Highlights from EBDVF 2025: Advancing Cross-Data Space Interoperability and Value Creation

The European Big Data Value Forum (EBDVF), organised by the Big Data Value Association in Copenhagen, gathered experts, projects, and organisations working at the forefront of Europe’s data-driven transformation. This year’s discussions once again underscored the importance of interoperability across data spaces as a prerequisite for building a resilient, innovative European Data Economy.

Cross-data space interoperability: Insights from the panel

deployEMDS’ coordinator, Christopher Newman, joined one of the key sessions focused on a central challenge for the data space community: ensuring seamless data exchange across domains, sectors, and geographies. “The workshop “Cross-data space interoperability – the essential key to unlocking the potential of the European Data Economy” presented findings from a report coordinated by the Data Spaces Support Centre with inputs from several data space initiatives.

The session highlighted that:

  • Innovation and economic growth rely on the seamless flow of data across different data spaces.
  • Interoperability remains a complex challenge, requiring technical, organisational, and governance alignment.
  • Cross-data space interoperability (enabling participants to securely access or exchange data across multiple data spaces) is essential yet still difficult to achieve in practice.
  • The community is actively working on frameworks, methodologies, and shared approaches to address these gaps.

A panel discussion involving contributors to the study provided deeper perspectives on the report’s findings and explored potential pathways toward a more connected European Data Economy.

Within this broader conversation, the mobility sector emerged as a concrete example illustrating why interoperability matters so much. Modern mobility systems rely on data from a wide and varied ecosystem, including tourism, energy, logistics, and smart communities, as well as from national and regional mobility data spaces such as Eona-X and the German Mobility Data Space.

Value creation in data ecosystems

Jim Ahtes from i2CAT led another key contribution during the session “Value Creation in Data Ecosystems”. The discussion focused on how data spaces unlock real value when they enable an ecosystem of service providers to build replicable, scalable value-added services on top of shared, interoperable data.

The session showcased:

  • Concrete products and services already emerging from data-space initiatives.
  • Use cases demonstrating measurable, transferable impact across contexts.
  • Practical lessons on how to design data spaces so that service providers can build reusable solutions.

These examples made clear that the potential of data spaces goes far beyond data exchange alone: their real strength lies in creating a trusted, interoperable foundation on which service providers can innovate, commercialise and scale solutions across cities, sectors and regions. Interoperability becomes an enabler for a thriving marketplace of value-adding services – not a goal in itself.

Reflections from EBDVF 2025

EBDVF 2025 provided a strong platform for exchange, enabling meaningful dialogue on the challenges and opportunities ahead for European data spaces. Discussions across the event reaffirmed that:

  • Interoperability remains central to Europe’s data infrastructure ambitions
  • Cross-sector collaboration is essential to achieve operational data sharing
  • Value creation depends on practical, domain-relevant use cases supported by trusted data flows

For projects like deployEMDS, these insights reinforce the importance of ongoing cooperation with adjacent sectors and data space initiatives to build an interoperable and trusted European mobility data ecosystem.

Europe takes a big step toward a connected mobility data space 

Mobility data is everywhere, from public transport schedules to traffic conditions, vehicle-sharing platforms, logistics systems, and beyond. But today, much of this data is fragmented, hard to find, and even harder to combine across different systems and sectors. Imagine a Europe where instead mobility data flows securely and seamlessly between stakeholders and across regions, helping us plan better transport, reduce emissions, and build smarter services for all. That’s the vision behind the common European mobility data space (EMDS), a European Commission initiative supported by the deployEMDS project. The EMDS aims to create a shared digital infrastructure that makes data discoverable, accessible, and reusable, all while ensuring trust, control, and sovereignty for those who provide it. 

To make this happen, the deployEMDS technical partners have been designing a comprehensive architecture and selecting the technologies that can support mobility data sharing across Europe’s diverse digital ecosystems. The partners recently achieved a major milestone, namely defining the technical foundation for the deployEMDS project, with potential for reuse and replicability in other data space initiatives across Europe. This architectural work is conceptually grounded in the Data Space Blueprint developed by the Data Spaces Support Centre (DSSC).  

You can access the full technical specifications report here, which details the selected technical architecture. The report is accompanied by a testing facility website, containing detailed information on the software stack testing conducted by the project (see below). 

The proposed deployEMDS architecture is designed to achieve key goals for the project’s nine implementation sites and diverse stakeholders: 

  • Provide entry points into the deployEMDS data space, allowing local sites and their stakeholders to promote offers, negotiate digital contracts, and exchange data securely within the defined use cases. 
  • Ensure harmonised discoverability capabilities so that local and regional data offers can be easily found on a European level. 
  • Support a harmonised interlinking of existing data space identity schemas (standard ways to identify participants of a data space) on a European level, which helps foster interoperability across different data spaces. 

In this context, the architecture considers and complements the wider European efforts toward an Interlinking Layer, which acts as a conceptual bridge to connect different data systems and facilitate the finding and accessing of mobility and transport data across different sources. 

To select the architectural foundation, deployEMDS technical partners performed a rigorous evaluation of various existing data space technology stacks. This work was crucial in identifying the most suitable tools to meet the specific requirements of the project’s implementation sites. 

The thorough testing process focused on stacks built around major European data space initiatives, specifically including: 

  • SIMPL (Note: At the time of testing, Simpl components were not yet available. Its analysis was therefore limited to a theoretical perspective.) 

To ensure the architecture fits real use cases, the team worked closely with the project’s local implementation sites across Europe. These partners shared their plans, data sources, infrastructure, and challenges, allowing the project to identify common needs and future-proof solutions. These insights not only helped validate the technical direction of deployEMDS, but also help guide the next steps in building and testing the system. 

The EDC technology stack was ultimately identified as most mature and best aligned with deployEMDS’ requirements. The proposed architecture for the project will leverage core EDC components, complemented with additional elements currently being developed by project partners. For example, a federated metadata catalogue connecting deployEMDS implementation sites and facilitating the discovery of mobility data. 

The resulting architecture and the detailed learnings from this evaluation are a valuable resource for other organisations and projects operating in the mobility data space. This technical work greatly enhances the potential for reuse and replicability across Europe. 

What comes next? 

With the architectural blueprint in place, the technical team is now focused on integrating the core components of the deployEMDS technical stack. This is first trialed within a functional testbed environment, before moving to real-world implementation. A Connector-as-a-Service (CaaS) offering will support deployment at the nine deployEMDS implementation sites across Europe, enabling mobility actors to publish their data products in the federated catalogue, manage permissions and exchange data securely in practice. This process is intentionally iterative: as additional use cases are tested and new requirements emerge, the system will evolve to remain scalable, interoperable, and compliant with both EU-level and local regulations. Along the way, technical partners are developing new features, improving usability, and ensuring that the architecture can meet operational needs in diverse local contexts. 

Looking ahead 

The common European mobility data space is more than just a technical project;, it’s a vision for a smarter, more connected, and more sustainable Europe. By combining cutting-edge technology with real-world deployment, deployEMDS is supporting the foundation of a future where mobility data is a shared, trusted asset, driving innovation, supporting public services, and empowering local ecosystems. Moving forward, the project’s focus shifts from design to execution. The next phase — integrating components, supporting their uptake via Connector-as-a-Service, and scaling deployments across implementation sites — will turn technical ambition into operational reality.