As many as 99.9% of Europeans do not use national open data portals
A few interesting facts about open data in the European Union from the Open Data Maturity 2019 report
Open data phenomenon
Their value, use and potential
It would seem that open data is currently making a dizzying career. Not only is more and more people able to accurately explain what they actually are (and they are machine-readable data available online for absolutely everyone, without any limits or fees, and they are also characterized by the fact that they are available in large quantities as entire databases), their enormous value, both in the commercial and public context, has been proven more than once.
Let us mention the key figures from the recent European Data Portal report The Economic Impact of Open Data: opportunities for value creation in Europe from the beginning of 2020:
- the value of the open data market in 2019 was estimated at EUR 184.45 billion, and it is forecast to grow to EUR 199.51-334.2 billion by 2025
- there were over a million people employed in this sector in 2019, which is likely to double by 2025
- open data saved 27 million hours in public transport and 79.6 billion euros in energy bills, thanks to more efficient use of solar energy
- open data is of great value in the case of saving human lives - allowed to save around 290-400 thousand human lives during the malaria epidemic in Africa, thanks to better allocation of resources, and thanks to reducing the time to reach the patient by one minute, it was possible to save approx. 202 thousand more people.
When it comes to health, the role of open data will certainly increase - thanks to the publicly available information on infections and statistics, each of us has a good idea of how and where the coronavirus epidemic is currently spreading, which allows governments and institutions to more efficiently address decisions regarding isolation, quarantines and additional restrictions, and us, the public, be informed about the threat.
It is hard to believe, therefore, that over 99.9% of the population of a continent as developed as Europe never visits or uses a free mine of knowledge, such as government open data portals!
Including such data can be found in the last Open Data Maturity 2019 report [full report available HERE] prepared by the European Data Portal at the request of the European Commission.
There is undoubtedly a growing number of people who know the concept of open data and use this data through third-party websites that further share information from public portals. Hardly anyone, however, looks directly in primary sources. Therefore, there is still a huge field to show when it comes to popularizing open data in the EU.
Open data maturity in EU 2019
How do you even evaluate the maturity of open data? The authors of the Open Data Maturity 2019 report break down maturity into 4 key dimensions: policy, portals, the impact of open data, and the quality of data resources itself.
- Policy, understood as the policy of sharing and managing open data - is the most mature dimension of open data with an average score of 74%. EU countries are investing heavily in legislation to ensure the effectiveness of publication and re-use of data at all levels of government
- Portals where countries collect and share open data are also booming. Their average level of advancement is 67%, and it is worth noting that as many as 89% of EU countries already use online analytical tools, the purpose of which is to improve the functionality of the websites themselves
- Open data quality in 2019 achieved an average result in the EU of 65%. This is a good result and shows that there is still room for improvement,
- Impact is the least mature dimension of open data with an average score of 57%. The authors of the report divided it into 5 basic spheres: impact on the environment (score 69%), impact in terms of awareness (score 65%), political impact (score 67%), social impact (score 46%) and economic impact (28% ). This means that open data currently plays the most important role in ecological and information dissemination issues, but much remains to be improved.
It is the sum of the ratings from these four areas that proves the degree of open data maturity in a given country.
As we can see, Ireland, Spain and France are currently leading the European Union - these countries set new trends and serve as role models. Their results oscillate around 90%, where the average maturity of open data for the entire EU is 66%.
It is worth noting that Poland's seventh position is something to be proud of. As in the previous year, also in 2019, Poland is one of the quick followers of trends in the open data sector. The same group also includes Cyprus, the Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, Finland, Latvia and Slovenia.
The worst performers in the report were Liechtenstein and Iceland - they are the only European Union countries whose open data maturity has not yet exceeded 10%.
The most popular open data domains in the EU
Open data can be of all kinds - the most popular in the European Union today are those that report on government and public sector activities, announcements, spending and decisions. It is followed by environmental, economic and financial data, transport data and data published by local municipalities and regions, as well as data on education, culture and sport.
Health, data from agriculture, fisheries, forestry and food, judiciary and science and technology are still “waiting for their big moment”.
Summary of the current state
The above report was the fifth one carried out by the European Data Portal. Its first editions (2015, 2016 and 2017) focused primarily on the development of open data policies and services that provide them.
After 2017, when there was a specific peak in the development of national open data portals, EU Member States entered the next stage of maturity and instead of moving sharply forward with the mere sharing of data and increasing their quantity on the Web, they began to focus on their consolidation, quality and real impact.
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