Luxembourg National Data Service (LNDS), TNO, VTT, Dauphine Executive Education – Paris Dauphine University-PSL, acatech – Deutsche Akademie der Technikwissenschaften, DFKI Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz, European Broadcasting Union (EBU), EGI Foundation, Europeana, IDC Europe, Engineering Group, ILVO (Instituut voor Landbouw, Visserij- en Voedingsonderzoek), Innovalia Association, NTT DATA, TalTech – Tallinn University of Technology

Together, the consortium partners comprise of a broad and diverse set of resources and skills, ready to accelerate the uptake of data spaces across Europe and support their evolution into scalable, impactful and economically sustainable ecosystems.