Seamless data sharing you can trust
Data is empowering industries to change our lives. However, to be able to innovate, Europe’s industries – be it in health, agriculture, energy, mobility or finance – need to be able to share data securely while still controlling who accesses it and how they use it. This is why data spaces are important, and they are gaining significant momentum in Europe. However, seamless interaction between them remains an issue. The EU-funded DS2(opens in new window) project is addressing this hurdle with its modular, state-of-the-art environment that enables secure inter-data spaces and trusted data exchange across sectors.
Solving the interoperability challenge
Incompatible technologies, varying levels of technical readiness and a lack of established trust are just some of the problems participants from different data spaces face when deciding to share data. The DS2 project is solving these data networking problems by providing the additional layers of trust, governance and orchestration needed to share structured and unstructured data seamlessly across different ecosystems. To make this happen, the DS2 team has developed the Intersector Dataspace Toolkit, or IDT. With this innovative toolkit, organisations can build customised, sovereign data ecosystems without relying on overly complex information and communication technology infrastructure. The DS2 platform makes it possible for different data spaces to agree on collaboration parameters and safely share data. It offers easy-to-install software capabilities tailored for organisations of all sizes and also provides tools that seamlessly integrate data space operations with an organisation’s existing internal data management systems. Last but not least, it offers advanced tools for cross-space data sharing, processing and management.
Impact in the real world
DS2 is testing its tools in three real-world environments in Greece, Romania and Slovenia. The Greek use case, based in Volos in northern Greece, aims to demonstrate how the IDT solution can support precision agriculture that depends on high-quality, real-time data shared from fields, satellites, weather models and AI services. The project’s toolkit delivers AI-powered irrigation, crop monitoring and logistics guidance via a digital platform called AgroNIT to improve farming efficiency and sustainability. Focused on the tech hub Cluj-Napoca, the Romanian use case involves digital tools for real-time monitoring, predictive analytics and decision support to advance urban sustainability and net zero goals. Urban stakeholders can access, share and analyse diverse datasets related to energy consumption, mobility, environmental conditions and citizen behaviour. The aim is to support data-driven decision-making that will empower them to collaboratively achieve climate neutrality objectives. Slovenia’s use case involving the town of Murska Sobota focuses on establishing a smart, integrated air quality monitoring and notification system that informs citizens and institutions about elevated levels of particles such as dust, pollen, soot, smoke and other pollutants. The DS2 solution is aimed at overcoming today’s outdated, infrequent air pollution monitoring with its dynamic, real-time data ecosystem powered by sensors, digital tools and AI. These precision agriculture, city scape and Green Deal pilots show how data can be shared seamlessly. Through its ongoing efforts, DS2 is proving that data can be leveraged to support sustainable farming, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve air quality. The DS2 (DataSpace, DataShare 2.0) project was named official partner of the Scientix initiative’s 2026 STEM Discovery Campaign(opens in new window). Held from 1 February to 30 April 2026, the campaign encouraged the sharing of STEM-related activities on an interactive map, fostering a vibrant ecosystem of collaborative practice and inspiration. For more information, please see: DS2 project website(opens in new window)
