INSPIRE Data and Service Sharing

Solving organisational issues is the key to success

The main goal of INSPIRE is to make spatial data sets and services from public authorities more accessible. Data and service sharing is one of the major challenges in INSPIRE. In this case it is not the technical components that are concerned; here solving the organisational issues is the key to success.

Art. 17 of INSPIRE Directive sets the frame for sharing and specifies the goals that should be achieved, how this is done is up to the Member States. Although the implementation of INSPIRE is still in its early stages, Member States and public authorities have been sharing data for much longer. Their experiences can be an inspiration for implementing INSPIRE, as they often reflect the general principles which are now in INSPIRE.

Good Practice

The drafting team for data and service sharing has therefore been working on a good practice document that provides examples of existing good practice on data and service sharing for three scenarios: for Member States with the Community institutions and bodies, between Member States, and between public authorities within a Member State.

The methodology used to compile the document is as follows.

First, in order to facilitate comparison, the group established a number of topics considered particularly critical to a successful data and service sharing arrangement. These are:

• Coordination (of data and service sharing
• Framework Agreements
• Transparency (on the data creation, source etc)
• Licences
• Charging mechanisms
• Public Access
• Emergency Use
• Third Party Data 

Second, for each of these topics a set of criteria was defined.

Third, a number of examples were selected for each topic. Each topic example is presented as a page which contains related information.

This document has now been made available through the INSPIRE Forum – INSPIRE Data and Service Sharing Group in the form of group pages, as there is a strong belief that this should be a dynamic document. Good practices may change over time, new examples can be made known, further topics could be added or selected criteria discussed in order to build a growing knowledge pool around good practices for data and service sharing.

Share your experiences! 

Have a look at others' good practice, join the DSS group and share your good experiences in data and service sharing or discuss barriers and how to overcome them.

data and service sharing, news article

Last updated 662 days ago by Karen Fullerton